Cherry Brandy & Chocolate Surprise Cheesecake

Do you ever have some days or weeks where you are craving a certain food or flavour and you just can’t get it out of your head? Last weekend for me that was cheesecake. I just had a craving for it that wouldn’t go away. Normally my dessert of choice is something cakey or spongy, but last weekend I wanted rich, creamy indulgent cheesecake!

Being coeliac sadly means I can’t pop down the shops for a quick cheesecake fix, but have to make one myself. However this has its advantages. Not only do I love baking, but baking it yourself allows you the freedom to be as simple or wacky as you want with the flavours, plus at the end you end up with an entire cheesecake to devour, rather than a single slice wahhhha!

As I went cream cheese hunting I instead discovered a different sort of soft cheese called Quark. This cheese is almost like a cross between cream cheese and ricotta and feeling adventurous I decided t use it as the base for my cheesecake. This proved to be a very good idea as the Quark was thicker and creamier than normal cream cheese, which I’ve found can sometimes go a little runny when I’ve baked with it in the past. Like ricotta, the Quark is made with strained milk, meaning it’s a lot healthier than cream cheese too, all the more reason for a bigger slice!

I had a jar of Morello cherries in syrup that I had been wandering what to do with and so decided to make a cherry studded cheesecake. Cherry Brandy flavoured ice lollies used to be one of my favorites. I’d buy them from the ice cream van outside school and feel ever so grown up as it had ‘brandy’ in the title (can you still get these?) I decided to soak the cherries overnight in Brandy to give them a bit of more a kick.

Chocolate always goes well with cherries and so I made a chocolate biscuit base for my cheesecake, which also added a nice colour contrast. While preparing my cheesecake I suddenly decided to create a hidden middle layer of chocolate cheesecake, encased in the cherry cheesecake. This created a fun surprise when the cheesecake was sliced, as from the outside all you could see was the pale cherry. Chocolate and cherry are also a fabulous flavour pairing.

As I still had some cherry juice leftover I made a quick cherry jelly using a little of the agar agar powder I have been experimenting with recently. This finished the cheesecake off nicely and gave it a wonderfully glossy mirror top.

I was really pleased with my finished cheesecake and it certainly satisfied my cheesecake cravings. Morello cherries steeped in brandy, a hidden chocolate layer, a rich chocolate base and a glossy cherry glaze and combined into a velvety smooth and creamy cheesecake. What’s everyone else been craving recently?

Cherry Brandy & Chocolate Surprise Cheesecake

For the cherries

100g drained, pitted Morello cherries in syrup (reserve the syrup)

40ml Brandy

For the base

90g gluten free shortbread or digestive style biscuits

50g butter

20g caster sugar

10g cocoa powder

For the cheesecake

400g Quark or soft cream cheese

100g caster sugar

2 eggs

10g cornflour

50g dark chocolate

For the cherry jelly

130ml cherry syrup reserved from earlier

20g caster sugar

½ tsp agar agar powder

Method

The day before, remove the cherries from their syrup, cut them in half and place into a small bowl. Pour over the brandy, stir and cover with clingfilm. Set aside for 6 hours, or preferably overnight to allow the cherries to steep and absorb the flavour of the brandy.

The following day, line a 6inch/15cm deep springform tin with baking parchment. Wrap the base and sides of the tin with a large sheet of foil, you want it cover the whole base and up and sides of the tin in one piece. Repeat so you have two layers of foil wrapped around the outside of your tin.

For the base, blitz the gluten free biscuits in a food processor until they resemble fine crumbs. Add the sugar and cocoa powder and blitz again briefly.

Melt the butter, pour it over the cocoa crumbs and pulse briefly until and crumbs resemble damp sand.

Tip the biscuit mix into the base of your lined tin and press down into an even layer. Place the tin in the fridge to chill while you prefer the filling.

Preheat the oven to 175C.

For the filling, beat the Quark or cream cheese until smooth. Add the eggs and sugar and beat again until well combined.

Now remove one-third of this mixture and place it into a separate bowl. Melt the chocolate and add this to the removed third of the cheese mixture, stirring it together until well combined. Set aside.

Sift the cornflour over the remaining two-thirds of mix. Then pour the soaked cherries and their brandy liquid into the cream mixture and fold in to incorporate. It will turn a light pink colour and be quite runny, this is fine.

Pour half of the cherry cheesecake mixture over the chilled biscuit base, spreading it into an even layer.

