gluten-free Archives - Meagan Made

Tag: gluten-free

16
Oct
2016

Blood Orange Chocolate Cupcakes

This week my lovely housemate took me to one of my local shops and I got to pick out some fresh produce for myself for the first time in a month! Once the excitement wore off, I stumbled across some blood oranges and couldn’t resist putting them in the trolley. Once I got home, I realised I’d have to find something special to make with them, and stumbled across this recipe for chocolate cupcakes with a blood orange icing.

With all of the extra time I’ve been spending at home with this ankle, I’ve been doing a lot of extra crochet – so much so that I’ve injured my thumb so have to give it a rest for a bit til it’s all better. In the meantime, I’m focusing on my cooking and finding delicious recipes!

I’d never actually had blood oranges fresh, always in drinks, but I knew how much I loved orange and chocolate flavours together and thought this would be a winner. Since I didn’t have enough fruit to use all of her recipe, I decided to focus on the blood orange flavour and the icing of Amanda’s recipe.

Blood oranges | MeaganMade.com

I mean, look at those colours, there is no way that I couldn’t make these the focus of my cooking this weekend. With my ankle still on the mend, reducing the juice into a syrup was a little taxing, but I managed to move a chair into the kitchen to give my ankle a break between stirs. I think I reduced the syrup a little too far in the end as once it cooled it became more like jam in texture. But never fool my work didn’t go to waste and it worked well once I mixed it into the icing. The citrus flavours cut through the sweetness just a little and this combined with the chocolate was perfection. I also brushed a little of the warm syrup onto the warm cupcakes as per Amanda’s suggestion in her recipe.

As for the cupcakes, I totally cheated and used an awesome box mix that I’ve discovered that is both lactose and gluten-free. It’s tried and tested for me, and I just separated it out into 12 cupcake liners.

Blood orange chocolate cupcakes | MeaganMade.com

I piped the icing on last night ready for photographs this morning. I noticed a few have gone missing overnight so I’m assuming this means they got the housemate’s seal of approval too! 🙂 These are so tasty, I’m trying to make them last – but you might notice there are not 12 in the photo above, whoops!

If blood oranges are in season in your area you have to give this a try! Let me know if you have any other recipes for me to try with blood oranges!

Happy cooking,
Meagan x

03
Oct
2016

Lemon Bars

categories: Cooking, Slices

Since I’ve been spending a lot of time at home with my feet up, I’ve been spending even more time on Pinterest than normal! One of the many things I added to my boards was this delicious looking recipe for dairy free Lemon Bars. The original recipe was both Gluten Free and Dairy Free, so I’ve decided to make a few alterations and make it this week!

While the recipe does take a while from start to finish, most of the time is spent with the slice in the oven or the fridge. And it was well worth the time spent, and luckily it gave my ankle a bit of a break too! This recipe actually involved more interpretations than I’d planned since I was out of more ingredients than I had realised!

Lemon Bars | MeaganMade.com

For the shortbread layer, I had originally planned to substitute the Gluten Free flour mix for normal plain flour which I quickly realised had run out. Since I was out of plain flour, I substituted it for 1.5 cups of normal self raising flour and omitted the flour mix, gum and baking powder. I made the lemon layer as per the recipe, using the corn flour option and poured it over as soon as the shortbread layer was done.

When the slice came out of the fridge after the final baking, the layers remained distinct yet gooey, and was really delicious. It won the housemate seal of approval too, and I don’t think they’ll last too long!

Lemon Bars | MeaganMade.com

I hope that you’ll head on over to Sheena’s page and try this dairy free lemon bars recipe for yourself!

Happy baking,
Meagan x

10
Sep
2016

Brownie Bites

categories: Cakes, Cooking

A nice and quick recipe for you this week! Often while I’m looking through Pinterest, I see bliss ball recipes, but they mostly contain dates. I don’t mind dates, but often find the raw food recipes containing them quite rich. This pin and recipe for Brownie Bites caught my eye – not only were they lactose and gluten free, they required no cooking and also had no dates.

This week has been one of those busy ones, filled with a few of my cheat dinners (of the sauce from a jar variety) and a bit of eating out. I did manage to bake up a double batch of the carrot cupcakes I posted about a few weeks ago (just as delicious as I remembered) and also managed to make another loaf of Banana Bread. I’m going to have to make this part of my regular rotation, as I finally calculated the savings each week!

