Home-made Baking Powder

Gluten-free Vegan Vanilla Cupcakes made with home made baking powder

My daughter's Nanna Barnes gave her a fascinating cook book of recipes by the pioneer women of Western Australia. The recipes were amazing. They showcased meals which were tasty and put together quickly and most importantly they used ingredients which came from the land. Naturally, there were recipes for cooking kangaroo but apart from what we consider exotic, there were recipes for making soap and baking powder. At a time and place where the farmers wife could not get herself over to the neighbourhood shop whenever she ran short on something, she had to make do or too it herself. So there was an easy recipe for baking powder which I'm passing onto you. I know that there are several recipes out there floating about on the internet, but I used this one myself and made some gluten-free baked goods with it. The brownies and cakes turned out beautifully, without any soda after taste.

                                           

They were delicious! The best part about this is, this baking powder is gluten-free and does not contain aluminum!! How great is that??? Plus if you are sensitive to corn, the cornstarch in the recipe can be substituted with potato starch or super-fine rice flour, like the ones from the Asian food shops. So go for it and try it the next time you bake something that needs baking powder. I can guarantee that the results will be stunning as the just mixed baking powder, which is fresh, will help your baked goods rise beautifully!  

Nut-free Vegan Vanilla Cupcakes with fondant Cheetah topper

Vegan Vanilla Cupcakes

Prince Pee-Wee is presenting his first ever videoblog on baking! Kiran felt that lately, he had suffered through enough baked goods in flavours that just did not sit well with him, namely, chocolate :)! So into the kitchen we went to present a very easy peasy ;) recipe for vegan vanilla cupcakes with a cheetah-face topper made of fondant. Kiran has an egg allergy and this recipe is his favourite, next to lemon cupcakes. We'll save that one for another time! Watch this video. It's really child's play!!!

Vegan Vanilla Cupcakes

Dry ingredients:
1 1/4 cup self-raising flour
1/2 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon fine salt
1/3 cup fine sugar

Wet ingredients:
3/4 cup unflavoured soda water
4 1/2 tablespoon sunflower oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method: Place all the dry ingredients together in a bowl and whisk or sift together to blend thoroughly. Add all the wet ingredients into the dry and give it a quick whisk to mix everything together. Scoop into cupcake liners and bake at 180 degrees celcius or 350 degrees fahrenheit. Makes about 8 regular cupcakes.

Vegan Vanilla Frosting

1/2 cup vegan spread
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
1/2 cup icing sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method: Beat all the ingredients together in a mixer at medium to high speed. Use to frost cupcakes.

Nut-free Vegan Chocolate bread pudding

Doing things a little differently here. We're playing with our "toys', i.e. the video function on my iPhone and so, pardon the bloopers.

I present you today with my Vegan Chocolate Bread Pudding. Check that the chocolate spread is vegan and we are good to go. This started with my brother waxing lyrical over a warm chocolate bread pudding he had eaten recently. It was served with warmed chocolate spread, drizzled over  just before you dig in. Sounds heavenly! So here's my take. It can be made just egg free, using milk and regular chocolate spread or veganised with dairy free milk and vegan chocolate spread. So just suit the recipe to your preference.

Ingredients for Chocolate Bread Pudding

Vegan Chocolate Bread Pudding

French Bread Slices - 18, 1" thick pieces
Chocolate spread - as needed
Rice Milk (regular milk) - 3 1/2 cups
Custard powder / Corn starch - 4 tablespoons
Vanilla - 1teaspoon
Sugar - 1/4 cup
Fine salt - 1/4 teaspoon
Butter - 2 tablespoons, softened

Method: Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius or 350 degrees fahrenheit. Whisk the custard powder/corn starch, vanilla, salt and sugar into the milk and set aside. Spread the chocolate onto the bread slices and make into sandwiches. Line a glass dish with the sandwiches laid side by side neatly. Pour the milk-custard mixture over the bread and leave to soak for 1 hour or till the liquids are fully absorbed. Dot with butter and bake for 30 minutes till top is browned. Cool slightly and serve with melted chocolate spread.