Place small spoonfuls of the chocolate cheesecake mix over the top of the cherry cheesecake until it is all used us. Gently try and smooth the chocolate cheesecake into an even layer, but don’t worry too much about making it perfect.

Then pour the remaining cherry cheesecake mix on top, covering the chocolate filling inside. Tap the cheesecake on the counter 2-3 times to remove any trapped air.

Place the foil wrapped tin into a larger deep baking tray.

Fill the tray with boiling water so that it reaches halfway up the sides of the cheesecake tin.

Carefully transfer this to the 175C preheated oven to bake for 50-60minutes. The cheesecake should be set around the edge but still a little wobbly in the centre when gently shaken.

Once baked, quickly remove the cheesecake tin from the water bath and return it to the switched off, but still warm oven. Leave the oven door ajar and leave the cheesecake to cool down gradually for 45-60 minutes.

For the jelly, start this once your cheesecake has been cooling in the oven.

Add another 130ml of cherry juice to a small pan along with the sugar and agar agar. Heat gently, stirring until the sugar has dissolved.

Bring the mixture to the boil for 15 seconds, then remove from the heat and allow to cool for 3 minutes.

Remove your partially cooled cheesecake from the oven and carefully pour the hot cherry glaze over the top. It must still be hot, or else it will have set into a solid.

Carefully transfer the cheesecake to the fridge and allow to chill for at least 4-6 hours before serving.

Makes 1 x 6inch/15cm cheesecake

Devnaa Indian Sweets Tiffin Box: A Review

Now, this may look like a fancy box of chocolates – but don’t be fooled. These are not just your ordinary box of truffles and caramels, oh no. These are so much more indulgent and exciting than that!

Devnaa is a relatively new company who make gourmet boxes of sweet Indian treats, specially developed to represent the infamous tiffin boxes of India, used to transport food. They also make Indian inspired bars and drinking chocolates too. The box itself looks very artisan, but lift the lid, peel back the paper and the most intricate box of beautifully decorate chocolates are revealed. However, these are not actually ‘chocolates’ as we known them, but a range of specially designed and delicately spiced classic Indian sweets, which have been enrobed in chocolate and beautifully decorated.

Bite into one of these and you won’t find ganche or salted caramel, instead your get to experience a pistachio barfi delicately flavoured with cardamom and rosewater and encased in dark chocolate and finished with chopped pistachios. Or, how about a coconut barfi enrobed in milk chocolate or one of the other fabulous combinations including vanilla, saffron, orange, strawberry and chai!

I’m not much of a chocolate lover – shocking I know. On the odd occasion I have been given a box I usually eat one or two and then put them in a cupboard and forget about them. Not so with these divine creations. I was so excited when I opened the box that I ate two just after breakfast. I just couldn’t resist trying them immediately.

My first choice was Cinnamon Chai. A signature chai blend of cinnamon, cardamom, ginger and close infused barfi which is enrobed in milk chocolate. Wow, it was divine. You could taste all the spices, the cardamom in particular, but nothing too strongly overpowered anything else. The spices were delicate and fragrant and worked so well with the coating of smooth milk chocolate. The barfi itself had a creamy, yet slightly crumbly texture and wasn’t overly sweet, which let the spices really shine through.

I couldn’t resist trying another one and selected the Velvety Vanilla. A Madagascan vanilla barfi with hints of saffron and cardamom, covered in white chocolate. This was fabulous too. Again I loved the cardamom flavour and how you could see speckles of it throughout the barfi. The saffron flavour was subtle but still noticeable and also gave a light golden hue to the barfi. So good, I sat there in my PJ’s grinning over my box of Indian treats.

All the barfi sweets were amazing and I’d much, much, much sooner be presented with a beautiful box of these than a box of regular chocolates (even the expensive ones). I adored their soft melt-in-the-mouth texture, how the spices were delicate and yet still shone through, how the centres were made from delicious barfi rather than chocolate or truffle based and the presentation is stunning. Plus, this particular box (Signature Indian Sweets Collection) is entirely gluten free! (although some of their other Inidan Sweet boxes do contain gluten so ask before buying).

So friends and family take note, next time its my birthday, Christmas or you are just feeling generous…keep your chocolates and jewelry, I’ll have a box of these please! I might even let you try one too.

