Minty Broad Bean & Ricotta Bruschetta

Every few weeks my sister and I like to get together for lunch, to catch up on each others latest news. Sometimes we meet at a restaurant, but more often than not we meet up and cook something together, which is exactly what we did last weekend. We have a few rules for such occasions:

1)      The food must be something neither of us has made before

2)      It must be vegetarian

3)      It must be gluten free

With a little recipe hunting, this is not actually as difficult as it sounds. We sent a few emails back and forth, discussing ideas, but in the end it was a simple dish by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall that won. Some of you may remember he did a River Cottage Veg series on TV a few months back, where he lived and cooked only vegetarian food for the summer. I absolutely adored the series, and a dish that really stood out to me was his broad bean bruschetta.

We ended up making a few tweaks to his recipe, but the essence of it was Hugh’s. We didn’t have enough broad beans and so substituted some peas, used extra mint in the puree and added some fresh lemon juice and zest to the mix, which I think always goes wonderfully with fresh mint and peas. Oh, and obviously we served in on toasted gluten free pitta and ciabatta bread.

The results were absolutely delicious! Considering how simple the ingredients and method is, the flavours and textures at the end were fabulous. The broad beans were soft and creamy, while the peas stayed a little chunky, giving it a nice texture. The dollops of ricotta on top were milky and fresh, while the mint and lemon were the perfect summery seasonings. I really don’t use mint often enough. So good, we both agreed it’s definitely one we’ll make again.

It would be delicious to take along on a picnic too, sealed in little pots with some breads or crisps for dipping. Thanks Hugh!

Minty Broad Bean & Ricotta Bruschetta

(Recipe adapted from River Cottage Veg Every Day)

Ingredients

1 x 300g tin broad beans (200g drained weight)

75g thawed frozen peas

15g butter

1 clove garlic

1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

1 tsp fresh lemon zest

8 fresh mint leaves (approx)

Salt and pepper

60g ricotta, feta or goats cheese

To Serve

Toasted GF pitta or ciabatta bread

Method

Drain the broad beans and remove their outer skins. Place into a bowl along with the thawed peas. Mash roughly using a potato masher.

Melt the butter in a small frying pan, finely chop the garlic and add to the pan. Fry gently until the garlic is just beginning to colour, you don’t want it brown though!

Add the butter and garlic to the bean mixture and mash well to create a chunky puree. (The peas won’t break down much, but this is fine.)

Finely chop the mint and add most of it to the bean mix, reserving a little for garnish. Stir in the lemon juice, zest and season with salt and pepper. (Add a little olive oil if you thick it’s too dry)

Lightly toast your pitta bread or ciabatta and place onto warm plates.

Pile the minty bean puree on top of the hot bread and dot on a few spoonfuls of ricotta or crumble over some goats cheese or feta. Scatter over the reserved mint and a final squeeze of lemon juice.

Serve with a colourful side salad and enjoy!

Serves 2

Go Gluten Free! The Roundup

Today is the second day of Coeliac Awareness Week which this year runs 14th–20th May 2012. For the past few days I have run an event, challenging people to bake/cook and blog about a recipe they adapted in some way to make it gluten free. The entry deadline was last night and so here is the roundup of the tasty submissions.

I kicked off the event with some Gluten Free Sour Cream Scones. Perfect for afternoon tea.

Quick off the mark was Chef Annie from Annie’s Supper Club. A fellow coeliac who I had the pleasure of meeting a few months back. She’s provided us with a delicious recipe for Gluten Free Waffles – perfect for sweet or savoury toppings. Here Annie has topped hers with three cheeses, crispy spicy chorizo and some sautéed cherry tomatoes – wow!

Next up was Choclette from Chocolate Log Blog with her Brown Butter & Choc Chip Friands. These tasty little cakes are made using ground almonds instead of flour for a moist and tender cake, you’d never know they were gluten free. Love the idea of using browned butter too – must try!

Another recipe from me, a GF version of Minni’s Chocolate Pie. The infamous pie from the book/film ‘The Help’ Chocolaty, sticky and decedent, everything you’d want in a pie. Made with crisp gluten free pastry.

