Gluten Free Snickerdoodle Cookie Recipe

I enjoy saying the name of these cookies almost as much as I enjoy eating them. For years now, I’ve heard these mentioned on American TV shows and thought they were something to do with Snickers (this makes sense until you realise snickerdoodles were around long before Marathons changed their name). After a quick Google I discovered that actually they’re a cinnamon, cakey-like cookie with not a peanut or bit of chocolate in sight. The following recipe is so easy and the results are so tasty. If you’ve never tried these before I strongly recommend you give them a go. You’ll thank me for it later! (Until you develop a snickerdoodle addiction and put on three stone that is. But let us not speak of that possibility.)

Ingredients:

210g gluten free plain flour
110g margarine or butter
170g sugar (caster or granulated)
25g sugar (granulated, for the coating)
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 large free range egg
Pinch of salt
1 tablespoon cinnamon (for the coating)

Main Equipment:

1 x mixing bowl
1 x baking tray
Baking paper (optional)

Method:

1. Cream together sugar and marg/butter in the mixing bowl.
2. Add egg and mix well.
3. Add flour, baking powder and salt. Mix until a smooth dough if formed.
4. Place mixture in fridge for 30-60 minutes.
5. Preheat oven to 200C/190C fan/400F/Gas Mark 6
6. Mix sugar and cinnamon together in a bowl for the coating.
7. Roll mixture into balls around 1 inch in diameter (it depends on how big you want the cookies really).
8. Roll balls around in coating until completely covered.
9. Place on grease-proofed baking tray and flatten tops with fingers or a spoon so they are more cookie-shaped.
10. Bake for 10 minutes, turning tray around halfway through.
11. Remove from oven and leave to cool.
12. Nom.

Gluten Free Chocolate Cupcake Recipe

Today was cupcake day. After discovering that there are A LOT of cupcake recipes out there, I decided to try a few out until I hit upon one I liked. And do you know what I realised? There are some recipes on the interweb that truly, truly SUCK! Seriously. Do people actually try out their recipes before posting them? One of the icing recipes I followed was from the Guardian website and left out some extremely vital parts of the process. I ended up with curdled gloop twice before finding the missing component on a completely separate site! Grr, argh, etc.

Anyways, the recipe I settled on is for the cupcakes you see above. I’ve had to do some  major tweaking as the original recipe had utterly whacky ingredient amounts but it eventually ended up very tasty and has received enthusiastic approval from my two housemates. Enjoy! 🙂

Ingredients (makes 12 cupcakes):

Cupcake Mix

50g unsweetened cocoa powder
175g gluten free plain flour
110g margarine or butter
200g caster sugar
2 large free range eggs
2 teaspoons baking
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Icing

120g plain chocolate
150g butter (if you want really thick icing make sure you use butter not marg)
160g icing sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Main Equipment:

1 x medium saucepan
2 x mixing bowl
1 x 12 muffin tray
12 x muffin cases

Method:

Muffin Mix

1. Preheat oven to 190C/180C with fan/375F/Gas Mark 5
2. Using a small bowl, stir boiling water into cocoa powder until you have a smooth paste.
3. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking  powder and salt.
4. In another bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
5. Add eggs one at a time, beating mixture inbetween each addition.
6. Mix in vanilla extract and flour mixture until smooth.
7. Add cocoa mixture and stir until smooth.
8. Spoon mixture into the muffin cases in the muffin tray. Each case should be about two-thirds full.
9. Bake in oven for 16-20 minutes until a knife/skewer can be inserted and comes out clean.
10. Leave to cool completely before covering with icing.

Icing

1. Break the chocolate into pieces and melt in a saucepan on a low heat, stirring all the time to prevent burning.
2. In a mixing bowl beat butter and sugar until smooth.
3. Mix in vanilla extract.
4. Add chocolate and stir until smooth.
5. Leave in fridge until icing has thickened.
6. Spoon onto cupcakes.

As you can see, I decided to put sprinkles on top of mine as well. That’s the best thing about cupcakes in my opinion, they allow for a bit of creativity 🙂

Gluten Free Treacle Tart Recipe

Thanks to the amount of gluten free bread available in supermarkets now, this recipe is easy to do and very tasty 🙂

Ingredients:

Pastry

225g gluten free plain flour
110g margarine or butter
1 medium free range egg

Treacle Filling

85g gluten free breadcrumbs (I use Asda’s gluten free white rolls but any supermarket gluten free white bread will suffice)
450g golden syrup
1 medium-sized lemon (all the zest, 1 1/2 tablespoons of juice)
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

Main Equipment:

1 x 20cm cake tin
1 x mixing bowl
1 x rolling pin
1 x baking paper
Baking beans or uncooked rice

Instructions:

