Custard

At our Wellington Xmas GAPS group meeting, I asked what foods people would miss at Xmas, and someone said that being dairy free, she missed custard. So here are three different custard recipes.

The first one is RUSSIAN custard, from the GAPS book. The Healthy Home Economist has the recipe HERE. This is a raw dish, made from just egg yolks and honey. It is usually used as a cream substitute on GAPS. But if you added a little vanilla, it would taste more like the custard we're used to. 

The second is a MILK custard, but using honey instead of sugar. This is only GAPS friendly in the very last stages when you can have a little unfermented dairy, as long as it is raw.

• 1 cup raw milk
• 1 cup raw cream
• 3 egg yolks
• pinch Celtic sea salt
• 1 Tbs honey
• ¾ tsp vanilla essence (or one vanilla bean)

This makes a hot, runny custard. Heat up the milk & cream to just short of boiling. Meanwhile, if you have a double boiler, beat the egg yolks and salt together in the top part. Otherwise, find a bowl that will sit on top of a pan of boiling water, and use that. Pour the hot milk & cream slowly into the egg yolks, whisking most of the time. Set on top of a pan of simmering water, and whisk till it thickens (about 10 mins). Take off the heat, whisk in the honey and vanilla essence and serve immediately with fruit crumble, pie, ice cream or fruit.

Variation 1: 

If you are using a vanilla bean, scrape out the seeds and add them to the milk and cream in step 1.

Variation 2: If you want a thick custard for something like a trifle topping:

Instead of putting the cream in with the milk, put into a small bowl and let it come to room temperature before starting the custard. Sprinkle 1 Tbs gelatin over the top of it, and carry on with the custard. After it has thickened, stir in the cream & gelatin and stir till the gelatin has dissolved. Let cool a little, pour onto the sponge & jelly layer of your trifle and refrigerate.

Variation 3: Thick custard with banana (the version pictured)

After taking off the heat and adding honey & vanilla, add one or two sliced banana, and stir. Cool a little, then refrigerate.

The third version is COCONUT custard.

This is the same as the milk custard, except that you use 1 1/2 cups of coconut cream. Look for a brand with no preservatives & other additives.

Fruit Jelly and Fruit Mousse

Another gelatin recipe we've been having quite a bit lately is real fruit jelly. To get a consistency more like commercial jelly, you can use fruit juice, but we've been using the whole fruit.

• 2 cups blueberries
• 1 cup black currants
• 1 1/2 cups room temp water
• 3 Tbs gelatin
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• small amount of natural sweetener of your choice

If your berries are frozen, get them out a couple of hours beforehand to defrost. 

Put the water in a medium sized pan and sprinkle the gelatin over the top. While it softens, zizz everything else together in a blender or food processor.

Gently heat the water and gelatin until the gelatin is completely dissolved. Add about half to the blender and zizz. Then add the rest and zizz well.

Pour into 4 or 5 dishes and put in the fridge to set. You can put it all in one bowl, but it;s then very tempting to just have another mouthful and another and so on!

Mousse

To convert the recipe to a mousse, replace the water with 1 cup raw milk or cream and 1/2 cup yoghurt or yoghurt cream. Sprinkle the gelatin on the milk or cream and add the yoghurt to the blender separately.

You can make all sorts of different flavours of mousse or jelly just by changing the fruit around. Strawberry & banana is also nice.

The version in the photo is Berry Mousse with another layer on top of Yoghurt mixed with fermented cream and raspberries. And a little gelatin in that layer too.

Gummy Stars

This is a Mommypotamus recipe, which I found  posted on the Auckland Mums: Super Nutrition for Babies and Beyond facebook page.

I'm in the mode of thinking of Xmas recipes at the moment, and these would be a great recipe for GAPS kids who are ok on honey.

• 1/3 cup lemon (or lime) juice (about 3 large lemons)
• 3 Tbs gelatin
• 3 Tbs honey
• Mummypotamus added some natural food colouring, but I didn't and they still came out a nice colour.

Put the lemon juice in a small pan and sprinkle the gelatin on top. When it's softened add the honey, and stir all together over a low heat till the gelatin is dissolved.

The first time, I just poured it into a glass dish, put in the fridge till set, then cut it up into squares. The second time I used some chocolate moulds. They went into the freezer for a while, then into the fridge. I used the pointy end of a sharp knife to prise a corner out, and then peeled each one out. This amount made about 24 gummies.

Now go and visit Mummypotamus and see all her other great recipes, including her guide to the Ultimate GAPS Xmas recipes. 