Buffalo Milk, Honey & Almond Gelato

Recently I was having a discussion with a friend about buffalo milk. They were raving about its thick creamy taste and texture and couldn’t believe I had never tasted it. The next time I saw them they bought me a gift – a carton of buffalo milk. I was slightly unsure how it would taste. Buffalo are big hairy animals and I could image their milk tasting quite unusual and strongly flavoured, a bit like goats milk. However, on drinking a glass I couldn’t believe how fresh and clean it tasted. No goaty or animal taste to it at all. It was clean, rich and unbelievably creamy.

The milk was so indulgent and creamy that I decided to use the rest of it to make some buffalo milk gelato. Gelato is similar to ice cream, only its lighter as it’s made with a milk base, rather than cream.

I wanted the creaminess to be the star, so decided to flavour the gelato only lightly with honey and some chopped almonds. My idea was based on my love of creamy thick Greek yoghurt with honey and almonds, which always tastes lovely and fresh. The honey also added sweetness without having to use sugar.

After churning in an ice cream maker, the gelato had retained the buffalo milks freshness and richness. It was naturally not as thick or full on creamy as ice cream, but it was very refreshing. I found it also tended to melt a lot more quickly than ice cream, I suppose because it doesn’t have so much butter fat or any eggs compared to ice cream to help stabilise it.

The honey flavour was subtle but went very well with the freshness of the gelato. The almonds added a nice crunch too.

Has anyone else tried buffalo milk? I have recently discovered it in Waitrose if anyone wants to try some for themselves. Also, does anyone know why its called buffalo milk/cheese when (to my understanding, I may be wrong!) buffalo are the males and it’s actually bufala, the females who produce the milk? In Italy there is a cheese called Mozzarella di Bufala, which in 1993 was grated DOC status and in 2008 was awarded Protected Geographical Status. Maybe this means no one else can now call it Bufala?

Buffalo Milk, Honey & Almond Gelato

Ingredients

700ml buffalo milk

250ml full fat milk

100g honey

35g almonds, skin on

½ tsp vanilla extract

Method
Set your ice cream to freeze*Mix all the ingredients together, making sure your milk is well chilled first.
Pour this mixture into your ice cream maker and churn according to manufactures instructions. It should be thick and softly set when done after about 45 minutes.
Transfer the ice cream to a large container and place in the freezer to stiffen up for about 30-60 minutes.
Scoop your ice cream into serving bowls, drizzle over a little honey and a few chopped almonds.

Eat and enjoy in the sunshine (if it ever reappears!)
Makes 1 litre ice cream

Note* If you don’t have an ice cream maker, simply pour the ice cream mix into a plastic container and place in the freezer. Take it out every half and hour and give it a bit of a whisk to ensure an even freezing, until you’ve reached your desired consistency.

Deconstructed Pavlova – Buttermilk Panna Cotta, Mini Meringues & Textures of Strawberry

I have recently been reading about a vegetarian gelatine alternative called agar agar, which is derived from boiling several kinds of seaweed together. It’s dried and sold in powder form, flakes or bars and has similar properties to gelatine, in that it can set things into a gel or jelly.

I was intrigued and ordered some of the powder form online to have a play. As the weather was bright and sunny, I decided to try and replicate a recipe for buttermilk panna cotta, using the agar in place of the gelatine. Using buttermilk rather than cream appealed to me as it sounded lighter and fresher than regular panna cottas.

Seeing the first English strawberries starting to appear in the shops, I couldn’t resist buying a large punnet of them. I decided to pair them with the buttermilk panna cotta in order to create a light and summery dessert. As I was in an experimental mood and had set aside a whole day to play with my new agar ager, I decided to have some fun and use the strawberries in three different ways. Some I kept fresh and whole, others I sliced thinly and dehydrated until crisp and the rest I pureed, mixed with some agar and set the mixture into a jelly, which I then cut out small dots/circles of to decorate the plate. Strawberry 3 ways!

Thinking through the dessert I decided I needed to add some chew or crunch element to compliment the other softer textures. Mini piped meringues seemed a good idea and I was struck with how my dessert now resembled a deconstructed pavlova.

I was a little anxious my buttermilk panna cotta wouldn’t set, as I wasn’t sure how to much to use. As it turns out I actually used far too much, as my panna cotta was more like a firm jelly, than a softly set cream. It still tasted nice, but wasn’t the texture I hoped for.