Pastry

1. Place the flour and marg/butter in the mixing bowl and rub together until it forms a breadcrumb consistency.
2. Mix in the egg with a knife and then push mixture together until a dough is formed.
3. Place dough on a floured surface and knead until smooth and firm.
4. Roll out the dough and then mold into baking tin.
5. Prick base of dough all over with a fork and then leave in fridge for 30 minutes.
6. Preheat oven to 190C/375F/Gas Mark 5 (remember to lower temperature slightly if your oven is fan assisted).
7. Once dough is ready to come out of the fridge cover with baking paper and weigh down with the baking beans/uncooked rice.
8. Place in oven for 10-15 minutes until pastry has dried out (remember, gluten-free pastry does not turn golden brown).

Treacle Filling

1. Place all treacle filling ingredients into the mixing bowl and mix together until well combined. *TIP* Go easy on the lemon juice, too much and it will overpower the whole tart.
2. Pour mixture into the pastry filling.
3. Place in oven for about 30 minutes until the treacle is bubbling slightly.
4. You can eat this hot or cold but there is a general consensus at my end that it tastes best cold. With ice cream 😉

Gluten Free Lemon Meringue Pie Recipe

Ingredients:

Pastry

225g gluten free plain flour
110g margarine or butter
2 teaspoons caster sugar (any kind)
1 medium free-range egg yolk

Lemon Curd

100g caster sugar (any kind)
100g margarine or butter
4 medium/large lemons
6 medium free range egg yolks
7 tablespoons cornflour

Meringue

6 medium free-range egg whites
300g caster sugar (any kind)

Main Equipment:

1 x 20cm cake tin
1 x mixing bowl (not plastic)
1 x small pan
1 x medium pan
1 x electric whisk (you can try doing it by hand but it takes forever and you’ll end up with a very sore arm/wrist)
1 x rolling pin
Cling film
Baking paper
Baking beans or uncooked rice

Instructions:

Pastry

1. Place flour and salt into your mixing bowl.
2. Add your marg or butter and rub mixture together until it forms a breadcrumb consistency.
3. Mix in sugar with a knife.
4. Add egg yolk and then gradually add cold water until you can form a firm dough.
5. *important* Cover dough in cling film and leave in fridge for 30 minutes.
6. Preheat oven to 190C/375F/Gas Mark 5 (remember to turn it down a bit if your oven is fan-assisted) and grease your 20cm cake tin.
7. Once the dough is ready to come out of the fridge place on a floured surface and roll put until it will cover the inside of the tin.
8. Place dough into the tin. Now, being gluten free, the dough is unlikely to hold together so just put the pieces in the tin and mold it into shape.
9. Line the dough with baking paper and fill with baking beans or uncooked rice. Bake blind for 15 minutes then remove the paper and beans/rice and bake for another 5  minutes.
10. Remove tin once the pastry is dried out and lower the oven heat to 150C/300F/Gas Mark 2 (again, remember to make it lower if your oven is fan-assisted).

Lemon Filling

1. Place sugar and cornflour into the (clean) mixing bowl and gradually add water until it becomes a smooth paste.
2. In the small pan, place 50ml of water and the zest of the 4 lemons, and slowly bring to the boil.
3. Once boiling, add the hot mixture to the paste slowly, stirring all the time to keep it smooth.
4. Add the egg yolks and lemon juice, melt the butter in the small pan and add this too.
5. Make sure the mixture is smooth and transfer to the medium pan. Cook on a low heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens to become a curd. This will happen very suddenly so make sure you keep stirring.
6. Pour into the pastry case and leave to cool down slightly whilst you make the meringue.

Meringue

1. Place the 6 egg whites into the clean and dry mixing bowl and whisk until stiff.
2. Gradually add the sugar a spoonful at a time, whisking after each addition.
3. Spoon on top of lemon filling MAKING SURE THE LEMON CURD IS STILL WARM until you have the desired thickness of meringue on top.
4. Bake in oven for 35-45 minutes until meringue is crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside.
5. Turn off oven but leave pie in it to dry out.
6. You may well have extra meringue mixture left over. If so, place some baking paper on a baking tray and just spoon mixture into medium piles onto the paper. Place in oven with the pie.

Tips for making good meringue:

• Make sure there is NO FAT whatsoever in the mixture. So no yolk and no remnants of fat in the bowl or on the whisk.
• Make sure the egg whites are at room temperature. Cold whites will not whip well.
• Make sure the lemon filling is warm or hot when you place the meringue on top otherwise it will not bind and the meringue will ‘bleed’ creating a lot of extra moisture.
• Make sure the meringue touches the crust otherwise it will shrink inwards.
  
• Do not use a plastic mixing bowl as they may retain fat and oil.