She also has a fabulous looking book full of DIY organic beauty recipes. Just what every GAPS household needs.

White Christmas slice

We recently discovered dried strawberries. Not the sugar coated, preservative laden things you might have seen in the supermarket, but ones where strawberries are the only ingredients. I found them in Hardy's Health food shop. They're so sweet, it's hard to believe there's no added sugar. Anyway, I got thinking about how they would be a good substitute for glaced cherries in some Christmas recipes, and had a hazy memory of something called White Chrismas.

When I googled it, it turned out to be a rice bubble slice with glace cherries, Kremelta, and dessicated coconut and of course lots of icing sugar. So today I've been playing with versions of creamed coconut slice, and here's what we've got so far.

Version 1 used creamed coconut, coconut oil, vanilla essence, dried strawberries and sultanas. I didn't add extra sweetener. It tasted ok, but nothing special, just an everyday slice. For version 2, I used cocoa butter instead of the coconut oil. I added some mixed spice, and replaced some of the strawberries with dried pawpaw (cos I didn't have enough strawberries). It was much more Christmassy.

If you wanted extra sweetness, you could add a little honey. If you wanted some rice bubble like crunch, you could add some chopped nuts.

So here's the final recipe - well, as final as these things get. I'll probably tweak it again next time I make it. But we've got a lot of slice to eat before the next trial!

• 250ml (1/2 jar) creamed coconut
• 50g coconut oil -OR- cocoa (cacao) butter
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• 1-2 tsp honey (optional)

• 50g dried strawberries (or other red dried fruit of your choice)
• 50g apricots, pawpaw or pineapple
• 50g sultanas or raisins
• 50g almonds, cashews or macadamias (optional)

First, get your jar of creamed coconut softening in a bowl of hot water. (If you've got a jar already prepared, you won't need to do this). Next, line a plastic container that's about 15x20cm, or 12x25, or similar, with baking paper. Prepare your fruit: stir through the raisins and sultanas and remove any stalks; chop the rest into small pieces with kitchen scissors or a sharp knife. (note: choose fruits that are free of sweeteners and sulphites)

If you're using nuts, chop them up. (Best nuts for flavour, texture and digestibility are ones that have been made into "crispy" nuts, but raw or roasted unsalted will also do).

When the creamed coconut is soft enough to get out of the jar, scrape it all into a food processor and zizz till smooth. You might need to jab any big bits with a knife to break them up a bit more, and zizz again. When it's smooth, pour half back into the jar for another batch later on, or for adding to soups or stews.

If you're using cocoa butter, grate that and add. Or just spoon in the right amount of coconut oil. Add the other flavourings and zizz till it's all mixed together and smooth. Add the chopped fruit and nuts and pulse just enough to mix them in, but not mush them.

Pour into the container and mix around a bit to make sure the fruit and nuts are evenly dsitributed. Refrigerate for an hour or so, till hard. Lift the baking paper and contents onto a chopping board, and use a large knife to cut into small pieces, 1-1.5 cm wide. Gather up the corners of the paper, and you'll be able to stuff the whole lot back into the container, put the lid on and back into the fridge.

If you want to make them look pretty, spoon the mixture into mini muffin patty pans that have been stuffed into mini muffin trays. Or use foil thingies that are designed for truffles.

Chocolate Spread

I'm very excited that the stock of our new product - creamed coconut - has arrived today! One of the first things I did was whip up a nutella type chocolate spread for people to sample, but free of dairy, sugar and even nuts!

• 250gm (1/2 a 500ml jar) of creamed coconut
• 125gm coconut oil 
• 2 Tablespoons raw cocoa powder (it doesn't have to be raw, but raw tastes better)
• 2 Tablespoons honey (or your favourite sweetener)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla essence

Zizz it all together in a food processor till smooth and pour into a jar. Eat as you would any chocolate spread, or just off the spoon.

Easter Spicy Buns

These gluten-free, starch-free buns don't have the texture of hot cross buns, but they're still a tasty treat for Easter. They can also be made casein-free.

·         1 cup ground almonds

·         ½ cup coconut flour

·         ½ tsp baking soda

·         1 heaped tsp mixed spice

·         ½ cup sultanas, raisins or currants

·         2-3 tsp grated orange rind

·         3 eggs

·         75gm melted butter or coconut oil

·         2-3 Tbs honey

·         ½ tsp sea salt

·         ½ cup yoghurt OR mashed, cooked pumpkin (prepared earlier) OR finely diced feijoa (I haven't tested these, but mashed banana or grated apple should work fine too)

Preheat the oven to 175C. Set butter or oil melting over a low heat, and if your honey is solid, add that to the pan as well. Mix together the flours, baking soda and spice in a large bowl. Stir in the dried fruit and rind. Beat together the eggs, melted butter, honey and sea salt in a small food processor.

