Plum & Apple Crumble

When my parents came for a visit last weekend, they bought with them a whole assortment of goodies from home. Some freshly dug potatoes, tomatoes, green beans, some Discovery apples and Victoria plums. As the fruit was home grown, some of it was a little bruised from where it had fallen off the tree, not the best for eaten au-natural, but perfect for baking with.

Apple and plum are a classic combination and when thinking about classic English desserts, at the top of the list must be the much loved crumble. Its amazing how a few crumbs strewn over the top of lightly cooked fruit can taste so good. Who doesn’t love crumble?

You can of course jazz crumbles up no end with fancy flavour combinations, pear and chocolate chip, spring instantly to mind, not something my mother or grandmother would ever have eaten together in a crumble, as traditionally crumbles were purely fruit based. I decided to stick with a good old fashioned crumble and top mine with a simple butter, sugar and flour mixture. I added a few buckwheat flakes (in place of my mothers usual oats) and a pinch of cinnamon, a spice always welcomed by any fruit.

It took around 10 minutes to put together, meaning in only half an hour I was happily tucking into a taste of home and childhood. Soft, juicy fruit complimented by the toasted buttery crumbs…bliss.

If you like to add some ‘sauce’ to your crumble, it must be custard. There is no room for debate on this – keep that cream and ice cream away from me! It’s either custard or nothing at all. I had my first portion of crumble au-natural, as I couldn’t wait to make custard! As it’s just me eating this, there was a portion left, and I made the effort to make some custard for that bit. I'm not sure which way I prefer.

Plum & Apple Crumble

Fruit

300g Victoria plums

200g Discovery apples

1 tbsp water

3 tsp caster sugar

Crumble Topping

20g butter

20g brown rice flour

10g fine ground cornmeal or ground almonds (not cornflour)

20g buckwheat flakes (or GF oats)

15g caster sugar

½ tsp cinnamon

2 tsp almond liqueur (or 2 drops almond extract)

Method

Preheat the oven to 190C.

Peel and core the apples and cut into 2cm chunks. Remove the stones from the plums and slices into quarters or eights depending on size. Place the apple into a pan with the water and heat gently until the apples are just beginning to soften. Add the plums and sugar and cook for only 3-4 minutes, until the fruit is just beginning to go soft and fluffy as the edges. You don’t want complete mush!

Transfer the fruit to a deep 6 inch round ovenproof dish and set aside.

For the crumble, place the butter and all the other ingredients, expect the almond liqueur, into a small bowl and rub together using the tips of your fingers. Lift your fingers up above the bowl as your rub the mixture together, letting the crumble mix fall back into the bowl, just like when making pastry. It doesn’t have to be completely fine, a few largish lumps are good.

Add the almond liqueur or extract and mix again briefly.

Scatter the crumble topping over the surface of the fruit. Place the dish on a baking tray to catch any juices that may bubble over.

Bake in the oven for 18-20 minutes, until lightly golden brown and bubbling around the edges.

Allow to sit for 5 minutes before serving.

Serves 2

Blueberry & Nectarine Yoghurt Cake

I love this time of year, when the fruit is in season, ripe and ready to be picked. It’s soft, sweet, juicy and actually has some flavour! I’ve been getting my fruit from the local market in Sheffield. It’s great as they usually have some of what’s in season. They always have bananas, apples and oranges, but things like peaches, plums and berries change with the seasons. Buying from markets not only offers variety but is usually a lot cheaper than supermarkets. On my first weekend here I picked up 10 huge plums for only £1 – yes 10! Some were a little over ripe and others a bit battered but it’s a natural product and once the squished ones are baked/stewed and munched with my morning cereal, no one would know the difference.

Last weekend I came away with bags of nectarines and a little box of blueberries and was determined to use some of them in a cake. During the week I’d also picked up a huge pot of natural yoghurt and so decided to make a yoghurt cake. I’ve not made these very often, but on the few occasions I have they have always produced lovely moist cakes. As dry cakes can be a bit of a problem when baking gluten free, I’m annoyed at myself for not thinking of it sooner, especially as it produced such a wonderfully moist cake. Oh well, at least I know now!