Nipping in at the last minute we have this gorgeous looking Banana and Coffee Cake from Nic of Cherrapeno. I love the idea of pairing coffee and banana together (and some chocolate chips!) Nic shows that subsisting wheat flour with gluten free flours can produce delicious cakes. Looks wonderful moist – save me a slice!

As Coeliac Awareness Week is going on all week, why not try eating one day completely gluten free and seeing how you could adapt your diet or try ordering a gluten free meal off a restaurant menu or simply looking at the everyday foods you take for granted and seeing where gluten can sneak in.

Thank you to everyone who took part or gave support in some way. I hope you’ll try out a few of the recipes and see that missing gluten doesn’t mean missing out!

Minny’s Chocolate Pie - Gluten Free Version

Several months back I went to the cinema to see ‘The Help’ The film adaption of Kathryn Stockett book by the same name. It’s set in Jackson, Mississippi in 1962 and is about the struggle of black maids raising the children of rich white families. One of the maids, Minny, is a wonderful cook and becomes well know for her special chocolate pie. The pie features quite heavily in the story (I won’t give the plot away) but a lot of the characters went crazy over it and I came away wondering what it tasted like. A short while later I was doing some background research into the story itself and happened to come across a recipe for ‘Minny’s Chocolate Pie’ submitted to a magazine by the home economist who made the actual pies for the film! I had the actually recipe and would get to taste the pie after all – hurrah!

Somehow it got added to my ‘to bake’ list and then I forgot about it for several months, until I rediscovered it again last week and decided it was high time I baked myself a Chocolate Pie.

The pie itself was very easy to adapt to being gluten free as the filling contained no flour at all, so it was simply a matter of making my own GF pastry. I was delighted about this as the chocolate pie filling is essentially the essence of the pie and so I was thrilled I’d get to taste it in its true form, without the need for any substitutions.

The filling contains evaporated milk, which you can find it tins next to the long life milk. Regular milk or condensed milk is NOT the same and can’t be substituted. Surprisingly enough for a chocolate pie, it contains no actually chocolate and instead gets its flavour from cocoa powder. I was initially a little sceptical of this – how good could a chocolate pie be made with no actual chocolate? Well, let me say this is by far the BEST chocolate pie I have ever tasted. Actually, it’s the best of any kind of pie I’ve ever tasted. It’s truly amazing!

The filling is unlike nothing I’ve quite experienced before. Its soft and satin smooth, but also rich, sticky and ever so slightly chewy. You know the wonderful sticky layer in the bottom of a treacle tart or pecan pie, well it’s that sort of texture and stickiness, only in rich chocolate form. Utterly divine!

It’s not too sweet and stays fabulously soft and jiggly even a couple of days after baking. It also didn’t seep or make the pastry go soggy, all in all was the perfect pie. Adorn each slice with a little swirl of lightly whipped cream and its forks at the ready! Seriously, you MUST bake this pie – after that first bite you’ll understand just how good it is!

Don’t forget to submit your entries to my Go Gluten Free! event, in the run up to Coeliac awareness week.

Minny’s Chocolate Pie - Gluten Free Version

(Recipe adapted from Food & Wine magazine)

Sweet Gluten Free Pastry – my own

220g gluten free plain flour (I used Doves Farm)

100g soft butter

30g icing sugar

½ tsp xanthan gum

1 egg

2-3 tbsp cold water

Chocolate Pie Filling

335g caster sugar (I used 260g)

40g cocoa powder

60g butter

2 eggs

180ml evaporated milk (not regular milk or condensed milk)

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

¼ tsp salt

Method – Pastry

Mix the flour, sugar and the xanthan gum together in a bowl to combine.
Make sure you butter is soft, if not blast it in the microwave for a few seconds. Add to the flour along with the egg and 1 tablespoon of water. Beat with a spoon or spatula to form a dough. (Yes I know this goes against all traditional pastry making!)