If you’re using feijoa, chop the ends off, peel them and dice them. If you’re using pumpkin, it needs to be pre-cooked, mashed and cooled.

Add the yoghurt, feijoa or pumpkin to the wet mix and beat. The pumpkin needs to be well mixed in, but the feijoa can be still in tiny pieces.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix well. If the mix is too wet, add a little extra flour. Leave to sit while you grease the muffin tins. Spoon in the mix and cook for 15-20 mins. Serve hot, with butter or ghee if you tolerate it. Makes 8-10 std muffins or about 24 mini ones (which need less cooking time).

Chocolate Orange Drizzle Cake

When I was surfing about looking for sponge-like recipes for my trifle idea (still not tested, by the way) I came across this recipe for a Coconut Flour Orange Cake that reminded me of a cake Mum used to make. It was a Madeira cake that had orange juice drizzled over the top after baking, making it very moist. The topping was Cadbury dairy milk chocolate melted with a little butter. So I got nostalgic all over again, and had to give it a go.

For my trial, I made just a half recipe and baked it in a mini loaf tin. I made a couple of extra changes:

• melted the oil in a bowl that sat in another bowl with hot water in it, which meant it didn't get too hot and I could add it to the beaten egg mix, before the flour
• reduced the honey a little more, and used just 2 Tbs for the half mix
• replaced the baking powder with baking soda
• made a chocolate topping for it

I was toying with the idea of making the coconut oil topping shown, and just adding cocoa powder instead of orange zest. But I chose to make it even easier. I got some of Reilly's chocolate hazelnut spread, put it in a bowl inside another bowl of hot water, stirred it till was soft enough to spread, and voila!

Ok, so this isn't strictly GAPS, as chocolate and baking soda are illegal. But as an occasional treat, it will probably be tolerated fine by most GAPsters.

Back in May, Baden did an informal survey on her blog which showed that out of a group of 21 who had tried pure cocoa, 19 had no reaction, 1 wasn't sure and 1 had a reaction. If you think you react to cocoa, stick to the original coconut oil frosting.

Baking soda is allowed on the SCD, but not recommended for GAPS, as NCM believes most GAPsters have low stomach acid and this will worsen it. Many GAPS baked goods are fine with the soda missed out. But for the occasional cake, I don't believe a small amount of baking soda will be an issue. See Baden's comments on her blog.

Other Festive recipes

There are a bunch of useful Christmas recipes and resources on the Biomedical forum.

Here are links directly to each topic:

GFCF Christmas cake recipe
Raw carrot cake
Pina Colada Ice Cream (GFCF)
Christmas Pudding & where to buy premade Xmas goodies
Crisp biscuits
GFCF chocolate

Children's Party

While we're talking about parties, I'm reminded of all the great ideas that Hollie from Auckland posted about on the Biomedical forum a few months back.

She kindly gave me permission to repost it here:

I know the thought of upcoming parties is tough with our kids limited diets... so I thought you might be interested in some of the party food I created for our sons birthday party. All the food was GAPS (stage 6) friendly. The food was a hit with all people big and small. One little boy came and asked for his 4th 'cupcake'!!! No one even knew the food was ‘good’ for them... one mum was avoiding the food cos she thought it was too sugary for her kid – once I told her what was in it, she kept coming back for more, and the kid loved it.

The menu:

Ø      Muffin stand instead of birthday cake. Purchased coloured muffin cups and a fancy cake/muffin stand to put them all on. Did a variety of GAPS muffins:

o       Coconut berry muffins decorated with frosting and strawberries

o       Coconut banana and raisin muffins decorated with frosting and fruit leather shapes

o       Could also have done blueberry or pumpkin

Ø      Tahini and raisin biscuits decorated with frosting and dehydrated kiwifruit

Ø      'Fairy Bread’ - coconut bread, cut into shapes with cookie cutter, then frosted and dipped in dehydrated crushed raspberries and kiwifruits

Ø      Fresh fruit platters

Ø      Homemade lemonade sweetened with honey and topped with Soda water for some fizz

Ø      Homemade 'pink' iced tea (rosehip & raspberry) sweetened with honey

Goodie bags:

Instead of Goodie Bags packed with lollies and other crap, I got a bunch of helium balloons, ($3 each) which made great decoration - and handed each one to the kids as they left. They thought that was pretty cool too - and much cheaper than a bunch of $2-shop junk in a bag.