Almonds always go so well with fruity flavours so I added some in place of some of the flour in the recipe. It probably helped make the cake extra moist and tasty too. I decided to mix the blueberries into the cake batter itself and then fan out slices of nectarine on top. This worked well as the blueberries remained hidden inside the cake, trapping in their juices, while the slices of nectarine roasted in the oven and become wonderfully sticky and intense in flavour, helped by the light scattering of brown sugar added just before baking.

The texture of the cake was great. The outside was a rich golden brown, firm and slightly chewy, while the middle crumb stayed pale and creamy with a fabulous soft and tender texture. The yoghurt adds a milky freshness and helps keep it tasting light. I loved how the bursting blueberries really stood out against the pale creamy crumb.

Recently I’ve realised I’ve gone off cakes with mounds of frosting. They are fine for birthdays, but for everyday I find them a bit too sweet. A thin glaze or a dark chocolate ganache is much more appealing. I particularly love cakes like this. They need no embellishment at all, as the fruit and yoghurt cake itself are the stars of the show.

P.S. Hurrah for The Great British Bake Off starting again. I love this programme! There is no unnecessary shouting or dramatics and it’s truly about people who love to bake. It always makes me want to dash off to the kitchen and bake whenever I sit down to watch it, plotting what I’d do in their shoes. Now they just need to make a gluten free version….

Blueberry & Nectarine Yoghurt Cake

Ingredients

150g gluten free plain flour (I used Doves Farm)

50g ground almonds
100g butter
150g caster sugar
3 eggs
200g full fat plain natural yoghurt
100g blueberries
1 nectarine

2 tsp gluten free baking powder

1 tsp vanilla extract

Nutty Sprinkle
1½ tbsp light soft brown sugar
20g blanched almonds

Method
Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease a deep 8inch springform tin and line the base with baking paper.
Using an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs on at a time, beating well between each one. Add the vanilla and yoghurt and beat again to combine. Don’t worry if it looks a little curdled at this stage.

Add the blueberries and fold them into the batter using a spatula.
Sift over the flour and baking powder, add the ground almonds and fold together, turning the bowl as you go until just combined.
Spread the batter into the tin and even out the top.

Cut the nectarine in half, remove the stone and slice into 5mm thick slices. Arrange the slices in a fan formation around the edge of the cake and place a few in the centre.

Roughly chop the almonds and scatter over the surface of the cake, followed by the brown sugar.

Bake in the oven for around 50-60 minutes, until a deep golden brown colour on top and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. It will be wet if you hit a blueberry!
Allow to cool in the tin for 15 minutes before removing from the in and allowing to cool completely before serving. Store in an airtight container.

Can also be sliced and frozen on day of baking.

Makes 1 x 8inch cake

Whole Lemon, Almond & Rosemary Cake & Some Exciting News!

Before I get to the cake, I have some exciting news. I’ve been offered a job in Sheffield and I am moving there tomorrow! I only found out on Monday so it’s been a very quick and hectic turnaround trying to get everything sorted, but I’m very excited. However, I am going to be without internet for several weeks until they can send an electrician round to connect me with a phone line, so I will be MIA from the blog for a while. See you in a few weeks! Now for some cake to celebrate!

One of my favourite go-to cake recipes for an afternoon treat is this Orange Chocolate & Almond Cake. It’s a bit of a talking point as it’s made with a whole pureed orange, skin, pith, pulp and all. This gives it an intense orange flavour and helps keep the cake moist. It’s also made with ground almonds instead of flour and contains no butter or dairy and so the end result is both gluten and dairy free, although you wouldn’t know it.

Recently I began to wonder if I couldn’t make the same recipe, using another type of fruit instead. Apple and almond is a classic combination but apples are nothing like the texture of an orange and I wasn’t sure it would work. Instead I decided to stick with citrus and try a lemon version instead.

           

Not wanting to play things too safe I also added some rosemary extract that I’d recently discovered in a deli/farm shop. I’ve now idea what the extract is intended to be used for – possibly marinating meat? – but I couldn’t resist the change to try it out in the cake recipe. Lemon and rosemary always taste delicious when paired together with potatoes, so why not in cake!? You could also use some very finely chopped fresh rosemary if you don’t have extract.

I was a little nervous/excited to see how the cake would turn out and I’m relieved to say it was delicious! The cake was quite closely textured, but not heavy or dense, as you can see from the scattering of tiny air pockets. It was soft and tender and so delicious I had to go back for a second slice. The lemon wasn’t bitter or overpowering, and if fact could possibly even have done with a bit more lemon! I loved how each slice was speckled with little shreds of lemon, so pretty.