Nut free, Egg free and Dairy free (Vegan) Doughnuts

Nut free, Egg and Dairy Free Doughnuts

I've been playing around with doughnut recipes for a while. Mostly they have been egg free recipes and gluten free ones. The results have been mixed and varied. This one is the best so far - without egg or dairy. I'll have to work on my Gluten free Vegan doughnuts further and get them post-worthy! When that happens, I'm sure you'll hear about it! But for now, here are my.....

Nut free Vegan Doughnuts

Dry Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups plain flour
1/2 cup strong flour
1 teaspoon instant yeast
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
1 tablespoon sugar

Wet Ingredients:
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon applesauce
1 tablespoon soy or coconut yoghurt
1 tablespoon sunflower oil

Method : Combine all the ingredients together and knead to a soft and elastic dough. Cover and leave to rise till dough doubles, about 30 minutes. Roll out to 1/4" thick and cut out doughnuts with a cutter. Cover cut out doughnuts with a damp tea towel and leave to rise again. Lift out carefully and fry in hot oil over medium heat. Glaze them as you wish or toss in cinnamon sugar. Note not to over fry, or the doughnuts become hard. Best eaten fresh.

Nut free & Egg free (Dairy free) Yoghurt Cake

Fluffy Nut free & Egg free Yoghurt Cake

Here is a Yoghurt cake that started life with eggs and dairy ingredients in it. But, because of my son's allergies, I came up with an egg & nut free version which can of course be made dairy free as well. Substitute the yoghurt with a non-dairy version like soy or coconut. Personally, I love the coconut one. So here it is, with the pictures and the recipe. Honestly, it was so delicious, light and fluffy with a lemony sugar glaze on top, why would anyone want the version with eggs?? And or dairy?

Nut free & Egg free (Dairy free) Yoghurt Cake

Dry Ingredients:
1 1/4 cup self raising flour
1/2 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup castor sugar

Wet ingredients:
170g pot low fat vanilla yoghurt (substitute with non-dairy yoghurt, if you like)
2 tablespoon water
4 1/2 tablespoons sunflower oil
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Lemon Glaze
1/4 sifted icing sugar
1 to 2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind

Method:  Mix the dry ingredients and wet ingredients together in a bowl. The mixture will be very thick and gloopy. Don't be tempted to add more liquid or cake may become dense and compacted. Pour the cake batter into a rectangular 8"x 5" tin. Smooth top. Bake at 180 degrees celcius for 20 -25 minutes. Check with a toothpick after 18 minutes. Top will be well browned when done. Remove to rack and cool. For glaze, mix just enough lemon juice into icing sugar to form a thick paste. Drizzle onto top of cake and sprinkle with grated lemon rind. It's ready!

For a Non-Dairy-free version, substitute soy yoghurt or coconut yoghurt in place of the regular one in this recipe.

More trials.....half a loaf is better?

Yet another Gluten-free Bread attempt 

Here's the next episode in my on going gluten-free bread-making saga...lots of hyphens there and more to come! I'm trying to make a (here it comes!) gluten-free, egg-free, dairy-free, nut-free, yeast-free, corn-free  (no xantham gum), soy-free and gelatine-free bread using a gluten-free sour dough starter. Till now, my sour dough starters have been non-starters (sorry,couldn't resist). At last, in my latest attempt, the starter turned out the way I perceived it should. I was so excited! Then I got into the actual mixing and baking. For this loaf, I used a store bought gluten-free bread mix. It was a premix of rice, tapioca and potato flour with xantham gum added. I know I keep going on about xantham gum having corn in it but I figured I'll give the premix a go to see if I could actually make a reasonable tasting gluten-free bread. The bread flour with the sour dough starter mixed up fine. I kept it in my oven with just the light on to let the bread dough rise. Then when I carefully transferred the beautifully risen loaf to a heated pan, poof! My bubble burst......literally. The dough started sinking and I ended up where I started.......with a bookend! Back to the drawing board..........sigh. 

Is it really gluten-free?