I have decided not to give any recipes for the dessert, as although I was happy with the presentation and the flavours, I felt the textures of both the panna cotta and meringues could have been improved. The panna cotta was much too firm and the meringues were more chewy than crisp.

The flavours were lovely when eaten together. The buttermilk panna cotta was fresh, and only lightly sweet, the strawberry elements had ripe fruity flavours that actually tasted like strawberries and the meringues had a lovely crisp outer crust and very very chewy interior.

I tried really hard with the presentation and was happy with how the dish looked. It just needs some tweaking to perfect the recipes. I need to read up about how to correctly substitute powdered agar agar for gelatine.

Anyone else got experience of working with agar agar?

Roasted Butternut Squash Houmous

I love houmous and its one of my household staples that appear in my fridge at least 2-3 times a month. You can get some really tasty and interesting houmous varieties in the shops these days, but recently I have found I also enjoy making it myself.

Having recently bought some of the new Warburtons gluten free tortilla style wraps to try, I wanted some houmous to eat them with. As I had some butternut squash languishing in the fridge from making my butternut and ginger soup I decided to roast it and then blitz it into some homemade houmous to add a bit of interest.

Butternut squash is one of those fabulous vegetables – well tubers really, that go fabulously sweet and soft after a little roasting in the oven. You’d never think that something so tough and hard to slice could be transformed into something so soft and almost creamy, in just a few minutes. The vibrant golden orange colour helps add a little sunshine to whatever it’s served with too.

I had a jar of garlic chutney in the fridge too, so used some of that in place of the standard freshly grated garlic. This gave it more of a subtle sweet garlic flavour rather than the harsher raw garlic hit, but either works well. I also added a squeeze of lemon juice as I’ve found this really seems to enhance the flavours in houmous.

The resulting houmous was soft with an almost creamy mouthfeel from the velvety roasted squash, which also gave it a delicious natural sweetness. Although creamy in the mouth, the houmous itself was still a little on the coarse side which I like, as it adds texture and interest. I also left it quick thick so that it would be easier to spread on wraps and in sandwiches, but you can always make it thinner if you want to use it as a dip instead.

I loved the rich orange roasted colour it produced. Even though I usually associate roasted veg with winter, this seemed very fresh and summery. I served mine with an assortment of salads and olives, along with strips of the gluten free tortilla wrap. I then had fun making up little handheld wraps, almost soft taco style, using the houmous as the base. Delicious

Roasted Butternut Squash Houmous

Ingredients

300g butternut squash

400g tin chickpeas

1 tbsp roasted garlic puree/chutney (or 1 clove garlic grated)

2 tbsp olive oil

½ tbsp lemon juice

Method

Preheat the oven to 200C. Line a baking tray with foil.

Cut the butternut squash into 1cm thick slices and lay them out on the baking tray, leaving the skin on. Brush with half a tablespoon of oil and roast for 25-30 minutes until softened and just starting to take on some colour.

Once roasted, remove from the oven and set aside to cool.

Place the chickpeas, 1 tbsp of water from their tin and the remaining 1½ tablespoons of olive oil into a food processor and blitz to create a chunky paste. Scrape down the sides once or twice during the process.

Add some roasted garlic puree/chutney, or grate in 1 clove of fresh garlic and a pinch of salt and pepper.

Peel the skin off your roasted and cooled butternut squash using your fingers, it should come away easily.

Briefly mash the butternut into a mush and add to the blitzed chickpeas along with the lemon juice. Blitz again until well combined and the mixture is as smooth or chunky as you desire. (You can add a little more oil or a drop of water if it is too thick)

Spoon into an airtight container and store in the fridge until required.

Delicious served with crudités, on jacket potatoes, salads, wraps with crackers or in sandwiches etc.

Makes around 800g (you can freeze some in a Tupperware container if you don’t think you will eat it all straight away)

Nutty Cinnamon Sultana Crumb Cake

I first made this cake a few years ago in my pre-coeliac days. I have fond memories of it being one of my favourite cakes I’ve ever baked. I have recently been longing to recreate it, but part of me was worried it either wouldn’t live up to my expectations, or else wouldn’t replicate so well in gluten free form.

This weekend I decided to do some therapeutic cake baking, and wanted something tasty and yet not piled high with mountains of frosting (I’ve really gone off buttercream frosting recently). My thoughts drifted back to this cake and I decided to bite the bullet and bake it.

