Coeliac Awareness Week - Yummy Gluten Free Garlic Bread.

It is Coeliac Awareness Week this week, so I thought I would share my super easy gluten free garlic bread recipe. Warm, soft and buttery on the inside with a slight crunch on the outside. I must admit I used to be very lazy and just buy garlic bread and put it in the oven to heat it up. When I found out I was gluten intolerant I couldn't do that anymore. So I had to take matters into my own hands and make my own! I don't make my own bread, I have tried a couple times and once the 'bread' is cooled I could defend my home against an intruder with it, it is that hard and dense. I have found that gluten free ciabatta or regular gluten free rolls work brilliantly though. So this is how I make my garlic butter. 

I don't ever really measure this recipe because it is so easy to make yummy. This is what you need:

1 knob of butter
6-7 cloves of garlic (I like my garlic butter strong, reduce this amount if you want)
3-4 tablespoons of olive oil
1/4 teaspoon of dried parsley
1/4 teaspoon of dried tarragon

Put the butter in a cup in a bowl of hot water (so the butter starts to melt). Peel the garlic cloves and grind them into a smooth paste in a pestle and mortar, you could just chop the cloves up small if you don't have a pestle and mortar. Put the garlic paste in with the butter and add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. Stir this until the butter has nearly melted and add the dried parsley and tarragon. Then add the rest of the olive oil. You want the garlic butter thick but pourable. All you need to do now is to slice into some rolls, you want to leave one edge uncut so the slices don't fall apart and spoon the garlic butter down every cut you have made. Put them on a baking tray in an oven heated to 200 degrees C for about 5 minutes, until the crust of the bread has just started to toast. 

Hope you enjoy <3

Much Love

xkx

Gluten Free Rhubarb Bread & Butter Pud.

I had some Yorkshire forced Rhubarb kicking about in the fridge and it needed to be used up before it went over so i decided that it was pudding time. I chopped up the rhubarb and stewed it with a little sloe gin. Next I added some fresh grated ginger and raisons, then just let it simmer quietly and cook down so the rhubarb turned into a thick syrupy mess. I tasted it and added 1 tablespoon of Demerara sugar just to sweeten it up a touch. 

After I had made my rhubarb compote I had a forage around the kitchen cupboards to try and figure out what to make. I decided to make a quick custard, this was actually pretty easy, I have tried to make custard in the past and have stuck to recipes religiously but all I have ended up with is weird, eggy lump broth. So this time I took a deep breath, cracked an egg and whisked it with a couple of tablespoons of caster sugar. I whipped it until it was really frothy, whilst I was doing this I had a cups worth of milk in a small saucepan on the hob warming. When my egg and sugar mixture was frothy and the milk was just below the boil I poured the milk onto the egg gradually and whisked like crazy so it didn't curdle. I transferred it back to the small saucepan and heated it gently and kept whisking. It did threaten me with turning lumpy but I whisked like my life depended on it, no curdles for me today! After that I added a large flourish of nutmeg. 

I spooned the compote into two ramekins then tore a small slice of brown gluten free bread into each one to cover the rhubarb. When that was done I poured over the triumphantly un-lumpy custard, pushed any rogue bread so it was submerged then left it to rest for about an hour. When it was pudding time I cooked them in the oven on 180 degrees fan for about 20 minutes. 

This was super yummy, I haven't had bread and butter pudding since well before I found out I was gluten intolerant, so it felt like a real treat. I think I might try a marmalade flavour one next. I also realise I shouldn't really call it bread AND butter pudding because I didn't add butter but I can be a dessert maverick sometimes.

Hope you are having a great Saturday <3

xkx