Hi there! Be warned before you proceed any further with your reading. I'm about to embark on one of my pet peeves - the lack of allergy and content information in foods. The latest incident to trigger of my spiel on this happened yesterday. I was at local food fair, held at one of the malls close to home standing in a long and winding line to buy rice flour cakes, when I overheard a man asking the lady behind the counter if the tapioca pancakes she was cooking on the hotplate were wheat free. Despite the crowds, his question caught my attention as this is an area very close to my heart. We of the label/disclaimer-reading lot would totally understand this guy's query, right?  Not so the lady behind the counter. Her answer was a vague, "Just sugar, water and tapioca flour. Would you like to try one?" Well, the gentleman decided to bite the bullet and bought one. But this brings me to my pet peeve. The tapioca flour used to make the pancakes was probably not certified as being wheat-free. It probably IS wheat-free but without the guarantee of certification. See where I'm going with this? There is a huge grey area here which is a real nightmare zone for those of us dealing with with allergies and food intolerance on a daily basis though a minute by minute basis would be more accurate. We are living it.

Store-bought tapioca pancakes - are they gluten-free?

Much of the local food products in Singapore, while having the ingredients listed, do not carry allergy information.  The ingredients lists can be vague as well. A packet of tapioca flour from the local market, would list under ingredients just tapioca flour, which is fine. Cheap too. But there is no assurance or disclaimers that it contains just tapioca. For that, we have to head for over-priced specialist organic food shops. Even then, the range of products available is pretty limited. This leads to a great deal of frustration for most of us with allergies to contend with in our daily lives, especially when we call home, a real food paradise! Hopefully, this will change soon and we will have a better range of well-labelled food products with all the necessary information at lower prices available at local markets.....sounds like a dream.   

Animal Safari fondant decor workshop

Busy at work with the animal toppers

Ong Sansan and her two boys, Nathaniel and Immanuel have been such staunch supporters of my cakes from the the early days of my baking career, with Foodinfinity. I have been making their birthday cakes for them for over 3 years. Last year, we did things a little differently! All of us together, baked and decorated the birthday cakes for the boys. A real family effort with just a wee bit of input from yours truly. 

Beautifully decorated cupcakes!

Here are the pictures from our latest cake decorating venture together. A few weeks ago, I did a decorating class for Sansan. There were 6 kids including Sansan's two sons, and between the lot of them, we had a whole gamut of allergies. The cupcakes I baked for the class were egg-free and dairy-free chocolate cupcakes with dairy-free icing. They were nut-free as well.

Animal Safari cupcake toppers

"Animal Safari" was the theme for the fondant decor and the toppers for the cupcakes were a reflection of that. There was an elephant, tiger, lion, monkey, snake and hippo.I did a set of toppers so that the kids could have some idea of the finished result. But apart from the basics, I left it to them to make their own toppers as they saw fit. We had a great time, and so did my hired hands - the Princess and Pee-Wee. Thank you Sansan, for bringing together your wonderful kids, their cousins and friends for the 'Animal Safari' theme workshop 

A very pleased little cutie with her elephant cupcake

Easy Gluten-free Vegan Rice Pancakes

Decorating gluten-free brownies

I had the greatest pleasure in having Dr Melanie Phuah (nutritionist and GP), her 2 lovely, lovely, lovely kids(did I mention that they were lovely?) and their wonderful housekeeper, Mary over at the So Intricake! studio for a gluten-free, egg-free and dairy-free pow-wow. One of Dr Phuah's daughters suffers from a host of allergies including yeast, egg and dairy. So we made fudgy gluten-free vegan brownies together. The children enthusiastically, did the sifting and mixing and after the brownie was baked, they decorated the warm brownie with glace icing. While waiting for the brownies to be done, I made rice pancakes for everyone and served them with pure maple syrup and a vegan spread. Big hit! Served a vegan gluten-free cornbread as well, to balance out all the sweet flavors. Here's the recipe for the Gluten-free Vegan Rice Pancakes. Hope you enjoy them as much as we did!

Kids approve of rice pancakes!

