Teatime Tuesday

Good evening ladies and gentlemen,

I am having a quiet, peaceful, lazy kind of day today. And so, I thought it would be pleasant to have tea with my husband this afternoon. But what should I make?  I mentioned in a previous post that one of the secrets to good gluten free baking is to measure by weight. Another resource for finding recipes by weight is to check European sites. One of my favorite sites for finding recipes is allrecipes.co.uk. So I decided to search in their collection of Afternoon Tea recipes. I decided on the one egg cake. 

Those who know me, know that I always tinker with recipes. I decided to enhance the lemon flavor by adding the zest of one whole lemon with the dry ingredients and doubling the lemon extract. I used my homemade gluten free flour blend. Any should work, as long as it contains xanthum gum. I increased the bake time to 1 hour. I also made a lemon glaze for the cake. In a saucepan, I combined: the juice of one lemon, 2 Tblsp. water, and 100 gr. sugar. I cooked, stirring constantly till the sugar was completely dissolved. After removing from the heat I added 1 tsp. vanilla extract and 1 tsp. lemon extract to the glaze. When the cake is done remove from oven and leave in the pan. Poke the top of the cake all over with a skewer.

Pour the glaze over the still warm cake. Allow to cool completely in the pan. When cool carefully invert onto a a plate or cake stand. Serve with a nice cup of tea.

Shared with Antiques and Teacups.
Bernideen,
and Rose Chintz Cottage

Weaver

p.s. I have not been paid or in any way compensated to endorse allrecipes.co.uk.

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Coconut Tea Bread (gluten free)

Dear Readers,

Gluten intolerance and celiac disease are all over the news these days. The Mister and I are both gluten intolerant ourselves. But, one need not give up delicious foods just because of that. I am going to let you in on a secret to making excellent gluten free baked goods. Measure by weight. I know if you are an American cook you may have never done this. You can purchase a digital cooking scale inexpensively for around $10.  A book that has been very influential for me in developing my own gluten free recipes is Ratio by Michael Ruhlman. This book has been a life saver. It is simply put a collection of chef’s master formulas. Many of the store-bought mixes I have tried simply did not turn out at all for me, and much of the readymade items are expensive, don’t taste very good, and have an ingredient list that read like the contents of a chemistry set. So here for your delight is a simple recipe for a coconut tea bread.

p.s. This recipe will work with regular a.p. flour as well. Also, you can substitute any milk or milk alternative that you prefer.

Coconut Tea Bread

Ingredients:

8 oz. gluten free flour blend (I make my own, but any should work)

4 oz. sugar

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. Baking Powder

8 oz. coconut milk

4 oz. melted fat (I used ½ butter and ½ coconut oil)

2 lg. eggs

2 tsp. vanilla (optional)

1 tsp almond extract (optional)

1 C. toasted coconut

Combine 1^st four ingredients in a bowl and whisk to combine. Add the liquid ingredients and stir or whisk till thoroughly mixed (no need to worry about over mixing with gluten free flour). Fold in the toasted coconut. Pour into a greased loafpan. Hint: if using butter, save the wrapper to grease your pan. Bake in a 350* oven for 1hour and 15 minutes. Allow to cool in the pan on a cooling rack. Enjoy with butter, jam, and a nice cup of tea.

Weaver