The rosemary flavour was only faintly there. It sort of lingered in the background, letting the lemon be the star of the show before starting to creep through as you finished a slice. I might try adding a little more next time to make the flavour more pronounced.

I finished the cake with a simple lemon glaze which added a lovely lemon zing to each bite. All in all a success and I’m now plotting my next non citrus whole fruit creation. I know this concept sounds a bit strange, but do give either the orange or this lemon version a go, I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.

Whole Lemon, Almond & Rosemary Cake

Ingredients
1 large lemon, approx 140g weight

125g caster sugar

30ml extra lemon juice
3 eggs
75g ground almonds

50g brown rice flour
½ tsp gluten free baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 – 1½ tsp rosemary extract or 1 tsp very finely chopped rosemary

Lemon Glaze

3tbsp icing sugar

Juice of ½ lemon

Method
Grease a 6 inch spring form tin with oil and line the base with greaseproof paper. Preheat the oven to 180C.
Wash the lemon and place in a microwavable bowl, fill with water until the lemon is mostly covered. Loosely cover the top of the bowl with clingfilm and microwave on high for 10 minutes.
Use oven gloves to remove the bowl from the microwave and drain off the water. Cut the lemon in half, remove any pips and chop roughly.
Place the entire lemon (peel and all), in a food processor along with the sugar and extra lemon juice. Whizz to a pulp, scraping down the sides once or twice, although a few larger shreds of lemon are fine.

With the mixer running, add the eggs, one at a time, and whizz until pale and foamy.

Add the baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, rosemary, almonds and brown rice flour. Whiz together until a smooth batter is formed. There will still be a few shreds of lemon visible in the batter, which is fine.
Pour the cake mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 40 minutes. It should be slightly risen and springy to the touch.
Allow the cake to cool for 30 minutes in the tin, before releasing from the tin and leaving to cool completely.

Mix the icing sugar and lemon juice together to create a thin spreadable glaze (add a tiny amount of water if needed). Spread over the top of the cake and decorate with a sprig of fresh rosemary.

Makes 1 x 6 inch cake

Spiced Fig & Walnut Biscotti Bites

I’m not really much of a biscuit/cookie lover. Given the choice I would always choose cake over cookies, but every so often I fancy something crisp and crunchy and biscotti are always my biscuits of choice.

I usually make biscotti by shaping them into one thick log that I slice after baking. However, I was having a sort out in my room and rediscovered my éclair tin that I once used for baking little cakes in, and never again since. The rounded log shaped hollows got me wondering if it would be possible to make mini biscotti logs in each of the hollows in order to create smaller, more dainty biscotti slices. Only one way to find out!

The tin actually worked perfectly and made it very easy to shape and bake the sticky biscotti dough. The resulting logs were then easy to slice into equal sized slices which made for very cute little biscotti bites.

I had some dried figs and a few broken pieces of walnut to use up and decided to pair these together with lots of warming spices. Cinnamon is my spice of choice, but I was in an experimental mood and so used ground cardamom, cloves and a little mixed spice instead.

The spices gave a wonderful colour to the dough and made the finished biscotti smell and taste a bit like an exotic gingerbread or Christmas cake, warming, comforting but just a little bit different. The figs added a nice chew as well as sweetness and crunch from their little crunchy seeds. I liked munching on them just as they are, but I bet they would be great served with some cheese too, either as nibbles with drinks or for something a bit different to have after dinner.

If you don’t have an éclair tin I’m sure you could use a muffin tin and cut them vertically into slices instead, or just make the traditional big log shape. This recipe doesn’t make a lot of dough, so you may want to double the quantities if making traditional biscotti.

Spiced Fig & Walnut Biscotti Bites

Ingredients

1 egg

50g caster sugar

½ tsp vanilla extract

90g soft, ready to eat dried figs

40g walnuts

½ tsp ground cardamom

½ tsp mixed spice

¼ tsp ground cloves

¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda

100g gluten free plain flour (I used Doves Farm)

30g fine yellow cornmeal (not cornflour)

MethodHeat the oven to 180C. Have an éclair tin ready to hand, or else line a baking tray with silicone paper.

