Easy Orange Cake - egg and dairy free

Well this is a first for me. I am on blogging someone else post. Well done Anne for this recipe. Click on the link to take you to her recipe and blog. This is egg and dairy free , which all my nieces are and I am always trying to find food they can eat that is different. I also think that with lowering the oven a tiny bit and changing the oil that it might be OK for Kerryn (minus the buttercream icing)  Domesblissity: Easy Orange Cake:  

I am only linking back to the lovely Anne and her blog post

Sorbet - Annabel Langbein style

 Berry Sorbet and real fruit ice cream

Well I decided to try making Annabel Langbein's sorbet that was on her current TV programme "The Free Range Cook, Simple Pleasures". It is so much easier to make than normal sorbet where you have to make a sugar syrup. But it left it a lot grittier and the berries have little pip bits that gave it a sort of crunch. It is nice, it is super easy and also is egg, gluten, fat and dairy free. But the boys did not like it. So I also made some real fruit icecream for them. Putting them both together in the same dish worked well as the smooth icecream meant the crunchy sorbet was not overpowering.


Annabel Langbein Berry Sorbet
I did 1/2 recipe and that was a lot.
500g frozen berries into the food processor, add 1 cup castor (or superfine) sugar and 1 tablespoon of alcohol (I used creme de cassis from Barkers). Process till smooth (this took a wee while) Put in the freezer for at least two hours before serving.

My real fruit icecream
Put frozen berries into foodprocesser, add icing sugar to taste - blend. Then put in some vanilla icecream and  whizz until it is all well mixed. Yummy on the spot and refreezes well.

Frozen berries into food processor

Add icing sugar

Whizz

Whizz till smooth with icecream in it

Or just eat it as it is.

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Super Easy Rhubarb Dessert

This dessert is sooo simple and easy. Tasty tasty and healthy. Egg, Dairy, Gluten, Fat free (fantastic for you Kerryn).

Take 500g rhubarb stalks and wash and cut them to the length of the container you are going to bake them in.

Lay them in rows (putting the little bits in the bottom so they can't be seen

Grate on the zest of two oranges

Squeeze the juice from the oranges onto the rhubarb

Add 5 teaspoons of honey (I have used the honey from the hives of our friend Dirk)

Put into the oven at 180oC for 20-30 minutes until the stalks seem soft to touch. Turn oven off and allow to cool. Serve as is - Gorgeous

If you want you can make some nut brittle and sprinkle on top. Or this is gorgeous for breakfast with some homemade muesli sprinked on and a bit of Greek Yogurt (so long as you can eat dairy!)

Spicy Fruit Bagels

The finished bagel

The boys and I watched "Rachel Allen Bake" on the weekend and she did bagels. When the boys were little I used to make spicy fruit bagels quite a lot as they liked them toasted with homemade jam on them for breakfast.

Why is it that we forget some of the great things we used to do? So all inspired today I thought I would do bagels for afternoon tea. I think I over rose them a bit - they really puffed up when boiling. I forgot how easy they are when you have a breadmaker. The boys are scoffing through them as I write this.

The dough

My recipe has no dairy, no saturated fat at all (great for you Kerryn - hot with some homemade jam on them) no egg (I specifically do not egg wash them so that they can be no egg.) Though if you do egg wash them they do go glossy and lovely on top.

Boiling the bagels.

Baking and a busy day

Dairy, Egg and Gluten free rice bubble biscuits

Well today first thing I made rice bubble biscuit. This needed to be gluten free and dairy free, as Mieke is intolerant of both. So I adapted the recipe to suit. I have no idea when I first got this recipe or from who as it has been around since before I was a child.

Rice bubble cake
4 Cups Rice bubbles (make sure they are a brand that are gluten free - I used Kelloggs) into a big bowl.
then into a pot put
1 1/2 Tablespoons honey

I love ginger gems

3 1/2 oz diary free spread - i used Olivio as it is made from olive oil (watch out as some still have dairy in them)
4 Tablespoons sugar
melt all together and then bubble at low heat stirring until the colour darkens and the mixture thickens. Pour into rice bubbles, mix together quickly as it sets fast. Put into a lined tin, press down firmly with wet hands and cut. (it is very hard to cut it once it is set). I keep it in the fridge until eaten.

Then we went outside and Eli mowed the lawn for the first time ever! Wow at 7years old. He was dead keen and did an amazing job. So Aaron dug all the compost out and we put it all around the garden. I weeded all the strawberries and pottered like that. The weather was gorgeous but then it went very strange and blew and rained. So inside we came and I made some old fashioned Ginger Gems. I just used the recipe from the Edmonds Cookbook. After a lovely afternoon tea Mieke and Alex came to stay for the night. So all is on!!! Aaron has both the kids on his knee reading to them at the moment. I have dinner ready, Mieke has had two pieces of her rice bubble cake and the boys are watching Chip and Dale.

Aaron loves having babies in the house

The kids watching Chip and Dale