Cashew Stuffed Dates. Gluten-free Petits Fours

Here's an alternative to my recent traditional Moroccan stuffed dates. This time I'm using cashew nuts and marrying them with apricots. I've also been able to obtain some organic raw butter. There has been a major problem with this in France for over a year,  as demand is way outstripping supply. This has nothing to do with the 'butter crisis' which is happening in certain French supermarkets at the moment, that is to do with non-organic butter, which farmers are now exporting or selling directly through gate sales. I'm using half raw butter and half raw coconut oil, this is also a combination I use in chocolate truffles, a recipe which will be coming soon!

I've chosen again the variety Deglet Noor to use in this recipe, which with its elegant tapered shape and soft translucent honey colour, well deserves its name; 'finger of light'.

This recipe would also be really good with Medjool dates but as they are much larger you are more likely to fill just 12 of the latter with this amount of mixture.

Dates are thought to be one of the oldest cultivated crops and interestingly enough for this gluten-free recipe, are often referred to as 'the Bread of the Desert'.

INGREDIENTS

(makes 18 Stuffed Deglet Dates you will need to double the mix for large dates)

18 dates
25g   - 1oz of raw butter
25g   - 1oz of raw coconut oil
6 dried apricots
75g - 2½oz of chopped cashew nuts
60g - 2oz of powdered sugar
extra chopped cashews for decoration

METHOD

Soak the apricots in warm water for a few minutes until they begin to plump up and soften. Chop them finely but reserve 18 thin slivers to decorate the dates.

With a sharp knife make an incision in the dates large enough to remove the pit.

Open the date wider using the thumbs.

Melt the butter and coconut oil remove from the heat and then add the finely chopped apricots and the roughly chopped cashews. Add the sugar and mix well.

Put the pan in cold water to get the butter and coconut to re-solidify.

Divide the mixture into 18 and using a teaspoon, stuff the dates.

Place them somewhere cool.

After a couple of hours press the dates more firmly together to make sure the filling is safely in place. Sprinkle with a few chopped cashews and serve immediately.

I have to say that this was once again  absolutely delicious and I'm definitely going to make another version and this time with Medjool.

Enjoy!

All that needs to be said now is Bon Appėtit!

Hope to see you here again for another recipe from my 100 Gluten-Free Organic Party Foods Challenge!

All the best,

Sue

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©  Sue Cross 2017 
 

Baked Black Figs Ratafia Hot Gluten-free Dessert Appetiser

Juicy and delicious, served hot or cold, here I'm using a medium size fresh black fig, the variety is Col de Dame Noir. The fig is named for the fashionable high lace collars, in this case black (but there is a white and grey version too), which were being when this fig was first raised. There is a baby fig variety called Ronde de Bordeaux and if you choose these you can obviously make twice as many appetisers from the same amount of topping. I created this simple recipe a few years back in late Summer, when a friend turned up with a huge bag full of black figs from his garden. We ate many of them fresh but when the remainder became very ripe, we found they were even more delicious with the addition of another contrasting but complimentary flavour. Cut in half and topped with ratafia mixture they are easy to handle as a finger food and you can serve them just as they are or add a paper case.

...or you can serve when just warm and top with a little cream and an almond.

INGREDIENTS

Makes 20

10 figs (halved)

20 whole almonds or 10 if you want just to use halves! They actually look well on the plate as a mixture.

Cream (optional)
Paper cake cases (optional)

For the ratafia mix:

2oz (60g) Blanched Almonds
2oz raw cane sugar (60g) (rapadura)
¼ teaspoon of rose water
1 egg white

TEMPERATURES

Preheat the oven to 190°C or 375°F

METHOD

Pound the almonds with the rosewater. (Or you can buy ready-to-use powdered almonds aka almond meal).

Stir in the sugar.

Whisk the egg white until stiff and add it slowly to the almonds and sugar.

