Chocolate & Cherry Mud Fudge Brownies (GF)

It is the last day of National Chocolate Week today and I was determined to bake a chocolate recipe to celebrate. These chocolate brownies are incredibly chocolaty – just the thing! I found the recipe online and believe it originally came from Gourmet magazine, however, I have put my own stamp on it by adapting it to be gluten free and to include some cherry brandy soaked dried cherries for extra indulgence.

It was the photo of the brownies that drew me to the recipe, they looked so moist and squishy that I couldn’t resist trying them out. The brownies were called Chocolate Crack Brownies, which I assume means they are so addictive they are like drugs! I admit that the resulting brownies were insanely good but I have renamed them Mud Fudge Brownies which I think sounds much more inviting. They are soft, squishy, fudgy and intensely chocolaty with that just-cooked tenderness of a chocolate mud cake all encased under a delicate crisp sugar topping.

I was a little worried that making them gluten free would result in a drier brownie as gluten free flours have a tendency to absorb the excess moisture out of foods but brownies are actually one of the best baked goods to make gluten free as the proportion of flour called for is usually very low compared to the vast amounts of butter and chocolate, meaning soft and tender brownies are almost guaranteed. Just look at the slice – so good!

I decided to add some dried Morello cherries to the batter as I love the combination of cherries and chocolate together and I found a small snack pack of them lurking near the back of the cupboard. They were a little too dried to add straight in, but a short soak in some cherry brandy plumped them back up and added a fantastic fruit boozy hit every time you unexpectedly bit into one.

Using a good quality, high cocoa content dark chocolate is what makes these brownies so satisfyingly chocolaty. I used a 70% Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference dark chocolate which was described as having ‘fruity red berry notes.’ I was generously sent a free sample to try after the re-launch of the Taste the Difference range (along with a hazelnut Swiss milk chocolate, also delicious) and was pleasantly surprised at how well it seemed to enhance the flavour of the brownies.

So whether you are making the brownies gluten free or not, I urge you to give them a go and bet you won’t be able to stop at just one!

Chocolate & Cherry Mud Fudge Brownies (GF)

Ingredients
135g butter
135g 70% dark chocolate
240g caster sugar
½ tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp salt
3 eggs
50g gluten free flour (mix of rice, potato & tapioca flours)
OR 50g plain flour
20g cocoa powder
30g dried Morello cherries
1 tbsp cherry brandy

Method
Pour the cherry brandy over the dried cherries, cover with clingfilm and leave for 3-4 hours to plump up.
Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease a 7-8inch square baking tin and line the base with baking paper.
Gently melt the butter and chocolate together in a pan set over a low heat, stirring occasionally. Once melted, remove from the heat and beat in the vanilla, salt and sugar (it will go grainy – but this is normal)
Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until well incorporated. The mix should go thick, glossy and smooth.
Scatter over the flour and cocoa powder and mix until combined. Finally, beat in the soaked cherries and any remaining liquid.
Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 25 minutes. They will look slightly puffed with a dry sugary topping and be soft and moist underneath (not raw or molten though!)
Allow to cool in the tin for at least an hour before turning out and slicing. Delicious eaten at any temperature and with anything!

Gluten Free Apple & Blackberry Buckwheat Crumble

I want to start by thanking everyone for all their kind comments and words of encouragement during the past week. All the blogs, recipes, hints and tips you have given me will be enough to keep me busy in the kitchen for a very long time and I’ve got lots of new ideas and ingredients to experiment with.

A couple of nights ago a good friend of mine invited me and a group of our friends round for dinner. We all get together about once a month for an informal dinner and chat which is a great way of keeping up to date with everyone’s latest news. This was going to be the first time I had seen any of them since being diagnosed as coeliac and I was a little unsure how they would take it. The meal had been planned for some time I felt rather bad about having to phone the host up and explain I wouldn’t be able to eat the pasta dish she was planning. However, she was really supportive and didn’t mind in the slightest and quickly changed the menu to a delicious vegetable curry with rice. As a thank you I told her I’d bring a dessert choice.