 

The original cake calls for a much bigger pan, so I started my halving the quantities. I then used a combination of different gluten free flours and added some xanthan gum to held bind it all together. Tapioca starch is a recent discovery of mine and it adds a great chewy moistness to baked products, you only need a little though. It wouldn’t be suitable to use all tapioca starch.

I also substituted the milk with buttermilk, which like yoghurt, I find adds a lovely moistness and tenderness to the crumb. I also increased the quantity of the buttermilk, as gluten free flours are quite starchy and tend to absorb more liquid. The final substitution I made was to swop the raisins for sultanas.

The cake comprises of a thick vanilla cake mix layered with cinnamon sugar, melted butter, sultanas and chopped pecans. A second layer of cake mix is added before the cake is topped off with more of the nutty cinnamon. The cake batter itself turned out quite stiff, almost like a very soft scone mixture, but still light and airy. At first there didn’t look enough to cover the middle layer, but it puffed up and rose nicely in the oven.

 

Half an hour later I removed the cake from the oven. The top had turned into a crisp sugary cinnamon surface, studded with the sultanas and now-lightly-toasted pecans. It smelt divine and I had to prevent myself from sticking my fork straight in. I managed to resist temptation and left it to cool in the tin while I went and did my weekly shop.

 

Upon returning, the waft of sweet spicy cinnamon and freshly baked cake hit me as soon as I opened the door and I knew it was time for a taste.

The cake was light and tender in texture but sturdy enough to hold together well on slicing. The top and sides were crisp and slightly chewy while the middle was soft and yielding to the fork. The sultanas gave a wonderful chew and the nuts were…nutty thanks for their toasting in the oven. The cake batter itself is not that sweet, the main sweetness coming from the generous layers of cinnamon sugar both inside and out. I think using buttermilk in the batter was good too, as its natural acidity and tang helped combat some of the sweetness, preventing the finished cake from being overly sweet.

 

The texture had a slight chew to it, almost like it was a yeasted cake. It took me a while to realise what it reminded me of – a cinnamon roll! This cake is like a cinnamon roll in cake form – that same soft yet sturdy texture to the crumb. Delicious.

This cake was a little different in texture, but just as tempting tasty as I remember. I love how it has two distinct layers of the cinnamon, nuts and fruit, rather than everything being mixed together. I really enjoy having lots of different textures in a cake, and this one didn’t disappoint. A mix of tender cake, chewy raisins, toasted nuts and a generous sprinkling of cinnamon sugar which turns crisp and caramelised during baking. I might just go and have another slice…just to neaten off the edges.

Nutty Cinnamon Sultana Crumb Cake

(Recipe loosely based from Southern Cakes by Nancie McDermott)
Cake
90g white rice flour

50g brown rice flour

30g tapioca starch/flour
2 tsp gluten free baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
165g buttermilk
100g butter, softened
70g caster sugar
1 egg

Nutty Cinnamon Sultana Filling
65g light soft brown sugar
1 tbsp white rice flour
1 tbsp cinnamon
100g sultanas
70g pecans
70g butter, melted

Method – Nutty Cinnamon Sultana Filling
Combine the light brown sugar, flour and cinnamon in a bowl and stir with a fork to mix everything well. Roughly chop the pecans and mix with the sultanas in another bowl. In a third bowl, melt the butter until liquid and set aside for use later.

Method - Cake
Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease and line an 8x8inch/20cm square pan.
In a large bowl combine the butter and sugar and beat with a mixer on high speed until pale and evenly mixed. Scrape down the bowl and add the egg and vanilla and beat until the mixture is smooth and aerated.
Combine the flour and baking powder in a separate bowl. Add about a third of the flour mixture to the butter mixture and stir with a spatula, only until the flour disappears. Add a third of the buttermilk and fold in. Repeat twice more until all the flour and buttermilk have been incorporated. Stir just enough to incorporate the ingredients.
Spread half the batter evenly into the prepared pan. Sprinkle half the cinnamon mixture over the batter and then drizzle over half the melted butter using a spoon. Scatter half the sultanas and nuts over the top.
Drop spoonfuls of the remaining batter carefully over the filling and use a spatula to smooth the batter all the way to the edges of the pan. (It will look like there isn’t enough, but it puffs up on baking). Top with the leftover cinnamon, butter and nut mixture, covering the cake evenly.
Bake for 30 minutes, until the cake is golden brown, fragrant and beginning to pull away from the edges of the pan. A skewer can have a few sticky cinnamon crumbs attached, but no raw batter.