Gluten-free Vegan Rice Pancakes


1 1/2 cups rice flour (brown or white)
1/2 cup soft cooked rice
1 tablespoon fine sugar
1 teaspoon gluten-free baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon powdered cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon fine salt
1 1/2 cups rice milk
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoon applesauce
1 teaspoon sunflower oil

Method: Blend everything together in a food processor till smooth. Make each pancake using a 1/4 cup measure. Lightly oil a frying pan, keep it on medium heat and pour batter to form a circle (hopefully!). When bubbles start rising to the top, carefully flip pancake over and cook other side for about a minute. Slide onto plate, add favorite topping and tuck in!

Note: You may want to thin it down a wee bit with rice milk and try making crepes. Let me know if you do!

Gluten-free Egg-free Dairy-free Chocolate fudge Cupcakes

Gluten-free Egg-free Dairy-free Chocolate Cupcakes

After playing around with several recipes, I hit on this combination that works, at least, I think so! First of, let me tell you, that here in Singapore, it is very difficult to find ingredients which are properly labelled and certified as being free of this and that, namely egg, dairy, gluten and nuts. Make no mistake. You can get a whole range of stuff but just can't be sure if there are traces of any of the baddies in them. So I work with what I have available and whine about what's easily available to the rest of the world. The recipe had to be egg, dairy, gluten and nut free. I did not want to use xantham gum, because of my issues over its origins and I'm not crazy about the overwhelming taste many gluten-free flours have. So this is what I came up with. Cocoa and cinnamon do a great job in gluten-free recipes to add flavor and yummy aromas while masking the "graininess" of the millet and rice in the cupcakes. I used guar gum as the binder. The cupcakes did not crumble after baking so I think that works as a xantham gum substitute. Maybe, next time I'll try them without guar gum, add more applesauce and ........well, lets see where I go with this....I'll let you know. Current recipe, as is, follows. Let me know what you think.

Gluten free Egg free Dairy free Choc Fudge Cupcakes

Dry Ingredients: 1/2 cup rice flour 1/4 cup millet flour 3/4 cup light brown sugar 1/2 cup pure unsweetened cocoa 2 teaspoons gluten-free baking powder 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon guar gum 1/2 teaspoon fine salt 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon powder  Wet ingredients: 1/4 cup extra-virgin coconut oil sunflower oil 1/4 cup rice milk  1/2 teaspoon instant coffee powder 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 tablespoon flaxseed meal mixed with 3 tablespoon hot water 1/4 teaspoon lemon juice 1 teaspoon unsweetened apple sauce

Frosting: 1/2 cup non-dairy spread 1/2 cup shortening 1 1/2 cups icing sugar 1 tsp vanilla extract 2 tablespoon cocoa 1/4 cup melted gluten-free, dairy-free chocolate

Cupcake Method:

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius.
2. Mix wet ingredients into dry and beat with a whisk until well combined.
3. Half-fill cupcake cases.
4. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes.
5. Check with a toothpick after 8 minutes.
6. Remove to a wire rack and cool.
7. Top with egg-free, dairy-free choc fudge topping.
8. Makes 6 to 8 cupcakes.

Frosting Method:

1. Beat all ingredients together till smooth.
2. Swirl on the top of cooled cupcakes.

Millet is my Mantra!

Millet Risotto and Meatloaf  with Millet

Yup! That's right. You have not imagined it. Millet is my mantra. I love millet in all its forms. I love the taste of cooked millet. I use millet flour in a wide range of gluten-free baking. Millet tastes amazing in risotto replacing rice, or in millet tabbouleh in place of cous cous or bulgar wheat. I use it in my meat loaf as a binder instead of breadcrumbs or eggs (junior is allergic to eggs and I suspect, is gluten intolerant as well). My gluten-free, egg-free and dairy-free meatloaf turned out brilliantly. The kids did not have a clue to the actual contents. They have a tendency to object to anything new on the principal that it is new....I cooked my millet with half tomato juice and half chicken stock in place of water till it was stodge and mixed it in with the rest of the usual meatloaf ingredients. Used about half cooked millet and half meat to form the meatloaf, without the inmates cluing in. I'm trying to cut back on the amount of meat we eat at home, you see. The sleight of hand worked. The millet based meatloaf was vanquished. Not a crumb was left over and even the picky eaters were happy. That was a success story.   