Keep folding in the egg white until you are sure it is  thoroughly mixed.


Place the figs on a lightly buttered dish.

Using a teaspoon, cooled in ice-cold water, drop a little amount of mixture onto the centre of each fig. Make it heaped towards the middle and away from the edges as this will allow room for expansion during cooking. At this point add the almonds to those you are intending to serve hot.

Place in oven on the middle shelf and cook for around 10-20 minutes or until the ratafia feels slightly firm to the touch. Check them at 5, 10 and 15 minutes to see how they are progressing! It will depend on how juicy the figs are as to how quickly they will cook.

Serve hot fresh from the oven, as they are or in a paper case.

As mentioned above, I also like to serve them cold with a little raw cream and an almond.

Enjoy!

All that needs to be said now is Bon Appėtit!

Hope to see you here again for another recipe from my 100 Gluten-Free Organic Party Foods Challenge!

All the best,

Sue

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©  Sue Cross 2017 

Cranachan Cream Crowdie With Rum - Traditional Scottish Recipe with a Hint of the Caribbean - Gluten-Free

Cranachan from the Gaelic crannachan meaning churn and crowdie from Lowland Scots, meaning porridge-like, is a celebration sweet eaten at Harvest Home. It showcases the good things of the land, reflecting some of Scotland's finest produce: oats, raspberries, honey, cream and of course whisky! However, for this gluten-free* recipe I'm using rum. This is not so heretical as you might think. The doyenne of Scottish cookery and celebrated Orcadian folklorist, F. Marian McNeill is reported to have used it in her 1929 version of Cranachan. It is also mentioned as an alternative in the recipe book my mother sent me from Scotland.

* Gluten-free Alcohol

The distillation process removes any gluten protein from the alcohol. However, from reading around the subject it seems that people with gluten intolerance have specific individual reactions to grain-based spirits. Furthermore, some companies add malt etc., to give flavour to the spirit. If you are gluten-intolerant you should also check on additives and/or ingredients used in ready-made drinks combinations, such as punches and cocktails.

A Foreword on Guten-free Oats

Oats do not contain gluten, however it is best not to buy them, if you are gluten intolerant, unless they are labelled as certified gluten-free. In countries where oats are not a traditional crop, fields can be contaminated by stray plants when other cereal crops are grown in close proximity. Here in France, for example, where there were no dedicated oat-growing areas, we used to find it impossible to buy certified organic gluten-free oats. However due to the ever increasing popularity of gluten-free foods and international cuisine, we are now seeing certified oats on the shelves. It is also worth noting that post harvest, certified gluten-free oats are processed in dedicated mills where they can not be contaminated with other grains. This is why people often get confused about why all oats are not labelled as suitable for those allergic to gluten.

INGREDIENTS

(makes 16 to 20 depending on size of shot glasses)

300 ml (10 floz) of cream (I use raw straight form the churn or rather cream separator)

75g (3oz) toasted rolled, pinhead or steel cut gluten-free oats (here I've used rolled)
1 tablespoon of raw honey
1 tablespoon of rum

A couple of handfuls of raspberries
You can also use blackberries or a mix of both.

METHOD

In a frying pan and with quite a high heat, toast the oats until they smell nutty (a few minutes) move them around the pan so they get an even toasting. Leave to cool.

Whip up the cream and stir in the honey, oats and rum. I inadvertently stirred my oats in whilst they were still warm but I just whisked the whole lot up together and everything was fine!

If the raspberries are over-ripe like the ones I have here, then cook them up into a purée with a little sugar, otherwise they may run completely into the cream crowdie and spoil the 'look'!

Add layers of the cream mixture and raspberries to a tot glass aka shot glass finishing with a layer of cranachan and decorating with a berry fruit and/or a scented geranium, campanula rapunculus, borage or similar edible flower (optional).

Enjoy!

All that needs to be said now is Bon Appėtit!