Place the tin on a wire rack and leave the cake to cool completely in the tin before cutting into generous squares and devouring.

Store any leftovers on a plate wrapped in clingfilm or an airtight container

Makes 1 x 8inch cake

Butternut Squash & Ginger Soup

What a week it’s been, so busy and the next couple of weeks don’t look like being any different. The weather has also been pretty miserable, damp, windy and cold. Parts of the UK even had snow early this week – snow! It’s May for goodness sake!!

Hard work and cold weather make me crave warm comforting foods, rice puddings, stews and soups. Feeling a little careworn I decided to make soup to give my body an extra wholesome boost. I love making soup, I find the process almost as therapeutic and comforting as eating the soup itself. There is something calming about a gently simmering pan of savoury veg.

 

Having recently bought a large butternut squash I decided to use this as the base of the soup, replacing the usual potato as the starchy thickener. This not only gave the soup a wonderfully rich orange hue, but also an incredible smoothness and natural sweetness.

 

I considered adding some chili to the soup to make it extra warming, but decided instead to use the fresher warming kick of fresh ginger. I’ve never used fresh ginger in a soup before but the results were lovely. The ginger wasn’t immediately apparent, but it left a lingering tongue tingle and aromatic freshness after each spoonful.

 

I topped my soup with a swirl of buttermilk and used some crunchy roasted spiced chickpeas in place of croutons. They added a lovely contrast to the soup, much better than a bit of soggy bread. Wholesome, healthy and spirit lifting. A delicious soup for the soul.

Butternut Squash & Ginger Soup

Ingredients

1 large onion

2 cloves garlic

2 carrots

400g butternut squash

1 inch piece of fresh ginger

1 tbsp vegetable oil

Small knob of butter

2 pints vegetable stock (check any stock or stock cubes are gluten free)

½ tsp dried thyme

Salt and pepper to taste

Method 

Peel the onion, carrots and garlic cloves. Roughly chop the onion into chunks, it doesn’t need to be that neat as you blitz everything later.

Heat a large saucepan with the oil and butter and add the onion. Stir, put the lid on the pan and leave to sweat.

Chop the carrot and butternut squash (leave the skin on) into chunks and stir into the onion and replace the lid again.

Finely chop the garlic and fresh ginger. Stir into the veg along with the thyme and replace the lid again. Leave to cook for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile prepare you stock, ideally you want it hot so it doesn’t destroy the heat in the pan.

Once the veg is starting to soften and take on a bit of colour, pour over the vegetable stock, stir well and replace the lid, this time ajar so some of the steam can escape. Bring the mix to a boil then reduce it to a simmer and leave to cook for 25-30 minutes.

Check the butternut squash and carrots are cooked by fishing a bit out with a spoon and tasting it. If it is, remove the soup from the heat, if not, leave to cook for a further 5 minutes before testing again.

Ladle the soup into a liquidizer and blitz until smooth, you may need to do this in batches. Alternatively, use a hand blender to blitz it straight in the pan.

Return the soup to the pan and warm through if needed. Taste and add extra salt and pepper if desired.

Serve in warmed bowl and top with a swirl of buttermilk or cream. Add a few croutons or gluten free alternative. (I used roasted spiced chickpeas for a nice contrasting crunch)

Serves 4-6 depending if served as a starter or main

Coeliac Awareness Week 2013

Monday sees the start of Coeliac Awareness week in the UK. It runs from 13^th-19^th May as is all about raising knowledge, awareness and acceptability of Coeliac Disease.

As someone who was diagnosed with coeliac disease myself nearly 3 years ago, and now has to follow a strict gluten free diet, this is something close to my heart. Coeliac UK, the national charity for people with coeliac disease has organized a host of events all over the country.

Local businesses can also get involved too. Delicious Alchemy, which is based in Sheffield and makes delicious gluten free cereals, are going to be doing their bit by handing out free samples of their Purely Oaty Fruity Muesli at Sheaf Square outside Sheffield Train Station tomorrow (Monday 13^th May) from 7am-9am. Do pop down and say hello and pick up some gluten free muesli if you are in the area. Free breakfast!?

Supermarkets and restaurants too will be promoting special offers and gluten free menus during this week to show support. Silversmiths (also in Sheffield) are offering a 5 course gluten free tasting menu on Monday 13^th May. It’s where we had our office Christmas meal last year and we all enjoyed it so much that we are going down to show support on Monday too.

