(Attempt at) Gluten Free Yule Log

Hey, Jess today with what can only be called a work in progress post!

I've been gluten free for about four years now, which is four christmasses without all the nice christmassy things - mince pies, christmas cake, christmas pudding, cheese & crackers, ferrero rocher, gingerbread biscuits...the list goes on. But one thing I've really missed is yule log. Everybody loves that over indulgent, far too rich slice of chocolate cake and chocolate cream and chocolate topping when you've already eaten a week's worth of calories in one sitting and really can't manage any more. How could anyone enjoy a christmas without that sickly addition? So, despite having never made a gluten free swiss roll before, I decided I'd give it a shot this year so that I wouldn't miss out. It came out kind of 'rustic' as we shall call it, but it tasted nice all the same.

A lot of the gluten free recipes I found for chocolate yule log involved just eggs, chocolate and sugar. In my head, this was chocolate meringue, so I found a recipe that contained flour. But having made this recipe, I think I will be brave and try a eggs-and-sugar one next time (although I am spending my next christmas in New Zealand, so I may have to find another excuse to make a chocolate log cake before that..shame...). So anyway, by all means try this recipe, it may just be that I'm really bad at rolling swiss rolls. And I do think it would benefit from some xantham gum, I was just too lazy to buy any as per usual.

Cake
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup gluten free flour blend
4 large eggs
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla essence
(Your desired quantity of your favourite) Liqueur

The original recipe suggested to use a 9 1/4" x 14" x 1 pan to bake the cake in. I just used what was in my Mum's cupboard. It may well be that size, but I don't know for certain and I'm not getting a ruler out to check. But it needs to be square/rectangle shaped and be suitable for cooking a thin layer of cake, obviously. Anyway, line the pan with foil and preheat the oven to gas mark 6. 
Sift the caster sugar, flour, baking powder and cocoa together. This is probably where the xantham gum should be added too.
Beat the eggs, salt and vanilla in a food processor (or by hand if you're not lazy) for about 5 minutes. Gradually add the granulated sugar, then the flour-cocoa mix, folding and beating it all together until the dry ingredients are wet. Don't over mix it.
Pour the cake batter into the tin and bake. Now, the original recipe suggested 13 minutes, but mine was done in 10. So check it after 10, but leave for longer if it needs it. All ovens are different.

I'm not really sure why it looks kinda wrinkly, but it tastes nice anyway

Once baked, leave the cake to cool for about an hour or so. Once cool, dust the top with caster sugar and turn out onto a clean piece of foil, removing the original foil. Brush the cake with your chosen liqueur with a pastry brush. I used Cointreau, as christmas is a time for chocolate orange flavoured things (and my mum didn't have Baileys in - I know, christmas without Baileys hurt me too, but the Cointreau was actually amazing. Particularly when added to everything, ever). Let this soak in for a little while, i left it to soak whilst I made the filling for the cake...

Chocolate Fudge Buttercream
200g icing sugar
50g butter
2-3 tbsp cocoa powder
Some milk (or Baileys/Cointreau/both)

Melt butter in pan. Add cocoa powder and cook for a couple of minutes. Leave to cool. Slowly add icing sugar until everything is added together. Add a little bit of milk (or your desired liquid) slowly, and keep mixing until you eventually have a glossy, chocolate fudge cream.

Use a whisk to remove any icing sugar lumps if you have the patience...

 I haven't specified the amount of milk needed because these things just need to be added until they are ready, and despite following the other quantities to the gram you will still probably end up needing a different amount of liquid here. I added too much, then had to add more icing sugar, and then I ended up with waaaaaay too much Cointreau chocolate fudge buttercream (again, such a shame). So anyway, once you have a thick chocolate fudge, spread it over the cake, leaving a little gap at one end. 

And then roll it up like a swiss roll. I used cling film. But the cake broke. And it ended up with a big mush of chocolatey fudgey Cointreauey cakey goodness. Which tasted beautiful with a little icing sugar dusted on top. But didn't really look brilliant. As you can see. But my family enjoyed it, including my extremely picky brother, so I'm happy with the overall outcome. 

Now, no more chocolate cake recipes. Everyone is on a diet for the first month (or week, or day, or hour) of the year, so in the new year there will be some more healthy recipes to try!

Hope you had a lovely christmas and have a great new year :)

Gluten Free Christmas Stuffing

Hi, Jess again.

Firstly, apologies for the lack of blogging recently. Since the beginning of December, a truly horrific amount of food and wine has been consumed, leaving me very little time to do anything other than eat and drink (and pass out at 8pm). Oh, aside from working, having exams and assignments and travelling up and down the country for interviews. All of which I have definitely not been hungover for.