The trials and tribulations.....gluten-free bread.

The Lemon

I've been sporadically trying to make gluten-free bread these past months, but success has been elusive. Worse, my resultant gluten-free bread has been disastrous. There are dozens of success stories on the internet (and they have the pictures to prove it) but mine have ranged from bread which can be used as book-ends or door-stops. If  thrown at someone, be forewarned, you might be charged with causing GBH! I'm sure you get the picture. Well, like all the success stories out there, I decided to post the picture of one of my recent attempts at gluten-free bread. Looks pretty good, right? Well, it was a lemon.....literally. I made a sour dough starter, prayed over it for about 3 days, used rice, urad (type of dhal)  and millet for the gluten-free flours and then had the "brilliant" idea to add a pinch of citric acid in the hope that it will improve the leavening effect.....sour-dough with citric acid? Bad idea. Really bad. Might give this a whirl again without the citric acid. Apart from that, the bread was actually quite soft (an improvement from my door-stop days) and the texture was not too gummy. I did not use any xantham gum as I'm still leery about the corn content in it. Maybe I will add some guar gum instead and see what happens. I'll keep you posted. 

Father's Day and Gingerbread - Once upon a time........

Egg-free Gingerbread

With Father's Day round the corner, I kept checking with my two what they were doing for Daddy. Finally, we figured that I will bake a cake, the Princess will cook breakfast and Pee-Wee will butter toast (he figured everything else was too difficult and besides, he had made his dear ole Dad an Angry Birds card! Reckoned he had done enough). Mulling over what flavour of cake to bake, I settled on old-fashioned gingerbread. My grandmother used to bake gingerbread when I was really little aand I can still remember the taste and smells from way back when.....This was my first go at making egg-free gingerbread and the resulting cake turned out moist, fine-crumbed and down-right delicious, if I do say so myself. I think the picture speaks a 1000 words, all of them good, yes? Now I'm working on making it gluten free and dairy free. That will be great.

Chocolate strawberry cheesecake!

Creamcheese filled Strawberries

Don't these beauties look yummy? They were! I had a whole lot of cream cheese frosting left after frosting some egg-free Guiness cupcakes (that's a story for another time) and decided to try these out. Just gouged out the centres of the strawberries and piped in the cream cheese frosting. Then dipped each strawberry into melted dark chocolate - a happy combination of chocolate dipped strawberries and strawberry cheesecake. Marriage made in my heaven!     

Cupcake decorating class for kids at IBM, Singapore

Tables prepped for kids decorating class

We did a couple of cupcake decorating sessions for 50 kids at IBM, Singapore. Each child was given 4 egg-free and dairy-free chocolate cupcakes to decorate. The sessions were completely egg, dairy, nut and gelatin free so that at least 4 of the main allergies were covered.

Animal face toppers 

Easy-to-do animal face toppers for the cupcakes were chosen for the decorating workshop, as the kids were ranged in age from 4 to 12. They were taught to make the faces of a pig, cat, bear and elephant (see picture above).

Messy fun!

The elephant was the star of the day. The children came up with some amazingly creative forms of the animal faces shown them. One of them made an incredible elephant face with heavy eyebrows which so reminded me of Snuffulufagus from Sesame Street!

Making animal face toppers for cupcakes

A great deal of free artistic expression was going on, I tell you! A lot of fun was had by all! 

Kiran's Angry Birds Birthday Cake

Kiran's Angry Birds Birthday Cake

My son, Kiran's 8th birthday cake was a real labor of love.....8 mini 'labors' - Angry Bird characters, one for each child at the party. The birds were made of fondant and seated on an egg-free chocolate mousse cake. The cake was a hit with the kids but we nearly had a riot on our hands when, some of the guests wanted the same character! Thankfully, the situation was resolved with minimum fuss and all had a great time.