Hope to see you here again for another recipe from an old farmhouse in Normandie,

All the best, Sue

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©  Sue Cross 2017

 

Clafoutis with foraged fruits - balckberries, rose hips and sloes. Gluten-free

This is another variation of clafoutis, the pastry-less Limousin tart and I will be posting a savoury version shortly but I wanted this recipe to introduce the fabulous foraging season. September seems to have ushered in a bumper crop of wild fruit, which is timely, as the apple harvest, here at least, doesn't auger well.

The fun of foraging

If, like us, you are buying a percentage of your organic foodstuffs, then it can be both profitable and enjoyable to find some additional provisions for free. The good news is that this time of year, if you are living in the Northern hemisphere, you are coming up to the optimum time for foraging. The hedge rows are literally laden down with fruit and we have never seen such a year for sloes and they are also quite unusually sweet, we ate a lot as we were foraging!

Of course you can forage in your own garden, for rose hips, nuts and berries if you have hedges but you can also go out into the fields and meadows. 

Remember to take a walking stick with which to gently pull down the fruit, without damage to the hedge or individual plant.
 

It's good idea is to contact your local organic farm and ask about wild fruits on their farm land. In general though, horse paddocks, pasture land, parks, canal tow paths and common land, far away from spray drift from conventional crops, make for good foraging. Below is one of our favourite paths, on the cliffs along our local coast line, too dry this year, we did better in local meadows but it was a wonderful excuse for a walk all the same.

As we really enjoyed the gluten-free version of my plum clafoutis I made a few weeks back (recipe here) , I decided to go with the same mix again. I did however, omit the coconut oil, by mistake but I don't think it needed it as the mixture of fruits carried the rich flavours on their own.

Ingredients

Whole berries and fruit halves to cover the bottom of dish

80g (3oz) of potato flour

20g ( ¾oz) of arrowroot

80g (3oz) of sugar

300ml of milk (I use raw local milk from Normandy cows, which is very rich)
2 eggs (or 4 bantam eggs)

50g (1 ¾oz) of ground almonds

Optional - raw cane for sprinkling on the fruit.

Cooking times 

30 to 40 mins or until the top is well set and golden at 180ºC or 350ºF

Preparation

Cut the rose hips in half and using a teaspoon remove the hairy seeds from the interior. These are the rose's defence system to stop birds and mammals from absorbing the seeds once consumed! The hairs are actually quite aggressive I found I needed to rinse my fingers well, after this operation. 

I then precooked the rose hips for a few minutes in a little water just to soften them slightly as they were much harder than the remainder of the fruit. 

Method

Butter your pie dish generously and place upon it, cut face downwards, the whole black berries or halves of rose hips and sloes with the stone removed. Use enough fruit to cover the base, I'm using a 22cm or 8½" circular dish with an internal depth of 30mm or 1".  I sprinkled the fruit with a little raw cane sugar, not rapadura as I thought this would be too strong a flavour.

Place all your dry ingredients in a bowl but keep back a little sugar for sprinkling on the clafoutis when it comes from the oven. Mix well.

Make a well in the mix and add eggs, incorporate by bringing the dry ingredients gradually in towards the centre. You can do this by hand or with a beater if you wish. Beat well to obtain a smooth paste.

Add milk slowly, whisking all the time to obtain an homogeneous batter. This is a thin batter - do not worry!








Pour over fruit and put immediately into the oven

When cooked the clafoutis will 'spring back' when you touch it with your finger tips and it will also be a beautiful golden brown. You can see here it has also risen more than the plum one





The clafoutis can then be sprinkled with the remaining sugar just to give it a little crunch and extra texture. You can eat it straight from the oven, but I usually have some left over for the next day. I found this one developed in flavour overnight, although we didn't actually have much left over!

Hope you enjoy this dish, again it is simple and yet delicious and the free foraged fruits, as my grandpa used to say; 'don't taste of the copper', though nowadays it's probably nickel! 