To check out the original post on the Biomed forum, click here.

How to whip raw cream

Whipping pasteurised cream is easy, but raw cream doesn’t work the same way. It doesn’t thicken for ages, then it turns straight to butter. Nobody is exactly sure why this happens. I’ve heard theories like “pasteurised cream has carrageen in it” – but in NZ it doesn’t, or “your cream isn’t fatty enough” – but this doesn’t explain it either.

Traditional ways of thickening cream are culturing, or making clotted cream by heating raw cream, then leaving to sit. There do seem to be some ways of whipping raw cream, but it does take some preparation.

1.      Skim well – Pour your cream into a wide mouthed bowl or container, and leave for 24 hours or so. You will then be able to skim full cream off the top and be sure you don’t have remaining milk in it.

2.      Age it – Older cream whips better than fresh cream, so the skimming stage will allow that to happen. But there is a fine line here, if you leave it too long, it will sour, and that may not be suitable for your needs.

3.      Chill it well – It may also help to chill your bowl and beaters. Cream turns to butter faster when warm.

4.      Beat it fast – Use the fastest speed on your beaters. (But be careful starting up, so you don’t spray cream all over the kitchen. A bigger than usual bowl helps too.)

5.      Additives last – If you want to add flavourings (eg vanilla essence) or sweeteners (eg stevia, maple syrup) add them AFTER the cream has thickened enough.

I can’t guarantee this will always work, but will increase your chances.

Jelly Trifle

I always think of my grandmother at Christmas, usually when I'm wrapping my presents. When I was at high school, every year I would go down to her house a couple of days before Xmas and sit at her kitchen table doing her wrapping for her. She would go round the house collecting up all the gifts she'd been putting away all year and tell me who each one was for. Things were more leisurely then, and we had a relaxed evening, with time to get every parcel just right.

I'm thinking of her early this year and remembering her trifle. Her speciality dishes included her apple pie, jam tarts and my favourite, trifle. It had to be made with jelly, not sherry. (When I was first introduced to trifle made with sherry, it was most disappointing.) It was spread with jam, layered with fruit salad, and then the jelly was poured over it. When it was set, it was topped with a thick layer of thick custard made from Edmonds custard powder. Then another thick layer of whipped cream, and sliced strawberries on top. Or sometimes grated chocolate. It was luscious. And mum, my sister and I kept up the tradition at family gatherings, always making it just the same.

I don't think I've had trifle since I went gluten free, so about 12 years, though I've been known to have a spoonful of custard and cream off the top.  But this year I've been thinking about how to make a GAPS friendly trifle. So far I don't have a firm recipe, just some musings - but I might try out a mini one this weekend.

So I'll start with something sponge like, probably made with coconut flour, as I think almond flour will be a bit heavy for this recipe. Maybe just a batch of blueberry muffins using the recipe in Bruce Fife's book. Or maybe this Triple Berry Coconut Cake. When cooled, they'll be cut into rough chunks.

Then I'll put half in one layer in my dish, then some berries, and another layer of each.

Next I'll take some red organic fruit juice - eg grape, apple & blackcurrant - dilute it a little, and use gelatine to make a jelly. I'll pour this over the top, press it all down firmly and leave it in the fridge to set.

The next day, I'll make a custard with real eggs, and either raw milk or coconut milk, sweetened with a little honey. It might not be as thick as Edmonds, but fingers crossed it will thicken up in the fridge.

Lastly, a layer of raw cream, whipped well, and more sliced berries.

I'll let you know how it  goes. In the meantime, I'd better do another post on how to whip raw cream, because you sometimes need to make some extra preparations.

Watermelon Cake

This watermelon cake looks like a great idea for summer birthdays, or something light to add to the Xmas Day menu...

http://livingfruity.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-to-make-watermelon-cake.html

GAPS friendly Boiled Christmas Cake

Over the years I've made various different Xmas cakes recipes, but it all got a lot easier a couple of years ago. I watched Nigella's Christmas and was inspired to find her recipe for a boiled Xmas cake which looked so easy.

Have a read of her original recipe here (I'm sure we can all relate to her description of the busyness of Xmas!), and then come back for the GAPS version.

The first year, I made a few slight tweaks:

• Gluten free - ground almonds, rice flour, arrowroot PLUS pectin, xantham or guar gum
• Unrefined sugar (eg rapadura, shakkar or muscavado) instead of brown sugar
• "Ruby Red" cooking wine instead of rum - just because that's what I happened to have lurking in the back of the fridge
• and no chestnut puree because I couldn't find any

It was a fantastic cake. And I didn't have to make it months ahead. You can make it and eat it on the same day, and it's still delicious.