Switch to your hands to bring the mixture together at the end. Add a little more water if necessary. Knead the dough gently for 30seconds to ensure everything is well combined. Use straight away or wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate until required.

Makes enough for one 8-9inch pie

Method – Pie Filling

Preheat the oven to 180C. Place a large baking tray into the oven to heat up.

Roll out your pastry between two sheets of clingfilm until 2-3mm thick and large enough to fit your pie dish.

Remove the top layer of clingfilm and flip the pastry into the pie dish and ease it into the sides. Use the clingfilm to help you, and then remove it.

Roll any overhanging pastry up under the lip of the dish and then use your fingers to crimp the edges in a decorative design.

Prick the pastry lightly with a fork and place on the preheated baking tray (this will help brown the base) Bake for 18minutes until lightly golden and set (see note below).

Meanwhile, melt the butter in a mixing bowl and add the rest of the filling ingredients. Whisk until smooth and no lumps remain.

Pour the filling into the pie shell and bake for about 40-45 minutes (not on the baking tray). The filling should develop a thin top crust but still wobble when lightly shaken.

Remove from the oven and transfer the pie to a cooling rack. Leave to cool completely for 3-4 hours before serving.

Serve with lightly whipped cream

Makes 1 x 9inch pie

The pie will keep for 3 days and can be made a day in advance

Note: If you use regular pastry, then fill the pastry with baking beans or rice to blind bake it during the initial baking stage

Go Gluten Free! Event & Gluten Free Sour Cream Scones

I’ve decided to host my first Event and I want you all to help!

As my regular readers will know, just over a year ago I was diagnosed with coeliac disease. Coeliac disease affects around 1 in 100 people and is an autoimmune disease that causes the body’s immune system to wrongly attack itself when it comes into contact with gluten. This damages the lining of the intestines, resulting in illness and poor absorption of food and nutrients. There is no cure, but thankfully if you follow a gluten free diet your body goes back to being healthy and happy again.

Being coeliac means you have to avoid all products containing gluten including wheat, rye, barley, oats and its by-products including bread, cakes, semolina, cous cous, soy sauce, malt, beer, pasta, breakfast cereals, some crisps/chocolates/sauces and liquorice etc…

For a girl who loved to bake and classed bread and breakfast cereal in her top 5 favourite foods you can imagine this meant quite a drastic change of lifestyle. However, after a bit on tinkering in the kitchen I soon learnt that missing gluten doesn’t have to mean on missing out on delicious meals or treats.

To help raise awareness of coeliac disease, each year Coeliac UK hold a Coeliac Awareness Week which this year runs 14th–20th May 2012. To do my part to help spread acceptance and understanding of the condition I’ve decided to host my first event, which I'd love you all to help me with – Go Gluten Free!

To take part in Go Gluten Free!

* Bake/cook a recipe that you have adapted in some way to make it Gluten Free
* Blog about it before 14th May
* Include a link back to this post along with the event logo (A little blurb about coeliac disease would be great too – you can use the top 2 paragraphs to the post)
* Email it to me, along with your name, blog name, recipe name, recipe URL and a small photo of the dish.
* Email Katie at (appleandspice[AT]hotmail.co.uk) with ‘Go Gluten Free!’ in the subject box
* Open world wide. Entries must be in by midnight on 14th May 2012

I will then make a roundup, after 14th so everyone can enjoy a whole host of delicious GF recipes just in time for awareness week! Try making your favourite lasagne using GF pasta, bake a cake, brownies or cookies using ground almonds or a bag of GF flour. It can be sweet or savoury, the only thing I ask is that it be something that is not naturally GF. So don’t send in a bowl of veg soup, but a bowl of veg soup with some homemade GF bread would be great!

I really hope you’ll join me in helping raise awareness and proving to people that going gluten free doesn’t have to mean going without! To get things started, here is my own version of a delicious afternoon tea treat – gluten free scones!