Now if you'd like to sit back and watch the film: 

Please feel free to comment, ask questions and share.

Hope to see you here again for another recipe from an old farmhouse in Normandie,

Sue

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© 2014 Sue Cross

Rich fruit, spice and spirit pastry, Candlemas gift but delicious on any day! Plus gluten-free version.

Pudding by candlelight, a traditional gift of a rich dried fruit, spice, butter, apple and wine/spirit pastry, which was given at Candlemas but is so good eaten any time of the year.

'End now the white loaf and the pie, 

And let all sports with Christmas die.'

Robert Herrick Upon Candlemas Day 

THE HESPERIDES 1648

Poetry and good food are synonymous and God-Cakes or God-kitchels are no exception. They were considered worthy enough by Chaucer's 15th century ecclesiastical court servants to be acceptable payment for the saving of a soul or delivery from penance:

 'Give us a bushel of wheat, malt, or rye,
A Goddes kechyl, or a trype of chese,
A little cake, or a bit of cheese’            
.'

Geoffrey Chaucer The Sumonour's Tale

THE CANTERBURY TALES  1478

These quintessential mincemeat tarts, the probable forerunners of the mince-pies of today, were rich fruit and spice-laden pastries traditionally given by god parents to their god children on New Year's Day and at Easter. As with the plum pudding, the ingredients in the mincemeat included beef and were essentially a way of preserving meat over the Winter months. With changing tastes and the ability to keep livestock all year round, overtime these became sweet rather than savoury pies. As with many of these early delicacies the individual recipes were handed down verbally but these pies also have regional associations, with the God-cakes coming from Coventry in the West Midlands and the Kitchels from Suffolk.

Above is the gluten-free version of the Coventry God-cake, I took to a family dinner on Boxing Day. I just used a ready made gluten-free flour. The trick with the gluten-free flour is not to skimp on the butter and if you are using it, organic virgin coconut oil. I always use half the quantity of fat to flour and this is particularly important with gluten-free flour, otherwise you can end up with a very hard pastry. Some recipes suggest puff pastry for God-cakes but personally I much prefer short crust as a complement to the fruit. You can also make these pies from leftover mincemeat but I like to make them from whatever dried organic fruit and nuts I have available. However, in keeping with the old mincemeat recipes I  add a touch of Christmas cheer in the form of a dash of brandy or similar spirit.

To make one large God-cake, as pictured above, you will need two handfuls of filling. My mix comprises;  dried:- figs, dates, apricots, prunes cranberries, raisins, sultanas, plus almonds and hazelnuts. To this I add a raw chopped apple, half a teaspoon of mixed spice*, a dessert spoon of rapadura (raw cane sugar), the grated peel of a lemon and a dash of brandy.


I leave the mix to stand and incorporate all the flavours whilst making the short crust pastry. 

*('mixed spice' is a traditional British pie, pudding, biscuit and cake blend, made from, ground coriander, cassia, ginger, nutmeg, caraway and cloves).

For the one large God-cake, which is enough for four servings, I use 170g (6oz) of flour, 2 dessert spoons of powdered almonds to 120g (4¼oz) of raw butter and 50g (1¾oz) of coconut oil. I then rub all these ingredients together to make a mix which resembles breadcrumbs. At this stage, I then add a dessertspoon of rapadura and  enough water to make a stiff paste. I roll the paste out onto a board into a square. 

The God-cake was traditionally a triangular cake, which was meant to represent the Trinity. It is this religious symbolism, along with the crib shaped mince-pies, which was supposed to have been instrumental in getting these pies banned from sale during the period of the Commonwealth in  seventeenth century England.