At the end of the week, I was still craving something sweet and wanted something quick and easy to fill the void! This recipe by the Unconventional Baker did the trick. It comes together really quickly and easily – probably the longest part for me was actually rolling the balls and getting the coconut on the outside! The ingredients whiz together in the food processor in a minute or two, and it’s delicious.

Brownie Bites | MeaganMade.com

These bites of sweetness are perfect both straight after rolling and after refrigeration. The recipe includes an option for coconut cream which I didn’t use, but I think next time I’ll give it a go!

Brownie Bites | MeaganMade.com

Let me know if you give these a go, especially if you try it with the coconut cream.

Happy making,

Meagan x

27
Aug
2016

Lactose free carrot cupcakes

categories: Cakes, Cooking

I found this recipe for carrot cake about 5 weeks ago, and had it in the back of mind all this time. Then this week at work a morning tea was organised to celebrate one person returning from 5 weeks leave and another’s birthday. What a perfect opportunity to pull this lactose free carrot cupcakes recipe out and give it a try!

The original recipe was both vegan and gluten free, but as I’m only lactose intolerant, I made a few alterations based on the ingredients that I could source easily here in Australia. This converted the cakes into being lactose free, but if you’re after gluten free or Vegan, try out the original recipe!

The result was delicious and the cupcakes disappeared within about 3 minutes of hitting the table! I opted for making cupcakes instead of cakes so it would cool quicker and be easier to transport on the bus, but I plan to make this recipe again as a cake this weekend!

Carrot cupcakes | MeaganMade.com

These cupcakes are beautifully moist, and with the carrots I can convince myself that they are relatively healthy. The cream cheese icing is the perfect balance to the cake, sweet but not overly so, and I was pleasantly surprised by the lactose free cream cheese that I used!

Kelly very generously gave me permission to re-post the list of ingredients with my modifications, so here it is:

Cake Ingredients

2 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon bicarb soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1¼ teaspoon cinnamon
⅓ teaspoon ginger
½ cup organic cane sugar
½ cup light brown sugar
⅓ cup organic canola oil
3 Tablespoons unsweetened applesauce
1 cup grated carrots
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
½ cup water

Frosting ingredients

2 cups icing sugar
113g lactose free cream cheese (I used Lidell’s brand), softened
4 Tablespoons buttery spread (I used Nutellex), softened

Carrot cupcakes | MeaganMade.com

For the instructions, head on over to The Pretty Bee and let me know if you have any other recipes that you’d like me to try!

Happy cooking,

Meagan x

23
Jul
2016

Twix Bar Slice

categories: Cooking, Slices

When I stumbled on this pin in my Pinterest feed, I was thinking that a dairy free Twix bar slice was just too good to be true! I popped it on one of my boards thinking I’d give it a go at some point, and didn’t think too much more of it. Just 2 weeks later after a morning tea at work, I decided I needed to try this slice. If it worked out, I hoped it would convince some of my colleagues that it was possible to make delicious dairy free sweets that I could eat!

I’ve just gotta say, this recipe has changed my life! Well, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but it is amazingly delicious and tasty! Not only is it dairy free (actually it’s vegan), it’s also gluten free so all of my friends will be able to enjoy this one!!

With only six ingredients (almond butter, maple syrup, cocoa powder, coconut flour, salt and vanilla extract) there isn’t too much to buy, and you re-use the ingredients throughout the layers. I did substitute cocoa for cacao since I couldn’t find any cocoa with no traces of dairy, but everything else I used by the book! Check out the recipe over at Bakerita’s blog.

Twix Bar Slice | MeaganMade.com

I ended up refrigerating the whole thing overnight before cutting the next morning. Pulling it out of the fridge I thought it was looking good (that’s sea salt flakes on the top) but I was a bit nervous as to what I’d find when I cut into it.

Twix Bar Slice | MeaganMade.com

I needn’t have worried. The three layers remained distinct, and when I snuck my first taste (I couldn’t wait until I took the photo) I was in heaven! The caramel was just gooey enough, and without knowing it was mostly almond butter, you would not have been able to tell! The balance of the salty and sweet was perfect to balance out the richness of the cacao. My only complaint, there wasn’t enough! I took it into work and it disappeared within about 5 minutes, and I’ve been told to make double the batch next time I bring it in. 🙂

I’m visiting another lactose intolerant friend for a craft day this weekend so I have another batch of cookie base in the oven as we speak. I can’t wait to eat it again, and this is firmly in my repertoire of sweet goodies now!

Happy baking,

Meagan x