Beat the egg, sugar and vanilla extract together until combined, but it doesn’t want to go foamy.
Roughly chop the walnuts and dried figs into small chunks and add to the bowl along with the spices. Stir briefly.
Scatter the flour, cornmeal and bicarbonate of soda over the top and mix it all together using a spatula. It should be quite thick, soft and sticky.
Wet your hands before dividing the dough into 4 pieces and rolling each one into a log shape. Place in the hollows of the éclair tin, or place onto the lined baking tray.
Bake in the oven for 18-20 minutes until puffed and lightly golden brown.
Remove from the oven, tap the logs out the tin and place onto a chopping board. Dampen a tea towel (it should not be too wet) and drape over the top of the biscotti and leave for 5 minutes (this keeps the top soft and makes slicing easier – my own discovered tip!)
After 5 minutes, slice the biscotti into 1cm slices on the diagonal.
Arrange the slices onto a baking tray, laying them flat.
Bake in the oven for 10 minutes before flipping the slices over and baking for a further 5 minutes. Once baked, transfer the slices to a wire rack to cool.
Store in an airtight container. Keeps well for around 3 weeks!
Make great gifts, packed in little boxes or bags.
Makes around 20 mini biscotti

Rose & Rhubarb Ripple Frozen Yogurt

Last weekend I was waist high in nettles, foraging for rhubarb. There is a field near my grandmothers house which last year we discovered was abundant in wild rhubarb and so on a recent visit we set off to discover if it had appeared again this year. At first we were disappointed as we could find no signs of the tall pink stems and bushy green leaves, only a vast patch of weeds, grass and nettles. I was all for admitting defeat but my grandmother declared “it must be in there somewhere” and proceeded to stomp her way through the nettles. Sure enough, she found some young tender stalks fighting their way through the weeds to the surface.

I couldn’t let her battle alone and so I edged my way into the jungle too and soon we were plucking the shiny stalks by the armful. I only got stung three times, which if you could have seen the forest of nettles you would know was quite an achievement!

Rhubarb and strawberries are a fabulous combination and I wanted to keep things fresh and so simply stewed them gently to create a delicious fruity compote. It was so delicious I ate it for three days straight with yoghurt, porridge or cereal for breakfast. It was such a pretty colour, swirled into the yoghurt, that I decided to use the rest of the batch to create some rippled frozen yogurt.

I wanted to flavour the yogurt with something too as plain frozen yogurt can be a bit bland. I decided to add some sweet rose syrup as I think the light perfumed floral notes work really well with summer fruits. This is not the same as rose water, it is a sweet rose infused syrup that you can get in oriental supermarkets or ethnic sections in supermarkets. I got this particular one in Tesco. I think its meant to be used for making rose flavoured desserts and milky drinks but I love adding it to other things. Its such a vibrant pink colour, that it adds a gorgeous blushed pink colour to the yogurt. I also added a little Pimms, not enough to add any noticeable taste, but as I’ve read that adding a small amount of alcohol to your ice cream will help prevent it from freezing quite so solid.

Once churned, swirled and softly frozen it made for a delicious dessert. It was very light and milky, no where near as thick or creamy as ice cream but very refreshing. The yogurt maintained its slight yogurt tang, while the delicate floral flavour of the rose was there too. The rhubarb fruity mixture added a lovely flavour, although I think I would have preferred the rhubarb more broken down. I’d left it quite chunky for the compote but this meant it went a bit icy when frozen. Next time I’ll stew it for longer to get smaller strands.

Light, refreshing, fruity and delicious. The perfect summer afternoon treat. We just need the warm weather to go with it now!

Rose & Rhubarb Ripple Frozen Yogurt

Rhubarb

250g rhubarb

100g strawberries

50g blueberries

6 tbsp caster sugar

Rose Yogurt

750g low fat natural yogurt

4 tbsp sweet rose syrup (not rose water, see note below)

2 tbsp Pimms (or other fruity alcohol)

Method

Start by making the rhubarb compote. Wash and trim the rhubarb and strawberries and cut into 2cm sticks. Place into a saucepan along the with blueberries and scatter over the sugar. Leave to macerate for half an hour, which will help the fruit release its juices.

Once the juices have been released. heat gently, stirring occasionally until the fruit is soft and completely broken down. Taste and add more sugar if it’s too tart/sour for you.

