Banana, Date & Cinnamon Muffins (GF)

Quite possibly the best gluten free banana muffins you're ever going to eat!

And perhaps some of the healthiest ones too!!

These gluten free banana, date and cinnamon muffins tick all the boxes...

  Delicious
  Gluten Free
  Simple to make
  Filled with real ingredients
  Low in sugar/salt/processed foods
  Kid friendly (and approved by Madeleine!!)

Gluten Free White Chocolate Mudcake

I have posted my recipe for a regular White Chocolate Mudcake many times. 

I made it as the wedding cake at Saraid's wedding;

As the Grooms' cake at Julie's wedding;

And at many more baby showers than I remembered to post about too!

I wanted to have one of the cakes be gluten free at Madeleine's bunny Birthday party and so adapted my standard white chocolate mudcake recipe to use as the little cakes to accompany the main bunny rabbit butter cake. 

Gluten Free Salted Caramel Rice Krispie Treats

A week or so ago we had a little bunny party for Madeleine's 2nd Birthday. 

Amongst the bunny snacks, carrot fudge and cabbages, I did make a few non-bunny related treats too.  

This recipe appeared in my Pinterest feed a few days before her party that instantly went to the top of the list!

How have I never made these before!?

Carrot Cake Shots (Gluten Free)

There is something entirely charming about dessert in a shot glass isn't there.

I started doing it a few years ago, and can't seem to stop!

For Madeleine's Birthday Party a few weekends ago, there was a theme of Bunnies, and so I had lots of different "bunny-inspired" treats for the afternoon.

And well, what's more "bunny" than carrot cake?!

And what is the very best part of a carrot cake?

The cream cheese icing of course.

So, why not up the ratio of icing to cake with these adorable and delicious Carrot Cake Shots!

Macadamia Nut Brittle

A few weekends ago I attended a bloggers event for "Bake for Bumps". 

It was such a wonderful afternoon and I was so proud to be involved in such a worthy cause. 

AND well, there was some fairly spectacular baking produced!!!

Emma put together a little goodie bag for everyone as a little thank you for coming, with some traveller-inspired beauty products.

I wanted to contribute a little something to the goodie bags and so made some Macadamia Nut Brittle for everyone to chew/crunch on for the trip home. 

I haven't had Macadamia Nut Brittle in years, I had completely forgotten how amazing it is!!!

Raspberry & Lime Financiers (GF)

Ever since becoming gluten intolerant a year ago, Financiers have been my go-to cake. 

Made with almond meal they are dense and sweet, and I make mine with polenta for a little extra crunch! 

12 months ago I posted a recipe for Blueberry & Lavender Financiers, and today I wanted to share a new flavour combination, Raspberry and Lime. 

My friend Meeche is a coeliac and Saraidy makes her the Blueberry Financiers every time she wants to sneak some sweet baby cuddles, and so I thought I'd share a new flavour for you girls to enjoy!!

The ingredients and method are largely the same, but to refresh you...

ANZAC Biscuits with Caramel Ganache

Today is ANZAC Day. A day to commemorate the anniversary of the day our Australian & New Zealand troops landed in Gallipoli.

It is a solemn and significant day back home, and again, it makes me miss being home.

Coming from a military family, and ever since I can remember, I've always been at Dawn Services on ANZAC Day. 

And until I moved to the UK and had a baby, I never missed a service. 

Gluten Free Brown Sugar Cookies for every bunny

Wishing you such a wonderful Easter Sunday. 

The Easter Bunny has had a bit of a struggle finding us this year, so we are having a very low key Easter (but so far I've managed two serves of ice cream before 2pm, so don't feel too sorry for me!).

Maple Bacon Fudge

It's fudge time.

It's Easter time.

They go one go hand in hand!

Every year it has been our tradition at Easter time that Husband and I would bake fudge (to make me less mopey about being allergic to chocolate).

We really only ever make it just this one time of the year, so whenever I send him a photo of fudge on the stove, he knows Easter is near!

But I wanted to introduce you to something kind of amazing this year....

meg-made it to Bake-a-Boo (review)

Bake-A-Boo. The name just works doesn't it?! 

Combining youthful mystery with the promise of gluten free sweet bakes, Bake-A-Boo is not only cute by name, but it is cute by decor (and delicious in nature)!

Pink Glitter Pink Salted Caramel Macarons = Megarons

I am 50% woman and 50% magpie... I am attracted to anything sparkly!! And when sparkly things combine with edible things, magic happens!

Macarons. They are indulgent for anyone. And then for a foodie who cannot eat gluten, citrus, chocolate, matured cheeses, red wine, yoghurt... well yes, they are heaven. 