Gluten Free Sour Cream Scones
(These are soft and tender on the inside, just like a good scone should be)

Ingredients
200g gluten free self raising flour (Doves Farm brand)
40g cold butter
20g caster sugar
½ tsp xanthan gum
1tsp gluten free baking powder
75ml sour cream
90ml milk

Method

Heat oven to 220C. Lightly dust a baking tray with a little gluten free flour and set aside.
Mix the milk and sour cream together and set aside.
Chop the butter into tiny cubes. Measure out the flour, baking powder, sugar and xanthan gum and add to the butter. Rub the butter into the flour mixture using the tips of your fingers, lifting your hands up above the bowl and letting the mixture fall back as you rub it together. It’s done when the mixture resembles a crumble/breadcrumb mixture.
Pour most of the milk/cream over the crumbs and mix together in a folding motion using a butter knife.
When starting to form a dough, switch to your hands and bring the mixture together into a ball. Add a little more milk if needed. Knead gently for about 5 seconds.
Scatter the work surface with a little flour and pat out the dough using the palm of your hand, until around an inch thick.
Cut out rounds using a 2inch/5cm cutter. Press down firmly when cutting the scones out and don’t twist at all or else they won’t rise straight.
Place the scones onto the baking tray and brush the tops with any leftover milk mixture. Don’t let the milk drip down the side of the scones.
Bake for 12 minutes until lightly golden and risen.
Eat straight away with jam and cream.
Best eaten within a few hours of baking (not a problem in my household)
Makes 8 scones

Birthday Black Bean Chocolate Cake with Coconut Meringue Frosting & Passion Fruit Curd

It was my birthday on Tuesday and I turned 25. Yikes, I feel like I’m getting old! I still remember turning 16 and feeling that was so grown up, but that was now nearly 10 years ago – scary!

I had been thinking through various different cake options to bake for my birthday and had almost settled on a carrot cake concoction, when I saw a recipe for black bean chocolate cake that just grabbed my attention completely and blew all other cake options out the water. I’d heard of black bean brownies, but never seen them used in a cake before. The cake looked so rich and decadent and was naturally gluten free as the beans replaced all the flour! I had found my birthday cake!

I had the cake layers for my birthday cake but still needed to decide on what to pair with it – chocolate, coffee, peanut butter, vanilla, caramel, cherries…I then remembered I had a jar of passion fruit curd sitting in the cupboard that my aunt had bought back from France for me. The idea of the sharp fruity passion fruit against the chocolate cake really appealed to me. Staying on the tropical theme I decided to make a simple meringue frosting, flavoured and decorated with coconut to give it twist.

Half way through making the beany cake layers I was a little unsure how they would turn out. After blitzing the beans with the eggs and sugar it smelt distinctly savoury and earthy and not at all like a sweet chocolate cake. I decided to press on anyway and by the end of the mixing process a delicious rich chocolate fluffy batter had been created that resembled soft chocolate mousse. It looked much more appealing and the raw batter tasted wonderful, no hint of beans!

Once baked, cooled and assembled I was really pleased with how the cake turned out. I loved the contrast between the dark cake and the snow white frosting. The flavours were also wonderfully contrasting. Rich chocolate cake, sharp and tangy passion fruit curd and then super sweet coconut meringue.

The cake was dense in texture, but deliciously moist. A cross between a brownie and flourless chocolate cake. I didn’t tell anyone what the secret ingredient was and tried to make them guess. No one did until I started giving them huge hints, but everyone agreed it was delicious. I’ll certainly make the cake layers again, maybe pairing them with raspberries or cherries next time, or a bitter coffee ganache for an extra indulgent adult dessert!

You may well be sceptical about adding beans to your cake, but give it a go and I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.