Even if you yourself don’t have to follow a gluten free diet, it’s highly likely you know someone who does. Why not stop and think about how you might cope with the condition. How you could adapt your meals to make them gluten free. Why not try eating gluten free one meal a day during the awareness week? Make sure to check the ingredients and allergy box advice, as gluten can sneak in in the most unlikely places. We have challenged two people in the office to eat gluten free for the whole week; it will be interesting to see how they get on.

I think the main thing is to learn to adapt recipes and make substitute to foods, not simply cut them out completely. Going gluten free doesn’t mean going without!

Click here to read more about coeliac disease and how you can get involved during awareness week.

My First Dosa at East & West Restaurant, Sheffield and a visit to Castleton

My parents came up to visit me over the bank holiday weekend for a belated birthday celebration. We spent the morning wandering round Sheffield city centre before going for lunch at East & West restaurant, followed by a walk in Castleton, afternoon tea and then back to mine for dinner. The sun was shining, the food delicious and the company couldn’t have been better. All in all a fabulous day.

East & West is a South Indian restaurant on Abbeydale road that apparently has been running for 5 years, but it has only just registered on my radar. They are famous for their dosa, which are huge, paper thin crispy pancakes made from rice and urid (lentil) flour. I have been watching Paul Hollywood’s Bread programme on tv and he did an episode on breads from different cultures, one of which was Indian dosa. I had never heard or seen a dosa before but the uniqueness of them and the fact they are naturally gluten free made me instantly long to try one for myself. I did a little googleling and discovered East & West restaurant that specialised in them. Until recently, they were in fact the only restaurant in Sheffield to offer dosa. Upon discovering this I immediately suggested to my parents we go there for lunch when they came to visit. Thankfully they too had been watching the bread programme and so were more than happy to accompany me.

The restaurant itself is tiny, with only 4 tables inside but we managed to get a table when we visited at lunch time. It’s quite a simple set up, but the aromas of food wafting out the kitchen were mouthwatering and it was clear everything was made fresh. The menu is made up of a few choices, with a variety of fillings or flavour varieties for each dish. It all seemed very authentic and included many dishes I have never even heard of before. However, we were on a dosa mission and all decided to order dosa.

While we waited for the food we were served our drinks. My father and I had mango lassi, while my mother chose mango juice. The lassi was delicious. Very thick and creamy from the yoghurt and nicely sweet without being sickly. The mango flavour was good too.

When our dosa’s arrived we were all very excited and impressed at the sheer size of them. They were longer than the trays they were served on! Dosa are cooked on a large flat griddle until crisp, when they are rolled around the filling of your choice and served with a selection of chutneys. I chose Masala Dosa, stuffed with a potato and onion curry mixture, while my parents both went for a Chicken Dosa, chicken and potato curry.

They filling is only in the very centre of the dosa, to ensure the rest of it remains crisp. You eat the dosa by breaking off pieces from an end, scooping up some of the filling and then dipping it into one of three chutneys – two were spicy and the third was like a cottage cheese. I love eating food with my fingers in this rustic fashion, and it made the process of eating really fun and interactive. The filling was only lightly spiced but two of three chutneys had quite a powerful kick that really pepped the dish up. Different flavours and levels of spice with each bite depending on the chutney chosen. It was delicious and surprisingly filling.

I found the dosa themselves quite salty, but the saltiness was calmed down when eaten with the filling and spiced chutneys. I loved how thin and crisp they were. The mango lassi was also great at calming the mouth and preventing anything from getting too hot. It was such a unique dish to me that I could quite happily go back every day for a week to eat another one. It was a very simple yet delicious lunch.

After lunch we drove to Castleton and had a quick wander round the village before trekking up to the ruins of Peveril Castle at the top of Peak Cavern (also affectionately known as The Devil’s Arse!) There is good parking at or nearby the visitors centre.

There are a couple of routes you can go to get up there, but we decided to climb up Cave Dale, which is a meandering rocky trail up an old river way, through the hills. The beginning was quite steep and rocky in parts, but the scenery was stunning. From the top it leveled out and we were treated to a spectacular view over Castleton. We then clambered back down a very steep grassy hill (the hardest part) and back round into Castleton for afternoon tea.

It was a lovely way to celebrate my belated birthday and it was so lovely to spend some time with my family again. The day was perfect, it almost felt like a little holiday and I didn’t want it to end.