We had a small pile of cooking apples sitting on the counter from my grandmothers garden as well as some late blackberries so an apple and blackberry themed dessert was the obvious choice. I decided to turn them into a crumble as I felt sure I would be able to make a suitable crumble topping using my new range of gluten free flours. I decided to use primarily buckwheat (my new favourite) as I thought its natural sweetness and nutty flavour would go well with the fruit and a little potato and rice flour for their crumbliness. I also added some ground almonds for flavour and to help mask any strange flavours that I thought the flours might produce – I’m happy to say there were no strange flavours.

I decided to puree the blackberries and use just their juice in the base of the crumble, rather than add the whole berries. I love the flavour and colour blackberries give but I know some people don’t enjoy their seeds so I though this would be a good compromise. I also stewed most of the apple beforehand and then stirred through some raw apple at the end for texture. The blackberry puree bubbled up through the apple during cooking and dyed all the fruit a gorgeous bright shade of purple which made it look so inviting when you broke through the golden crumble topping.

I’m please to say that everyone loved the crumble and said if they hadn’t been told, they wouldn’t have known it was gluten free – hurrah! If you really thought about it there was a slightly sandy texture from the rice flour but when mixed with the fruit this was not noticeable. In fact I enjoyed it so much that I used the rest of the fruit to make another crumble the following day which I enjoyed with my family after Sunday dinner last night.

Gluten Free Apple & Blackberry Buckwheat Crumble

Ingredients
450g cooking apples
150g eating apples
150g blackberries
50g caster sugar

Buckwheat Crumble
100g buckwheat flour
30g potato flour
20g rice or maize flour
40g ground almonds
70g butter
50g caster sugar
1 tbsp water

Method – Crumble Topping

Measure out the flours, ground almonds and sugar into a bowl. Cut the butter into small cubes, add to the flour and rub it through the flour using the tips of your fingers. Lift the flour up as you rub the butter in, letting it fall back into the bowl. Continue until you have no large lumps of butter left and the mix resembles fine bread crumbs. Sprinkle over the water and squeeze the mix together so you get a few bigger clumps. Set aside for later.

Fruit

Preheat the oven to 190C.
Peel, core and roughly dice the cooking apples. Place into a large pan, cover the base of the pan with 1cm of water and heat until the mixture begins to bubble. Allow to simmer for 15-20 minutes until the apple is mushy and soft. Peel, core and roughly dice the eating apple and stir through the stewed apple. Set aside.
Meanwhile, place the blackberries into a separate small pan and add enough water to cover the base of the pan. Bring to a simmer and cook for 5 minutes until the berries are beginning to break down and release their juices. Remove from the heat and transfer the blackberries into a sieve set over a small bowl to catch the juices. Crush the blackberries with the back of a spoon, pressing all the juice through the sieve and into the bowl below. Continue until you have only the seeds left behind. Discard these.

Assemble
Pour the blackberry puree into the base of a pie or pudding dish. Spoon the apple mixture over the top and scatter over the crumble topping.
Bake in the preheated oven (190C) for 25-30 minutes until the top is golden in colour and crisp.
Allow to cool for 10-15 minutes before serving. The blackberry puree should have bubbled up through the apple and stained it all a gorgeous shade of purple.
Serve with custard, cream or ice cream if desired. Also tastes great cold.

A Dramatic Change of Lifestyle: Getting to the Grain of the Problem

I have some news so share with you all. At the end of September 2010 I was diagnosed with Coeliac disease. When I was told I was completely flabbergasted – I think I almost laughed in disbelief and my first words were ‘Oh my word!’ Then my brain started to kick in with what this meant – no wheat flours, no bread, cereals, pasta or cakes. My second thought that flashed through my mind was ‘but… I was planning a trip to Paris to eat my way around all the patisseries!’ Hmm guess that’s out the window.

However, despite feeling a little overwhelmed I also felt incredibly thankful. For the past year I have been loosing weight for no apparent reason with the last 9 months resulting in quite a dramatic and alarming weight loss. At first I was not too bothered and put it down to stress of finishing uni and searching for work but when it got to the stage where friends and family began making comments and I got dangerously thin I became very scared. I went to the Dr’s and had a range of blood tests done for various things – thyroid, diabetes and they all came back normal. I was told just to try and eat more. I had already tried this myself and so my mum had helped me to devise some high calorie meals, I was eating enormous breakfasts, cooked meals at lunchtimes and I knew I already ate plenty of cakes, bread and desserts (just look at my blog contents) – but still the weight was falling off.