The second year we were starch and sugar free, so a few more tweaks:

• Coconut flour instead of rice flour and arrowroot
• I could have used honey or stevia, but decided to try it with no sugar

and it was still great. By now, it was still Nigella's recipe in spirit, but she probably wouldn't have recognised it! To see the recipe at this stage, see where I posted it on her website.

2009 and we're 100% GAPS, so a couple more tweaks:

• No pectin or gum
• No baking soda

This is the version I'm sharing with you today. (See egg free and nut free notes at the end).

• 900g dried fruit
• 170g butter, ghee or coconut oil
• Zest of one orange and one lemon
• Juice of one orange
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 cup extra fruit juice, or extra water (I just used water)
• 2 tsp mixed spice
• 1 tsp ginger powder
• 3 large or 4 small eggs
• 1 cup ground almonds
• 1/2 cup coconut flour

First, prepare your fruit. This is the lengthy part of the process, so have some favourite music playing, or something else to listen to. Or get the whole family helping, which will make it much quicker. I like to make up my own mixture from raisins, sultanas, dates, prunes, figs, apricots or whatever is to hand - this year I even added some goji berries as I didn't have enough other stuff. If you are salicylate sensitive, choose mango, papaya, apple and pear.

I'm rather particular about not having raisins stalks in there, so I always give my raisins, sultanas and currants a good stir first, turning them over and looking for stalks, turning them over and looking for stalks, and so on. That probably takes 5 minutes. Then chop everything else up and mix together. I use kitchen scissors which is much easier than using a knife.

Put the next 7 ingredients into a large pan, and melt them all together. Stir the fruit in, bring to a simmer, and simmer for about 10 minutes. All the liquid will have been absorbed, though you may have a bit of the oil that doesn't soak in. Leave to cool for about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, whisk up your eggs and put them to one side. And mix together the two flours and set them aside. Then prepare your tins.

The full recipe fills an 8” x 8” (20cm x 20cm) square tin. Line tin with a double layer of brown paper, which comes to about double the height of the tin. Then line with a double layer of baking paper. Or you can make a selection of different sizes. 1/3 of the mixture will fill a mini loaf tin or you can make star shaped cakes (as per the photo), muffin sized or bite sized mini muffins. With the stars and muffins, you'll probably only be able to line the bottom.

When the mixture is about room temperature, stir through the beaten eggs and mix well. Then stir through the flours. It should be thick and hard to stir. If it's too runny, add some extra flour. Fill your tin, smooth the top, and bake at 150C or 300F for 1.75 to 2 hours. Use the usual skewer test to see if it's done, or listen - if it's still sizzling, it's not quite ready. Towards the end, you may need to cover the top loosely with extra brown paper or tin foil to stop it browning too much.

If you use smaller tins, approx cooking times are:

• 1/2 mix in a loaf tin - 1.5 to 1.75 hours
• 1/3 mix in a small loaf tin - 1 hour
• star - 45 to 60 minutes
• muffin - 40 to 50 minutes
• mini muffin - 30 to 35 minutes

Troubleshooting - if it doesn't cook properly - it doesn't matter!! Ground almonds and coconut flour are perfectly safe to eat raw, so call it Xmas pudding and serve with some whipped cream or custard (coconut custard for dairy free).

Let it cool at room temperature. Then take it out of the tin, wrap in baking or greaseproof paper, then a tea towel and refrigerate. It can be a bit crumbly, so it;s best to store it in the fridge, cut it cold, and then let it get to room temp before eating it. If you can wait that long!

I've also tried it without egg, as I need to cater for an EGG FREE person this Xmas. My first trial, I just missed the eggs out. I made a 1/3 quantity and baked in a small loaf tin. I pressed the mixture down well as I put it in the pan. I let it cool completely, and then refrigerated it. I made it with coconut oil, which I think was what held it together well once it was cold. It sliced easily when cut straight from the fridge and didn't fall apart. Though a large size cake might not hold up as well. You could also try replacing the eggs with 1 Tbs gelatine dissolved in 6 Tbs to replace each 1-2 eggs.

If you need to be NUT FREE, replace the ground almonds with half that amount of coconut flour. Then just keep adding coconut flour 1 Tbs at a time till you get the right consistency. I haven't tried it, but it should work fine with the version that includes eggs. I'm not sure that just coconut flour would work as well egg free, so with that combination I would definitely try the gelatine. If anyone tries it nut free, please report back.