Gingerbread Hearts: Grain-Free, Dairy-free, Cane-Sugar-Free.

I Googled up this recipe for gluten-free, dairy-free, refined-sugar-free gingerbread  via Amy Green's blog at Simply Sugar and Gluten-Free. So what's in them, you ask? The regular biscuit-ingredients of butter and cane sugar are replaced with coconut oil and coconut sugar and the usual wheat-grain-flour is replaced with flour made from buckwheat-seeds and psyllium husks. Tried and tested - Yum-oh!

Gorgeous Ginger Cake - (Gluten-free & Dairy-free)

This recipe makes a fairly large cake (25cm diameter, 7cm high). You can halve the ingredients for a smaller cake.

Ingredients:

350g rice-bran oil
100g rapadura (evaporated cane-juice)
6 eggs
2 tablespoons molasses
285g of sweet preserved stem ginger
1 cup glutinous rice flour
1 cup brown rice flour
3 cups nuts (Almonds + Cashews + Hazelnuts)
6 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground ginger
4 heaped teaspoon grated fresh ginger
4 tablespoons soy milk

Method:

• Grind the nuts into a fine meal in a food processor. Set aside.
• In a large mixing bowl, beat oil and sugar until light coloured.
• Add eggs gradually, whites first and then the yolks and beat until light and fluffy.
• Fold in molasses.
• Fold in sifted flour, baking powder, ground ginger and nut meal.
• Fold in fresh ginger and chopped stem-ginger.
• Fold in milk.
• Pour into a greased 25cm spring-form cake-tin, lined on the base with baking paper. 
• Bake for 50-70 mins in 170°C oven
• Allow cake to cool, before icing with Cashew Frosting.

Cashew Frosting - Sugar-free! (not pictured - but very, very yummy!)

1 cup raw, unsalted cashews (soaked in water for 30 minutes)
1/8 to 1/4 cup agave Syrup (taste it and see how sweet you want it)
juice of 1 large lemon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup Coconut oil, melted
purified water

Soak cashews in water for at least 30 minutes but no longer than 60 minutes. Drain cashews and combine all frosting ingredients, except the coconut oil, in a food processor or blender and begin blending – add water slowly until the mixture becomes creamy and reaches desired consistency, you might need only a few tablespoons, as the lemon juice and agave syrup often give enough liquidity on their own. When the cashew mix is smooth enough, add the melted coconut oil, which will help the icing to set when it cools. Refrigerate the frosting for a few hours until it is cool and firm, then frost the cooled cake, applying with a palate knife or piping bag just before serving.

Enjoy!

PS: The flowers used for the styling of this photo are from Silk Flora - 109-111 Parramatta Rd Annandale, 2038

Ginger Tea & a Happy Solstice to Everyone!!

We made it! Today is officially the shortest day of the Southern Hemisphere's winter – so for us, it only gets better from here: bit-by-bit, longer days and more light. Of course, it will stay cold for a few months yet, so continuing with winter-warming dishes in the kitchen is the go.

In honour of the Solstice, my dear friend Kait and I got together for an afternoon of creative collaboration to make some photos of some yum-oh drinks that warm you from the inside out. Kait is also a photographer and her eye for detail in the styling of the photographs is a delight to behold.

Ginger Tea with Black-Sesame Balls.
The perfect treat to keep you going through a winter-solstice game of Mahjong!























Ginger Tea for the Four-Winds:
2 cm piece of fresh green ginger, grated
4 cups of boiling water
4 teaspoons honey.

Steep all ingredients in a warmed ceramic tea-pot for five minutes.
Serve hot in small tea-cups.

























Black Sesame Balls:
Ok, so we didn’t make the Sesame Balls - sorry, no recipe for those - some things are best left to the experts! And the lovely Vietnamese grocers on the corner had this crispy, chewy, sweet snack for sale, freshly made for only 40c each. I’d just popped down to Illawarra Rd in Marrickville to pick up some fresh green ginger for the tea and the sesame balls looked so good - so round and golden - they cried out to be photographed!

Yum-oh!