The person who I feel has suffered the most through all this was my mum. She had the worry over seeing me loose weight while trying to fend off comments from people insisting to her that I was anorexic and why didn’t she do something about it. I felt like screaming at them all – I eat people – it’s not my fault!!

In the end I sought out our old family doctor and within minutes of seeing me he suggested I be tested for coeliac disease. Having done a 4 year food & nutrition degree at university I was well aware of this disease but had discounted it as a possibility as I didn’t fit all the symptoms – sure I had a fair few of them, bloating after eating, stomach cramps, weight loss and fatigue, but I had accepted this as being just the way I am. I hadn’t been sick or suffered chronic abdominal pain (turns out the disease can present itself in three different ways). However, I was just so greatful he was taking me seriously and so went off to get tested, if not a little skeptically. So when I went to get my results I was astounded to be told it had come back positive, but also immensely greatful and relieved that finally there was an explanation and something that could be done about it. I also felt a little foolish I hadn’t picked it up myself. It just goes to show we all suffer with the delusion of ‘it won’t happen to me.’ You get tested for coeliac disease with a blood test which is usually followed by a biopsy of the gut. They test the blood to see if you have any antibodies, know as TGI’s that try and attack foods containing gluten. These in turn damage the lining of the gut which stops you absorbing all the nutrients from foods – hence the weight loss. A normal person can register between 0-6, my reading was over 120 – yikes!! I guess that’s pretty positive then!

After a brief moment of panic I am actually feeling very positive and even a little excited by the prospect of a gluten free diet. Yes I am going to miss some foods terribly, especially sourdough and rye breads, breakfast cereals and cakes – some of my all time favourite foods – and the t.v. seemed to suddenly be full of baking programmes or adverts for bread which is just cruel… but I also feel lucky that I have such a great interest in food and knowledge gained from my uni course. I am actually looking forward to experimenting with recipes and finding out about new flours and ingredients – I already know and love buckwheat scones and pancakes and have used maize meal to make vegetable fritters but it’s the others – tapioca starch, rice flour, gram flour and the exotic sounding xantham gum which have me daunted.

It’s going to take ages to go food shopping now, reading all the ingredients lists. Aside from the obvious ones, wheat, rye, barley, couscous, semolina, bulgar, spelt and malt, manufacturers seem to have a knack for hiding gluten in the most unlikeliest of foods – soy sauce (made from fermented wheat), rusks in sausages (vegetarian ones too), thickers in soups, sauces and stews, coatings on potato wedges, malt vinegar in chutneys and dressings, its even hidden in some chocolates and ice creams and in the coating added to the skin of fruit to make it shiny.

This of course means that some gluten free recipes will probably start to creep into the blog too. It’s almost ironic that a blog dedicated to cakes, breads and desserts turn out to be the foods I’m not allowed to eat. I am not going to stop baking some ‘normal’ cakes and desserts for my family as they can still enjoy eating them and I still enjoy making them and seeing them devoured, but I have no doubt that future Daring Bakers challenges or The Cake Slice cakes might often make appearances as gluten free varieties. I have a few backdated recipes to post about but after this if things get a little quiet in the next few weeks I hope you’ll bear with me. I already have a great gluten free cake recipe but if anyone’s got any T&T recipes for breads, breakfast ideas, pastry or crackers etc I’d love to hear from you. My first attempt at bread has turned out with a crumb rather like a gummy wallpaper paste. Thankfully I’m not a lover of fluffy white breads, but I had to toast it to make it edible. I get the feeling I’m going to need all the hints and tips I can get.

I know its going to be hard and I’m sure at some point in the next few weeks it will truly hit me what this diagnosis means but for now with the wonderful support from my family I’m just focused on dealing with it and getting back to being healthy again. I’ve only been gluten free for a week and already I’m starting to feel a bit better in myself which is a great incentive to carry on.

If anyone wants any more info the Coeliac UK website is a great place to start.