Allow to cool to room temperature and then place in the fridge to use later.

Meanwhile, mix the yogurt, rose syrup and Pimms together to combine (the alcohol will help keep it from setting so solid, you can’t really taste it).

Churn in an ice cream machine until thick and softly frozen and pour into a freezeable container. If you don’t have an ice cream machine, just place the mix straight into a freezeable container and freeze for 3 hours. Take it out and give it a mix every hour to help achieve even freezing.

Once ready, pour the chilled rhubarb mixture over the top of the softly frozen yogurt and swirl it thought the yoghurt to create a ripple effect. Don’t over mix.

Return to the freezer for another 2 hours before serving.

If made far in advance, remove the yoghurt from the freezer half an hour before serving, to allow it to soften slightly.

Notes:

You can use 400g of any softly cooked soft fruits, peaches, raspberries, cherries, apricots etc

You can find bottles of rose syrup in oriental supermarkets or ethnic sections in supermarkets

Apple & Cinnamon Buns – Cookbook Review

No Meat, No Dairy, No Gluten, Just Flavour…and Goodness. This is the title of the cookery book by Wendy Horne that I was recently sent to review. Being both vegetarian and coeliac it captured my attention as it is quite rare to find a vegetarian friendly gluten free cookbook. A number of coeliacs I know also can’t tolerate dairy, so the fact this book encompassed all three was great. It is probably worth a mention thought that it’s vegetarian friendly, but not vegan friendly, as even though no dairy products are used, the recipes do contain eggs.

My first impression of the book was a little sceptical. The pictures on the front looked a bit dull and dated and inside the recipes are simply set out with no photos or pictures. However, I know it’s rather clichéd but as the saying goes ‘you should never judge a book by its cover’ as while flicking through the book I kept coming across delicious sounding dishes and have ended up with lots of tags stuck out the top for recipes I want to try. It was lovely having the pick of the entire book without the need to - ignore the chicken or work out a suitable flour substitute as I usually have to.

The recipes are split into soups, salads, main courses, terrines, potatoes, puddings & cakes and odds & ends such as chutneys. While trying to decide which recipe to make first it was a toss up between some little lentil pies or these apple & cinnamon buns. The buns won out in the end! The recipe intrigued me as:

1)      it was made entirely in a food processor

2)      it contained raw blitzed apple puree in the batter, not cooked like most recipes call and…

3)      it was apple and cinnamon – how could I resist!?

I followed the recipe to the letter, even using the requested dairy free Pure spread as I fortunately had some in the fridge after recently making a dairy free cake for a friend. The little buns contain apple in two forms. A large amount is blitzed into the cake batter and then some more finely chopped chunks are stirred in at the end. The recipe just stated ‘apple’ rather than specifying cooking or eating apples and so I decided to use a Bramley cooking apple in the blitzed up batter and a sweeter red eating apple for the little chunks. This worked well and resulted in a tart fresh tasting apple flavour to the cake while any little chunks bitten into were sweet and pleasant. I left the skin on the chunks of apple too, as the little red flecks looked pretty when you took a bite.

The cakes were incredibly light and moist and scattered with tiny air pockets throughout. The cinnamon flavour was quite pronounced which I adored and was the perfect pairing for the apple.

All the fresh pureed apple meant by the following morning the buns had come away from their cases and had developed a sticky top surface, becoming even more moist and tender, just like a good ginger cake. I had one slightly warmed with custard for pudding and it was gorgeous.

I’m sure the recipe would work well with other fruit too, maybe a firm pear and ginger combo, or fresh cranberry and orange zest…? No one would ever guess they were gluten and dairy free! I can’t wait to bake something else from the book, I think those little lentil pies are next on the list.

Apple & Cinnamon Buns

Recipe from No Meat, No Dairy, No Gluten, Just Flavour and Goodness by Wendy Horne

Ingredients

110g Pure dairy free spread

110g golden caster sugar

¼ tsp xanthan gum

175g gluten free plain flour (I used Doves Farm Plain)

2 eggs

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 tsp cream of tartar

1 tsp cinnamon

50g ground almonds

175g apple, peeled and chopped (I used Bramley)

50g apple, peeled and finely diced (I used unpeeled red eating apple)

Method

Heat the oven to 160C and line a muffin tin with 12 paper cases.