The filling then has a dessertspoon of coconut oil or raw butter added to it before it is spooned over half the square so it can be folded over to form the triangular pie. I usually make a few cuts into the pastry, to let any possible steam, from the raw apple out of the pie and stop the pastry from going soggy. I cook my pie in a wood cooker at approximately 200°C or 400°F for about 15 minutes or depending on your oven, until the pastry is starting to turn a golden colour. I then sprinkle with a layer of 'icing' sugar, which I just make by grinding up raw organic sugar in a blender.

This pie goes very well with raw cream or cider syllabub.

 

So enjoy this last day of Christmas and remember today we are half way across the Winter and heading towards the Spring.

The works of Robert Herrick can be found here at here and the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer can be found here with interlinear translation from Middle English; here

All the very best and thanks for dropping by,

Sue 

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© 2014 Sue Cross  

Traditional Victorian Organic Plum Pudding made now for next Christmas. Recipe includes gluten-free version.

The roots of the plum pudding go back into the mists of time to a Celtic end-of-year celebration dish called 'plum porridge'. Like many such dishes the exact ingredients were handed down verbally but it was essentially a mix of beef and/or veal, dried fruits (in particular prunes), oats, spices and alcohol. It was furthermore, a way of preserving and providing meat over the harsh Winter. At some point in its history, this dish became enclosed in a pastry case, which made it even easier to preserve and led the way forward to another Christmas delicacy, the Mince-Pie or Mincemeat tart. At some time in the 18th century the steamed plum pudding, which was of similar ingredients to the porridge, began to be served alongside it at the Christmas celebration. However, by the Victorian Era, the plum pudding we have come to know and love today, had completely taken over the festive board.

 

Pies, puddings, pigs' heads and the decking of the halls

These rich porridge, pastry and pudding dishes had great economic and social significance and were, with the boar's head, the centrepiece of elaborate feasts hosted by landlords to their tenants to see them over the 'hungry gap'. This period was the old Christmastide before the Protestant work ethic took hold and it stretched between the Winter Solstice and the Feast  of Lights or Candlemas on the 2nd of February. The peasant farmer's stores would be dwindling, with most of his available food shared between his family and whatever remained of his livestock. 

The hymn 'Good King Wencelaus' would have resonated with the Victorian churchgoer, harking back to the Feast of Fools, a day which turned feudal hierarchies upside down. Cutting the Twelfth Night Cake or Galette de Rois, when a king and queen are chosen from the amongst guests, still remains today. The older significance presides in the British Army, where at Christmastime, the officers wait upon the men. 

The necessity to preserve meat and the rural workforce, has given us a rich pudding which will keep and mature for a whole year. I make my puddings a year in advance and am just about to make a new batch, one for the eve of Candlemas, which just happens to be Andy's Birthday and the rest for the coming Christmas. In December 2013 I also made a gluten-free one (pictured right) for my family.

The Recipe

'John Bull's Own' is a plum pudding recipe from the 1861 version of Mrs. Beeton's Household Management, I've made a few adjustments, in particular in my choice of dried fruits and the amount of sugar I use. If you are unaware of Isabella Beeton, she was and is the doyenne of English Cookery. In her short life she managed to produce a body of work which covered everything from how to find a wet nurse and cook artichokes to how to cure pip in poultry and set a broken leg. This was published in 1861 in her famous 'Book of Household Management', which was and for all I know, still is a favourite wedding gift. The last on one we gave as a present, was this first edition but presented on a cd-rom. The recipes in this book, made as they are from basic seasonal foodstuffs, are excellent for organic produce. 


The following ingredients were meant to make one huge round pudding which, in 1861, was to be steamed in a buttered and floured cloth hanging over a pan of water. However, I always divide the mixture into three to four various sized china puddings basins. I have also put the gluten-free alternatives below and please note there was no taste of coconut in the latter pudding.