I hadn't made macarons in a while, but got the urge two weeks back, so did some reading to refresh my memory on how to make them. 

A few fun things that I have learned about macarons...

• I know I was initially muddled with the difference between a macaron and a macaroon, but they are actually totally different treats. The Macaron is the delicate and crisp cookie sandwich filled with flavoured ganache; whilst the Macaroon is the unkept coconut cookie that is chewy and often dipped in chocolate.

• Although the French take ownership for the macaron now, it actually is thought to have been developed by the Italians first. 

• Apparently old egg whites yield better macarons. Again, I am not patient enough, but if you plan in advance, separate your eggs two days before you want to make the macarons. And ensure they are at room temperature before you beat them. 

• The little crusty bit at the bottom of each cookie is called the feet, and there are techniques for parallel feet or feet that stick out a little. How funny.

• Maturation is the process of leaving macarons to settle for a few days. It is thought that three days after baking is the best time to eat a macaron because this helps dry out the macaron

I really like the Macaron Mafia for tips and drool over how perfect her photos are!!

I had forgotten all about the Laduree cookbook that I own, but not to worry, I found a great blog (who unfortunately hasn't posted since 2012), Not So Humble Pie, who seems to have almost dedicated her life to the art of macarons. Well, maybe not her entire life, but definitely all of her spare time!! 

I wanted to make the French style macaron, not the Italian style and so was happy to find a recipe that made sense to me! The Italian method involves boiling sugar and water to a very specific temperature, and as I don't own a sugar thermometer (and didn't have the patience to wait another weekend) I just went ahead with the classic French method. Apparently the Italian method is less risky than the French, so maybe I'll try that way next, but I really like the recipe I found and enjoyed that she had done the hard yards and technique testing for you, and created the most fool-proof method possible. I won't rehash the entire recipe, Not so Humble Pie explains everything in such great detail herself, so just click on through to be empowered! 

So I made my macarons plain almond, with some pink colouring, and before I left the shells to form prior to baking, I sprinkled a little glitter on them all! The filling was salted caramel filling. But not with just any salt, no of course not, I used Himalayan Pink Salt. Of course. 

Sure, they weren't as perfect as Laduree, and aren't as uniformly identical as other photos I've seen, but the taste was phenomenal, and texture just right. It definitely is an art form, making macarons, but the kind of art that makes me want to practice practice practice. 

Psst!! If you are looking for a little more meg-made, I'd LOVE for you to follow along!

Half Birthday Honey Sponge cake (GF)

This post is dedicated to Madeleine's two Grandfathers. 

To my Dad, Pop, who shared with me a love for half birthdays, which I am now carrying on to my children in the hopes they will embrace the indulgence with me too. 

And to Pete's Dad, Granddad, who has been trying to force honey on this child since the day she was born. It is now officially safe to give Maddie some honey, so as promised, she had honey in her cake today! 

Today Madeleine turned 18months old, one and a half!! Happy Half Birthday darling girl! 

It is incredible to think this world didn't know this sweet little girl only 18 months ago, and yet I can't believe how long I feel like I have known her for, and can't believe it's only been 1.5 years. 

I wanted to make a fairly simple sponge cake today and to appease her Granddad, I added some honey in, so that hopefully he can see we don't deprive her!! 

I followed this recipe from Gluten Free on a Shoestring, but omitted the corn starch and lemon, and added two tablespoons of honey instead. 

It was a lighter cake than I have made so far gluten free, however still wasn't the light and airy sponges that I used to love!! I think next time I would beat the egg white together with the yolks, and then add the dry ingredients later, I feel like that would produce a fluffier batter. But it smells delicious and Husband says it is so (I'm fasting today so this cruel and unusual punishment afternoon of baking really should earn me double weight loss this week!!). 

Happy Half Birthday Maddie, what an overwhelmingly joyful 18 months it has been.

Please forever stay this sweet and loving.

Mum xx


Psst!! If you are looking for a little more meg-made, I'd LOVE for you to follow along!

Being thankful with Pumpkin Ice-cream

Just because I'm Australian, it doesn't mean I can't partake in a day about being thankful (and a day dedicated to having me some pumpkin!!).

I have so much to be thankful for I don't know where to start. 

