Gluten Free Sugar Cookies

For Valentine’s Day this year, I made decorated sugar cookies for the first time in a couple of years.  I wanted to make my cookies gluten free to share them with others, so I used this recipe.

I love how gluten free recipes have really stepped up in recent years. Once, there was a compromise on flavour or texture, or the need to use loads of different flours. Now, provided that you have a good gluten free flour mix and xantham gum, both of which are now readily available in supermarkets, the sky is the limit, and you can’t tell the difference between the gluten free versions and their glutinous counterparts.

 I used royal icing to decorate the cookies. Because I was worried about running out of icing, I outlined the cookies first and them flooded them, so the outlining dried and didn’t blend with the flooding. They are still pretty though, I think, and were appreciated by those I shared them with.

If you are looking for a good gluten free sugar cookie recipe, I can recommend the one that i used, linked to above.

TWD - Carrot Muffins

This week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Carrot Muffins. These are not your average muffins in that there is quote a number of steps and ingredients that you probably don’t need to make muffins. That said, these muffins are delicious.

 I subbed date syrup for pomegranate molasses (because I had the former but not the latter), and for the dried fruit component, I used cranberries.

I recommend using your food processor if you have one to grate the carrots, because it saves an awful lot of time.

These muffins are attractive to look at and nice and moist to eat. They taste good, undoubtedly. However, they are a little fussier to make than your average muffins, so do bear that in mind if you decide to make them.

To see everyone’s bakes this week, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

Bara Brith

For St David’s Day, the Welsh National Day, I made Nigella’s Bara Brith recipe. You can find it online here.

 You can mix up the flavours of the Bara Brith by using different dried fruits and different flavoured teas to soak the fruit in. While currants are a must, I went non-traditional with the rest of the fruit, using cranberries and dates. This was of necessity to use what I had rather than by design, but it turned out well.

You can butter the slices of Bara Brith as Nigella suggests, but I served it without, like any fruit cake.

Slow Cooker Beef Stew

 Ok, I know this photo doesn’t exactly look appetising, but it’s a photo of what was a truly delicious meal.

The meal is Slow Cooker Beef Stew, made from this recipe on the BBC website.

Onions, garlic and celery are fried up with carrots, bay, thyme, Worcestershire sauce, tomato paste and water.  

The stewing steak is browned and added with the vegetable mix to the slow cooker, then two beef stock cubes are crumbled on top, and everything is seasoned with salt and pepper. I also added frozen peas.

The slow cooker then does its work (8-10 hours on low or 4 hours on high). 

If you want to thicken the sauce, two tablespoons of cornflour made into a paste with water are added to the slow cooker and is left to cook for another half an hour.

Once cooked, the stew is served on mashed potato.

This stew has a deep, rich flavour and is very satisfying. And of course, the slow cooker makes it very low maintenance cooking.

If you like stew, then I recommend giving this recipe a go.

TWD - Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies, Parisian Style

This week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies, Parisian Style.

These cookies are heavy on the peanuts - peanut butter, peanut praline spread, chopped peanuts, peanut praline sprinkles, and in my case, Reeses pieces in place of chocolate chips. Go big or go home, I say.
 

These cookies are big but delicious. I’d make them again but maybe take the shortcut Biscoff spread option and leave out the peanut praline.

To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

TWD - Swedish Fika Cake

 This week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Swedish Fika Cake. It’s a buttery cake topped with a caramel-almond mixture that is designed to be enjoyed with coffee or tea for a morning or afternoon break.

All I can say about this cake is yum!! Caramel + almonds + buttery cake is my idea of delicious.

Do yourself a favour if you can and make this cake!

To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.

TWD - Potato-Parm Tart

This week’s Tuesday with Dorie recipe is Potato-Parm Tart.  This involves making a savoury galette dough, rolling it out flat, putting a cream-cheese-milk-parmesan mixture on top, then arranging thin slices of red potato (and in my case, apple) on the cheese mixture, with more parmesan and thyme. The base is pre-baked, and then baked again to cook the topping. 

This tart was delicious- I would definitely make it again. It was a little time consuming to make  with its various steps, but not difficult.

To see what everyone else made this week and what they thought of it, visit the LYL section of the TWD website.