So anyway, my flat had a christmas dinner this week. I'm not going to patronise you with instructions of how to cook a christmas dinner, we all do it differently. We had seasoned roast chicken and potatoes and roasted the carrots and parsnips in agave nectar - amazing. And all gluten free. But my biggest issue with roast dinners is stuffing, I love the stuff but obviously it's not gluten free. So this year I decided I would make it myself, rather than cheat with one of the gluten free packet mixes (which I'm sure are nice, but I can't blog about a packet mix). The following recipe is adapted from the dietary specials website, and uses their gluten free brown ciabatta rolls (fellow gluten free people will understand that these are the best). It makes 8-10 stuffing balls so perfect for 3-5 people.

100g gluten free bread/2 gluten free brown ciabatta rolls
1 onion, chopped
1 apple, chopped
50g ready to eat apricots, chopped
2 tbsp cranberry sauce
10-15g butter, melted
50ml (or more or less, whatever you need) orange or cranberry juice
Sprinkling of nuts (I used pine kernels)
Mixed herbs to season

Crumble the bread/rolls until they resemble breadcrumbs. Chop the onion and apple, and fry until soft and slightly browned. Add the butter, onion and apple to the breadcrumbs and mix. Add the apricots, cranberry sauce, nuts and seasoning, followed by the fruit juice. Mix together, ensuring everything is evenly spread and you have the right consistency. Use the amount of juice you need, I didn't really measure it out, I just added what looked right (wine's fault, sorry). Use the herbs you want to use - I didn't want a particularly strong taste so went for mixed herbs but some fresh sage or parsley would go nicely too. Roll the stuffing into small balls, place on a baking tray and bake at 180C for about 15-20 minutes or until golden.

This recipe is so easy and goes really well with christmas dinner. The different fruits make it quite sweet, which makes a nice addition when you roast the veggies in agave or honey. You can substitute different juice or nuts depending on your tastes, but less us know how it goes and what you change when you make it!

Christmas dinner, served on a plastic plate, student style.

The most important part of any meal.

Christmas Butterbean Cookies

Tom again, feeling surprisingly prolific today,

...and CHRISTMASSY. Yes I know it's november. I don't know what is happening to me. I am normally a massive scrooge. Help?

Anyway, in the spirit of my want to bake and christmas spirit (and because I can use my parents' fancy food processor!), here is a recipe for christmas flavoured cookies (the smell when they bake is glorious, it's filling my kitchen as I write this). This is entirely stolen from Happy Herbivore (http://happyherbivore.com/recipe/butter-bean-cookies/), and I adapted it with christmas flavours to suit my mood.

But now, to address the elephant in the room, yes, I said butterbean. Before you run screaming and denounce me as a witch or burn me for worshiping the devil...62 calories per cookie. And 0.7g fat. That's all. Because you're using the protein from blended butterbeans (which lets face it, have no flavour) to bind these cookies together, you don't need to add any fat to it, animal or otherwise. To be fair, this recipe isn't exceptionally sweet, but that can be altered easily enough if you'd like too. Yes it sounds weird, yes it looks like babysick when blended, but hey, it's worth a try right?

Ingredients:

1 cup Rolled Oats
1 cup Plain Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
2 tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp Cloves
1 1/2 tsp Vanilla
3 tsp Ginger (or about an inch of grated fresh ginger)
1/2 tsp grated Nutmeg
1/2 can of Butterbeans
1/4 cup of Apple sauce (or stewed apples)
1/2 cup of Sugar
Pinch of salt
Handful of Almonds

These cookies are kind of like macaroons in texture. On a side note DO NOT COOK THESE ON BAKING PAPER. They stick. And do not peal. At all. However, despite the occasional piece of baking paper still stuck on they were still tasty (my mum would NOT leave them alone). Also this recipe needs a food processor, you can probably do it with a spoon and a hand blender but it will take a lot of elbow grease.

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350F, 175C or Gas Mark 4.
Pour 3/4 cup of oats into the food processor and pulse until they are lightly ground but not a powder.
Add the oats and all of the rest of the dry ingredients to the mixing bowl.
Put the butterbeans, apple sauce, vanilla and sugar in the food processor with a tbsp of water and blend until smooth.
Add the oats and stir until mixed.
Toast the almods briefly and break them up in a pestle and mortar (or with a rolling pin).
Combine the wet and dry ingredients in the mixing bowl and 1/3 of a cup of water and mix roughly (it should still be pretty lumpy, it works better that way).
Put tablespoon blobs on a greased baking tray.
Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden around the edges and on the bottom and solid in the centre.
Enjoy with a coffee! (I just did)

Dry ingredients

First butterbeans...

Now babysick. Also known as the wet ingredients.

Combine the two.

Add a few almonds.

Before

And after baking. With a nice bit of icing sugar, everything looks christmassy with icing sugar.

As always, make any changes you come feel - I'm thinking walnuts and coffee? - and let us know what you come up with at twocooksoneblog@gmail.com