Black Bean Chocolate Cake with Coconut Meringue Frosting & Passion Fruit Curd
Recipe adapted from Chocolate and Carrots blog

Black Bean Chocolate Cake
1 400g can black beans (240g drained weight)
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
60g butter
155g caster sugar
40g cocoa powder
1 tsp gluten free baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

Coconut Meringue Frosting
1 egg white
100g caster sugar
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp coconut extract
25ml water (or coconut water)

To Assemble
2 tbsp passion fruit curd (or any other curd of your choice)
2 tbsp desiccated coconut

Black Bean Chocolate Cake

Preheat the oven to 175C. Grease and line the base of two 6 inch round cake tins.
Drain and rinse the black beans under running water. Place into a food processor along with 2 eggs, vanilla and the sugar. Blitz until well combined and the beans are broken down. Scrape down the sides once or twice if necessary. There will be a few tiny bits of bean skin visible, but this is fine.
Make sure your butter is soft, and then blitz into the bean mixture, followed by the two eggs. It will split, but don’t worry.
In a small bowl combine the cocoa powder, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda. Add to the bean mixture and blitz again to incorporate. It should turn wonderfully chocolaty, thick and mousse-like in consistency.
Divide the batter between the cake tins and bake for 25-35 minutes. They will be risen and springy to the touch.
Allow to cool for 5 minutes in the tins, by which time they will relax and sink down to form an even layer. Turn out onto a cooling rack and leave to cool completely.

Coconut Meringue Frosting

Heat a pan filled with about 2 inches of water over a low heat, until it just comes to a simmer. Lightly whisk all the ingredients, expect the coconut extract together in a large heatproof bowl. Place the bowl over the top of the saucepan (it shouldn’t touch the water) and whisk continuously until the mixture reaches 160F/75C on a sugar thermometer. It should have turned white by this stage.
Remove the bowl from the heat and whisk the mixture vigorously with an electric mixer until thick, glossy and tripled in volume. It should feel cool to the touch and will take 4-5 minutes.
Whisk in the coconut extract.
Use immediately, as it will harden if left.

To Assemble
Place one cake layer on a serving place and spread over the passion fruit curd. Blob on some of the meringue frosting and spread out into an even layer.
Top with the second cake layer and use the rest of the frosting to ice the top of the cake.
Toast the desiccated coconut in a dry frying pan until lightly golden and then scatter over the top of the cake to decorate.
Leave to set for 30minutes before serving.
Best eaten within 2 days, after which the meringue frosting starts to break down.
Makes 1 x 6inch cake

Montezuma’s Monkey Bars – Review

Montezuma’s is a family owned British chocolate company. They have recently launched 5 new ‘Monkey Bars’ to celebrate the best of British and the upcoming Royal Jubilee and Olympics. These Monkey Bars are not your typical bars of chocolate.

To start with, their packaging is decorated with iconic images of Britain/London, such as London taxis, The Houses of Parliament, Welsh Dragon and The London Eye. Montezuma’s has also had a bit of fun with the names, using the eccentric English Cockney rhyming slang to give each of the 5 bars its own unique name! Adam & Eve (Believe), Airs & Graces (Races), Daisy Roots (Boots), Nanny Goat (Boat) and Shake & Shiver (River). Hehe.

Imagine my surprise and delight when I recently opened the door to be presented with a package from Montezuma’s, containing two of their new Monkey Bars to try! I had no idea they were coming and so it was a lovely surprise. What was even more of a surprise was the whopping size of the bars. These are not your average 100g bars of chocolate – oh no. Each bar weights half a kilo – 500g of thick chocolate and it’s larger than an iPad – I couldn’t ‘adam and eve my apple pies’ (believe my eyes)!

The bar is formed into squares just like a regular bar of chocolate, only each square is incredibly thick and weighs an impressive 33g! That’s about a third of a standard bar in each square! Yikes!

Just look at the size difference! I was sent Nanny Goat (milk chocolate with salted peanuts and butterscotch) and Shake & Shiver (Dark chocolate with peppermint and cocoa nibs).