In a food processor, whiz the pure dairy free spread and sugar together until smooth.

Add half the flour and mix briefly. Add the eggs, blitz again and then add the rest of the flour, cinnamon and the xanthan gum.

Add the large amount of chopped apple and blitz until mostly broken down and only little flecks remain.

Add the almonds, bicarbonate of soda, cream of tartar and blitz to incorporate.

Add the diced apple and pulse once to combine, you don’t want to break the apple up though.

Divide the mixture between the 12 muffin cases, about 1½ tbsp of mix in each.

Bake in the oven for 20 minutes (mine took 24 minutes)

Once baked, leave to cool in the tin for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack until cold.

Makes 12

Individual Rhubarb and Ginger Cobblers

Tis the season for rhubarb! I love rhubarb. I love its pink colour, its funny name (roo-barrrrr-b), its vegetable confused fruitiness and above all its flavour.

The flavour of rhubarb is really quite unique. It’s sweet, sour and sharp all at the same time. A sort of cross between a grapefruit and a blackcurrant is that makes sense. You can cook rhubarb in a manner of ways and serve it with both sweet and savoury dishes, but my preference is always for sweet. I got some sticks of rhubarb over the weekend from someone in the village, who was selling it freshly picked from their own garden. After pondering what to do with it for a while, I decided to simply cook it and top it with a scone-like cobbler topping for a quick and tasty dessert.

I personally love my rhubarb baked in the oven so that it retains its shape, while the juices bubble away and intensify in flavour. I also like my fruit to be on the slightly sharp side of sweet. I admit it does need a little sugar, but I like to taste the fruits natural flavour first and then the sweetness to come later, rather than feel I’ve just eaten a spoonful of jam. Not everyone in my family agrees with me, my mum likes her fruit sweet and so we often disagree to the right level of sweetness, but the easiest thing to do it just to taste as you go along and adapt accordingly.

Rhubarb also pairs wonderfully with other flavours, strawberries, rose and ginger being my favourites (not all together though!) As strawberries are not in season, I went the ginger route by adding some sticky stem ginger and a little syrup to the rhubarb base and some ground ginger to the cobbler topping. This made for a lovely warming note to the pudding, with fiery little bursts of ginger heat every time I bit into a chunk of the stem ginger.

Delicious eaten hot, straight from the oven and served with lots of fresh custard!

Individual Rhubarb and Ginger Cobblers

Rhubarb
7-8 sticks of rhubarb
1 large ball of stem ginger in syrup
2-4 tbsp caster sugar (adapt to taste)
4 tsp stem ginger syrup (from jar)

Cobbler
2 tbsp white teff flour*
2 tbsp brown rice flour*
1 tbsp gram/chickpea flour*
20g butter
100ml milk
¾ tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground ginger
¼ tsp mixed spice
1 tbsp caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling

Method
Heat oven to 200C.
Wash and chop the rhubarb into 1-2cm chunks, depending of thickness. Slice the ball of stem ginger into small pieces. Place the ginger and rhubarb into a small deep baking tray and scatter over the caster sugar.
Cover the top of the tray with foil and bake for 30minutes, until soft and juicy.
Divide the cooked rhubarb between 4 ramekins and drizzle over 1 teaspoon of ginger syrup over each, along with any of the rhubarb juices.
Increase the oven temperature to 220C and make the cobbler topping.
Measure out the flours, baking powder, sugar and spices into a small bowl. Make sure your butter is soft, but not melted, and then work into the flour mixture until it resembles fine crumbs.
Add the milk, a little at a time, until you have a thick batter consistency. It should resemble a thick pancake batter and hold its shape on a spoon. It’s ok to be a bit lumpy.
Spoon a couple of heaped teaspoonfuls of the batter over the top of the rhubarb (you shouldn’t cover the top completely).
Scatter over a little extra caster sugar and bake for 12-15 minutes until firm and lightly golden in colour and the rhubarb juices are bubbling up around the edges.
Allow to cool for 3 minutes before serving.
Eat hot with cream, custard of ice cream
Makes 4

*Note: If you don’t have all these flour you can substitute it with 5tbsp of your own flour mix or use plain flour if not making GF

Zesty Red Grapefruit Cupcakes with Homemade Candied Grapefruit Zest

Last week at the market there was a vender selling five grapefruit for £1. I have recently grown quite fond of grapefruit, so naturally I couldn’t resist such a bargain. I wasn’t sure what variety they were, but they turned out to be red grapefruit – my favourite, as I find they are slightly sweeter and less acidic than the white variety. After munching through my first one I decided to bake with some of them. I’ve used grapefruit once before in baking, when making biscotti, and it was so fresh and zesty that I was keen to incorporate it again. This time I decided on cupcakes.