We spend a lot of our lives working towards future goals that we seem to let the present fly by and quickly become the past. I have a bit of the opposite problem and relate far too much with this old Cup of Jo article about worrying. Some nights I just peep into Maddie's room to hear her heavy breathing, climb back into bed next to a snoring bear of husband and burst into tears. I feel so incredibly lucky that I am terrified. But with the worry comes thanks. Every day I am thankful for the amount of love I have in my life,  and even though I miss so many of them being all around the world, I am thankful that I have so many special people to miss. I am thankful that I said yes to the nervous Senior who asked me to dance 14  years ago, and thankful for the life that we have forged for ourselves ever since. And words just can't describe how thankful I feel for my healthy and happy little girl who every day melts my forever swelling heart.

I need to stop there before I go on all night long and dissolve into a puddle of emotion! The other part of Thanksgiving that I love is the overuse of Pumpkin!! I have always loved pumpkin soup, roast pumpkin and pumpkin scones. A bowl of comforting pumpkin soup was always my request when I wasn't feeling well, it just seemed to have healing powers for me. 

I was introduced to the concept of canned pumpkin by my friends in Oxford and it still confuses me a little! I have had some and its great and all, but I guess what I don't understand is why you wouldn't just use the real thing?! I guess I think of pumpkin too traditionally, so can't conceive of a world where you'd make an entire pot of soup from canned/sweetened/spiced pumpkin. 

We had a very pumpkin-filled meal tonight. It was kind of by accident, kind of on purpose! I wanted to make pumpkin ice-cream and pumpkin risotto, so cooked up two big butternut pumpkins. 

The risotto was creamy and delicious and not dissimilar to my SuperPumpkin Soup from yesteryear! 

And onto dessert...

Once the pumpkin was cooked and had cooled, I added in cinnamon, ginger and mixed spice. I then mixed it together well with regular vanilla ice-cream and put it back in the freezer to reset. 

Then I got to work on the meringues! I made mini-pavlova's I guess you could say, but then added in the traditional pumpkin spices too, to really compliment the pumpkin ice-cream. 

It could be said that these were "indescribable" but yet "the goodness of a ice-cream with the greatness of pavlova and the amazingness of a pumpkin waffle". Thanks husband. 

Wishing a very Happy Thanksgiving to all of my American family and friends. And happy and thankful thoughts to all of my non-American family and friends, may the pumpkin be with you all. 

Chai Spiced Tiramegsu (GF)

I love the idea of a real Tiramisu. But, I can't eat chocolate. Or coffee. So to be honest, I've never even had one. I have smelled many (sometimes not the most sociable request to ask across the dinner table) and they smell divine. I've not met anyone who hasn't like them, so a few years ago I decided to make a meg-friendly tiramisu. A tiraMegsu if you will.

The two flavours that I decided to combine were baileys and chai spices, and yesterday I made it for the first time since becoming gluten intolerant, and it still worked beautifully. Ordinarily I would use the traditional sponge finger biscuits as the base of the tiramisu, but wasn't able to procure any gluten free ones, so just used the best that I could find, which was a GF orange and vanilla cake.

Ingredients

Base layer
Sponge fingers or GF Cake - depending on whether you are GF or not. Stick with as plain as possible.

250ml Baileys liquer

250ml hot water

15g (8t) chai spices (I sometimes use the spices individually or if i'm being lazy, just use an instant mix)

Cream filling

2 eggs, separated

75g caster sugar

60ml more baileys, this time for the cream

400g marscapone cream cheese

Crushed nuts for the topping, I used hazelnuts, but often just whatever is around. 

Method

1. Prepare the base of your dish by lining the entire bottom with the cake/fingers. I was making individual tiramegsu's and as we didn't have anything better, I used the mini cheesecake tins. 

2. Combine the baileys, hot water and chai spices in a bowl with a pouring lip. 

3. Carefully pour half of the mixture over the base cake/fingers until they are all well coated. They should have enough liquid on them to soak all the way through but not be too much to be dripping at the bottom. 

4. Meanwhile, start on the cream filling. Beat together the egg yolks, sugar and 60ml of baileys. Beat for a few minutes until pale gold. 

5. Gradually add the marscapone to the egg mix, bit by bit until smooth and creamy. 

6. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. 

7. Gently fold the egg whites into the marscapone mixture until well combined.

8. Spoon the cream over the cake/fingers until an even layer. 

9. Repeat the cake/finger and cream layering until you have reached the top of the dish you have used. 

10. Sprinkle crushed nuts with a little more chai spices on top of the tiramegsu and place it in the fridge for as many hours as you can, about 6 hours would be the best to allow the baileys and spices to really soak into the cake/fingers. 

So if you too are gluten intolerant and allergic to chocolate and coffee (would there be two of us out there?) then this is a delicious take on a classic dessert. Not especially healthy, but a lovely treat to indulge in all the same.