My chocolate preference is always for dark chocolate and so I loved Shake & Shiver. The dark chocolate was of a good quality, rich and slightly bitter thanks to the little nibs of coco bean scattered throughout. The peppermint flavour was apparent, but not overpowering or unnatural tasting. I also liked how the slight crunch came from the cocoa nibs rather than lumps of sugar. So many companies seem to put sugar crystals into mint chocolate and I can’t stand crunching down on a raw lump of sugar, so bonus points to Montezuma’s. The perfect bar to bring out after dinner when you want something ‘minty’

The Nanny Goat bar unfortunately contained ‘wheat syrup’ which after a discussion with the Montezuma’s team I was advised not to eat, which was a shame, but the rest of my family were more than happy to taste (devour) the bar on my behalf. I am told the chocolate was ‘creamy with a good flavour’ and found it had a much higher cocoa content than most standard milk chocolates. The tasters also thought ‘the mix of salty nuts and sweet butterscotch really went well together’

Thank you Montezuma’s for making me smile with unexpected chocolate goodies. The bars would certainly be ‘Robin Hood’ (good) at friend and family gatherings. You could try eating a whole bar yourself, but you’d probably want to do a few runs up the ‘apple and pears’ (stairs) afterwards!

Click to see more examples of Cockney rhyming slang words

The Cake Slice April 2012: Cinnamon Swirl Buttermilk Bundt Pound Cake

This months cake was a simple yet delicious Bundt cake. I was pleased about this as sometimes I just fancy a nice slice of cake, delicately flavoured and not piled high with mountains of icing. This was a simple pound cake, lightly flavoured with spices with just a hint of orange zest, and a middle layer of cinnamon and cardamom spiced streusel crumbs.

Although my Bundt cake didn’t come out of the pan cleanly – it broke in the middle where all the yummy streusel crumbs were (I blame it being gluten free which made it more delicate to handle) - it was undoubtedly delicious.

In the original recipe the cake contained a little orange and cardamom, while the streusel contained cinnamon. As I adore spices I used both cardamom and cinnamon in the cake and streusel, which made for a lovely spice combination. The spices were still quite subtle as only ¼ teaspoon is used of each. I was pleasantly surprised how well the orange zest came though, as it was only a tiny amount, and how well it complimented the spices. It ended up giving the cake quite a Middle Eastern flavour.

The cake was also very soft and moist with quite a close textured crumb, thanks to the buttermilk. I didn’t need a big cake this month and so only made half the recipe and baked it in a slightly smaller Bundt pan. I was disappointed the top part of my cake got stuck in the pan, making for a slightly ‘crumbling castle’ look of a cake, but the taste more than made up for its appearance. Note to self, always grease your Bundt tin thoroughly!

My favourite part was the spiced streusel layer, but it was a wonderful cake all round. I think I might try baking it in a traditional round cake tin next time, and maybe adding an extra layer of the streusel crumbs on top. Yum!

Click here to see the blogroll to see how my fellow Cake Slice Bakers cakes turned out

Cinnamon Swirl Buttermilk Bundt Pound Cake
(Recipe adapted from The Cake Book by Tish Boyle)

Spiced Streusel
60g gluten free plain flour
70g light soft brown sugar
¼ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp cardamom
40g butter

Buttermilk Pound Cake
290g gluten free plain flour
225g butter
1 tsp gluten free baking powder
1 tsp xanthan gum
¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp cardamom
400g caster sugar
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp finely grated orange zest
240ml buttermilk

Method – Streusel
In a small bowl, mix together the flour, sugar and spices. Melt the butter and pour over the flour. Mix together with a small spoon until you create small clumps of crumble-like topping. Set aside for later.

Method – Cake
Heat the oven to 170C. Thoroughly grease and flour a 10inch Bundt pan.
Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, xanthan gum, salt and spices into a bowl and set aside.
In another bowl, beat the butter until soft and creamy. Gradually add in the sugar, continuing to beat until well combined. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well. Mix in the vanilla and orange zest.
Add a third of flour mixture, followed by half the buttermilk. Repeat the process until you have used all the flour and buttermilk, mixing well between each addition.
Spread half of the batter into the Bundt pan and smooth out. Scatter over the cinnamon streusel crumbs and top with remaining cake batter.
Bake for 65-75 minutes, until light and springy to the touch and a skewer inserted comes out clean.
Allow to cool in the pan for 15 minutes, before flipping over the removing from the tin.
Allow to cool completely before dusting with icing sugar and serving.

Note: I halved this recipe and baked it in a 6½ inch Bundt pan for 55 minutes

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