 
1lb/450g of suet (I use melted raw butter),
1lb/450g raw cane sugar aka rapadura 
4lbs/1800g dried fruit (I use sultanas, prunes, figs, apricots, dates, candied peel (home-made see ) cherries (this year I used cranberries) plus hazelnuts and almonds.
½ lb/225g plain flour - or for gluten-free use ground almonds.
½ lb/225g bread-crumbs (we make a brioche) - or for gluten-free I use desiccated coconut with 1oz/28g white rice flour to make up the weight.
1 teaspoon of mixed spice ('mixed spice' is a traditional British pie, pudding, biscuit and cake blend, made from, ground coriander, cassia, ginger, nutmeg, caraway and cloves).
8 eggs (I weigh my eggs as they are all different sizes but a standard recipe egg weighs around 2oz/56g)
¼ pint/140ml of brandy ( I can get organic cognac here in France but last year I tried organic Calvados -- superb!).

The fruit and nuts can be macerated in the spirit for several hours or even overnight. This will plump up the dried fruit and also help to mix the brandy more evenly throughout the pudding. Note the amazing shape of the organic Calvados bottle, it also comes in the form of a sailing ship!

The ingredients are then mixed in the following order; flour, spice, sugar, fruit, bread-crumbs, butter, eggs. Then Mrs. Beeton, who probably had in mind a beefy-armed cook to do this work, suggests the mixture should be stirred "for 25 minutes". However as part of the mystique of the pudding is involved with making a wish whilst stirring, you can perhaps get as many of your guests, neighbours or whoever, to help you with this task!

You are now ready to butter the basins and cut and butter the papers, these should be shaped so as to allow enough room to make a pleat in the paper to allow the mixture to rise. Fill the moulds, again leaving enough space to allow for expansion. You will need a volume of 5¼ pints in total if you make the whole amount. Make three 'lids' for each bowl out of the buttered paper and tie each with string or twine. 

On the wood cooker, I steam for between 5 to 13 hours, depending on the size. This gives a deep rich colour and fragrance and likewise an excellent depth of flavour. With the pudding I made this Christmas in Scotland, my sister used a pressure cooker. Her tip is to cook it for the first  15 minutes at atmospheric pressure, this allows the pudding to rise. As every 10 minutes in a pressure cooker is equal to half an hour in a steamer, she decided to cook our 2lb/1kl pudding at pressure for an hour, I have to say it was delicious, even if slightly lighter in colour. 

We serve our pudding with raw crème fraîche or sweet white sauce and brandy butter, which is made from equal parts of raw sugar and raw butter and a dash of cognac. Before bringing the pudding to, or at the table, the pudding is 'flamed' in a tablespoon of heated brandy. To accompany it, we always chose Monbazillac, a 'noble rot' wine from the left banks of the Dordogne.



 Kept in a cool dry place this pudding, once cooked, will be ready for this year's Christmas 2014 celebrations but as modern houses often do not have a pantry or cold store, then it is often more sensible to remove the pudding from its bowl and papers and freeze it.

The charms of the old Christmastide desserts

 

As part and parcel of the  season of giving, the pudding was often filled with gifts, charms or small silver coins. Some of these were to tell fortunes, such as who would marry that year or make money but many were just to wish good luck. In France the Gallette des Rois contains china figures known as fèves (broad beans), this harks back to the Twelfth Night cake, which contains a dried pea and bean. Inviting friends, family and neighbours to partake of the Galette des Rois is still very popular in rural France, although the cake is more often bought than made at home. Once cut, it is passed around the guests and the ones who find the 2 fèves are pronounced king and queen of the feast and wear a gilded paper crown. Nowadays, these porcelain figures are usually representative of cartoon characters from the latest Christmas blockbuster but the older fèves are charming and highly collectable.

Now if you want to, sit back and watch my animated film of the making of John Bull's Own plum pudding. 

All the best for this new year and enjoy your pudding at Candlemas to celebrate the end of Christmastide and if it's possible to resist, keep some for Christmas! See you next time for the ancient recipe of Kitchels or God Cakes, another delicious Winter treat to keep out the cold! 

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© 2014 Sue Cross