To make doubly sure the red grapefruit flavour came though, I used it to separately flavour four component parts of the cupcakes! Fresh zest in the cake, a red grapefruit frosting, a grapefruit syrup and some homemade candied red grapefruit zest for decoration! Grapefruit all the way!

The syrup was a by-product of making the candied grapefruit zest, which was actually surprisingly easy. It was simply a matter of simmering some fine shreds of zest in sugar syrup, before tossing them in some caster sugar and leaving them to dry. The sugar syrup the zest simmered in took on a wonderful golden colour and extremely zingy flavour from the oils released from the zest. It was so good I couldn’t resist drizzling a bit over the top of each of the cupcakes before I piped the frosting on. It also made the cakes lovely and moist. There was a bit leftover and it tasted fabulous drizzled over my porridge the following morning. I bet it would also be great with a cheesecake or other dessert.

The finished cupcakes were soft and tender and there was no mistaking the red grapefruit. It was so fresh and zingy and seemed to linger on my tongue, tingling away for about 10 minutes after I’d finished the cupcake. It helped keep the sweetness in check too. It’s much more powerful than orange or lemon and oh so fruity.

Grapefruit is rather an overlooked citrus fruit, but I urge you to give it a chance. Even if you’re not a fan of the fruit itself, try baking with the zest for a truly amazing zingy experience!

Zesty Red Grapefruit Cupcakes with Homemade Candied Grapefruit Zest

Red Grapefruit Cupcakes
130g gluten free self raising flour (I used Doves Farm blend)
130g unsalted butter
130g caster sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp gluten free baking powder
Zest of ¼ red grapefruit

Red Grapefruit Frosting
130g unsalted butter
260g icing sugar
Zest of ¼ red grapefruit
30ml milk

Candied Red Grapefruit Zest
100ml water
100g caster sugar
Long strips of finely grated zest of 1 red grapefruit
50g extra caster sugar

Method - Candied Red Grapefruit Zest

Begin by making the candied grapefruit zest, as this needs time to dry.
Heat the water and 100g caster sugar together in a small pan, until the sugar has dissolved and bring to a simmer.
Take thin shreds off the outside of the grapefruit using a zester, rather than a grater, to create longer strips.
Place the zest in the hot sugar syrup and simmer for 20 minutes then remove from the heat.
Scatter the extra caster sugar onto a plate and use a fork to remove the zest from the syrup and place onto the sugar. Scatter more sugar on top and toss until well coated. Divide out so the zest is not all clumped together and leave to cool/set.
Pour the excess syrup into a jar and store in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.

Red Grapefruit Cupcakes
Preheat oven to 170C and line a muffin tin with 12 paper cases.
Make sure the butter is very soft. Place all the ingredients and eggs into a bowl. Beat with an electric mixer until smooth and fluffy.
Use the large ice cream scoop or tablespoon to divide the batter equally into each cupcake liner, filling quite full. Smooth out using a teaspoon.
Bake for 20 minutes, until lightly golden and springy to the touch.
Allow to cool in the tin for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. Drizzle over 1teaspoon of the saved grapefruit syrup onto the top of each cupcake. Leave to cool completely.
Meanwhile, make the frosting.

Red Grapefruit Frosting
Make sure you butter is at room temperature, or else heat it gently in the microwave until soft, but not melted. Beat together with the grapefruit zest, using an electric mixer until smooth and creamy.
Switch to a spatula and add half the icing sugar and mix until incorporated.
Add the milk, beating until smooth, followed by the rest of the icing sugar.
Beat again with the electric mixer until light and fluffy.
Place the frosting into a piping bag fitted with a spiked edged nozzle. Pipe onto the top of the cupcakes in lots of little peaks.
Top with a few shreds of the candied grapefruit zest and serve.
Makes 12 cupcakes