Blackberry pudding

I made a pie for dinner yesterday, but after egg washing the crust, I couldn't throw the rest of the beaten egg away. I decided to try the traditional sponge recipe of weighing the egg and adding equal weights of SR flour, caster sugar and margarine. The small amount of mixture was just enough to spread over the base of my 2lb loaf tin to make a small rectangular cake.
I had some blackberries on hand, which I heated up in a pan with a few spoonfuls of sugar.
Once the blackberries were sticky and the sugar had all melted I poured them (and the syrup that was formed) into the oiled loaf tin and put the cake mix on top.
I baked it for about 20 minutes at 180c and then tipped it out while it was still hot on to a plate to cool a little.
It was delicious with vanilla ice cream.

Gluten-free and dairy-free peach cobbler

I wanted to bake a pudding last night, but there were no eggs left. I very nearly gave up on the idea, but then I remembered a peach cobbler recipe I made a while ago. It is incredibly easy to make, so I thought I'd try a gluten-free version.

Ingredients

1 cup self-raising gluten free flour blend
1 cup icing sugar
1 cup sweetened soya milk
1 tin of peach slices
4oz soya margarine

Method

Put a baking dish into the oven at 190c with the margarine in it.
While that is warming, mix the flour, sugar and milk together.
Take the baking dish out and make sure the margarine has melted and spread across the baking dish. Pour the batter slowly on top and do not mix.
Drain the peaches and place these all over the top of the batter.
Bake for about 50 minutes at 190c

Serve warm with ice cream.

Unfortunately, there was still a some partly cooked batter in the middle of the pudding. It was ok to eat, but I wasn't happy with it. The crunchy top was great, though, and Charlotte wants to make it again, so I need to sort out my quantities. I think a little less milk may be the answer.

Creamy chocolate pudding

By a convoluted route, I ended up on the website of Heavenly Treats and Treasures looking at their Chocovado pudding recipe. I make a pudding for the girls, inventively called "mango pudding" by blending together a mango and an avocado. Charlotte still loves it and she's been eating it since she was 6 months old (not just that, obviously!). It is pretty good, and most importantly dairy free but still creamy and sweet.

Well, I saw this recipe for what looked like a chocolate version of our mango pudding and had to try it out. I made it slightly differently, so I'll write the recipe out again here:

Ingredients

1 ripe avocado
1/4 cup of cocoa powder
1/8 cup of agave/maple syrup
1/8 cup sweetened soya milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup dairy free vanilla ice cream

Method

Put all the ingredients except the ice cream in a blender and blend until smooth.
This was too rich tasting for the children, so I then added the ice cream and blended again to make a smooth, cold and creamy chocolate pudding.
This went down very well with Emma, but Charlotte still prefers her mango version.
I believe it would be fantastic in an ice cream sundae with chocolate brownie pieces, maybe some chopped banana and ice cream. When I get a chance to try that out I shall get a photo before we scoff it!

Experimenting with digestive biscuits

I saw a recipe the other day (via Ree Drummond) for graham cracker chocolate chip muffins, and was intrigued. They looked absolutely delicious,  but why can't you get graham crackers in the UK? My research determined that the closest thing is a digestive biscuit, although it is thicker, but to use as crumbs would do just fine. I haven't bought sweet biscuits for a while, so was pleased to see that Sainsbury's own brand digestives were dairy-free. Hooray!

Today, I decided to make a quick pudding using some of the biscuits. It was a real store-cupboard wonder - tinned peach and digestive crumble:

Method

Drain a tin of peach slices and place in a suitably sized dish, so they easily cover the bottom.
In a bowl, crush 8 digestive biscuits and rub 1tbsp soya margarine into the crumbs.
Pour the crumbs on top and bake at 180c for about 15 - 20 minutes.

We decided that there was far too much crumble (I actually used 10 biscuits) but it was delicious with dairy-free vanilla ice-cream. It kind of reminded me of cheesecake because of the digestive biscuit crumbs.

Apple and strawberry crumble

I was pottering in the kitchen this afternoon, I had an array of items that needed using up today (and some dried fruit that needed using last month!) so I kept working at it until they were all used up.
The list included a gammon joint, 5 apples, a nectarine, dried fruit and asparagus.
I made gammon slow cooked in stock with apple halves, a nectarine and mango sauce to accompany it, I am soaking the dried fruits to make a couple of tea loaves tomorrow, steamed green veg and an apple and strawberry crumble. Phew, all done.

The crumble was a last minute thing, as the apples were eating ones, not cooking ones and I wasn't sure how it would turn out. I needn't have worried, my crumble-monster had 3rds even after a massive main course.

Ingredients

4 apples, cored, peeled and cut into chunks
6 large strawberries cut into quarters
A little brown sugar and a little maple syrup (would have been all syrup, but I ran out)
Plain flour
Demerara sugar
Porridge oats
Soya margarine

Method

Cook the apples up with the syrup and a little water until they soften.
In a mixing bowl add equal quantities of flour, sugar and margarine and a couple of tbsp of oats and mix to make a crumble topping. It should be quite coarse.
Place the strawberries in a dish and add the cooked apples but not any juice/syrup.
Sprinkle the crumble on top and cook for about 1/2 hour at 180c.