may-june: kerri’s whiskey-infused ice cream sundae

The past couple of months have seen quite a huge change for me – we moved from Singapore to London! It’s been quite the adventure so far, moving from our apartment to a hotel in Singapore, to temporary accommodation in London, within which we moved to a smaller apartment while we wait to move to our permanent address next week! Within a 9 week period, we would have moved 5 times!

So it’s within this framework that I did this challenge. The kitchen offerings in our temporary accommodation are quite basic (I even had to buy my own vegetable peeler, chopping board and dish rack!), so I didn’t have much to work with. But I imagine there are many of us who find themselves in the same position at one time or another, whether you are travelling, in transition, or just don’t have much.

Having less presents more of a challenge to cooking / baking, so sometimes you just have to cheat. By cheat, I mean go to the store and buy some ready made products. You could leave it at that, but if you want to add a personal touch, then condiments are your way to go.

I found an easy recipe for candied whiskey nuts. To be honest, these are best eaten on their own, if you definitely want to taste the whiskey. It gets a little lost when added to other ingredients, but on their own, they’re quite moreish!

And what is a sundae without {chocolate} sauce? A basic chocolate sauce is one of the easiest things to make, and with this one, you just add in the whiskey at the end.

So you’ve got your two homemade condiments ready. Now it’s time to put everything together. And this is where store-bought becomes key. You can buy whatever ice cream you want, whatever other add-ins you want (here, we just added brownies). Put it all together and voila, you have a decadent dessert with a personal touch, indulgent and that little bit naughty with the added whiskey. Yum.

You can find the recipes here:
Candied Whiskey Nuts
Chocolate Whiskey Sauce

march-april: kerri’s lemon madeleines

Madeleines. I’ve always wanted to make them but always thought they would be difficult. I never read a recipe, just an assumption because they’re french and light, and fiddly because they’re small.

My mum kept some madeleine pans for me which she’s had for many, many years. I decided to bring them back with me after going home for Christmas, because at the back of my mind, my increasing curiosity was getting the better of me.

So I knew exactly what I wanted to make when the bite sized theme was announced. I didn’t want to make something big into bite sized pieces. I wanted to make something that was always meant to be bite sized. And of course, I really wanted to break out those madeleine pans and give them a go.

Madeleines, after all, are not difficult to make. Mine weren’t perfect – a few too many air bubbles in the first couple of batches, but I found that as I sat the raw mix a bit longer, it settled down a bit and the madeleines were still as light, just didn’t have as many holes in them!

So enjoy. They’re so small, light and airy that you really can have more than one, or two, or three, or…

You can find the recipe here.

March-April: Grace’s Lavender and Lemon Friands (with Earl Grey Drizzle)

I am a grazer. When I was young, feeding me would last an entire day as I nibbled my way through meals and even as an adult, I’m such a serial snacker. Big meals intimidate me, but I’ll happily feed like a rabbit all day long, just give it to me bite-sized. So this challenge was one I relished! So much in fact, that I had trouble deciding what to make- cake pops, the wonderful world of cookies and biscuits, scones, muffins, truffles… it’s a dangerous rabbit hole to fall down! 

In the end, I decided to kill two birds with one stone. Tea blending is another passion of mine, and since I’m on the journey to perfect a lavender infused earl grey, I figured I’d make the most of the fragrant lavender buds and earl grey teas I had on hand. Staying inspired by those glorious summers in Provence, I decided on friands, an essential in any french high tea set. 

Warning: the intoxicating smell of lavender as it infuses with the melting butter is seriously seductive.

Happy sweet sweet snacking, these definitely didn’t last long in our house!

Flavours that just work: home blended earl grey with lavender, fresh lemon zest and the deliciousness of almond meal.

You can find the recipe here.

Constance’s Apple and Strawberry Crumble

Gluten. The gluuee that holds the dough together. Known as the muse to all bakers and the nemesis to all health-nuts, gluten-free baking is starting to gain traction in the baking world. No, we are not talking about adding avocado in our cake mixtures, but simply some careful substitution to the traditional flours.

 

The crumble is a general crowd pleaser – no one noticed that it was gluten-free until I told them!

You can find the recipe here.

january-february: kerri’s (ovenly’s secretly vegan) chocolate chip cookies

When I saw this recipe a few months ago, it sparked my interest because it claimed that you would never know they were vegan. No butter in a cookie? Really? No eggs? Really?

But it wasn’t just that. Six out of nine of my nieces and nephews have / have had food allergies. So this theme is close to my heart. For the past 17 years, our family get togethers changed from let’s-cook-whatever-we-want to still-yummy-but-much-more-considered meals, and especially desserts, of which I’m usually in charge. One of my nieces is anaphylactic to nuts. That means contact with nuts could be life threatening for her. So I’ve learnt to be very careful when I know I’m going to see her, and especially if I’m baking. I’ve tried a few different recipes over these years, and there was always something about them that wasn’t quite perfect.

But when I found, tried and tested this recipe, I knew it was a winner, on all counts. As well as being friendly for people with dairy, egg and nut allergies, it is also one of the quickest, simplest recipes I {now} have in my go-to collection… and yes, it’s one of the yummiest choc chip cookies I have ever had.

No mixer needed, just a whisk, 2 bowls and a spatula for mixing. Flour, rising agents, salt and choc chips in one bowl. Sugars, oil and water in the other. Mix together. As simple as that.

The time {but no effort} consuming part of this recipe is resting the mixture for 12-24 hours. So you do need to think ahead if you want these for a particular day.

An optional step is to freeze the dough for around 10 minutes after portioning to help them retain their shape. I’ve not tried baking them without this step {because I’m a bit of a perfectionist so I like them to look uniform} but go ahead if you don’t want to wait, and let me know how they turn out!

I’ve made them on a few occasions now, and undoubtedly they get the most compliments than any other cookie I’ve baked. And no one really believes me when I tell them they’re vegan. They all give me the same incredulous look until they realise I’m not lying, and then they just have another one… and another… and another.

You can find the recipe here.

Jan-Feb: Grace’s Christmas Spiced Carrot Cake

When I was little, some of the best school days involved cake. Bake sales, birthdays, school fete’s… cake’s were a very regular occurence. There were no rules; anything and everything was gobbled up- sure, most of us ended up a little too hyped up on sugar but the worst parental nightmare was usually just someone throwing up from mixing rainbow cake, chocolate icing, fairy bread, a lot of running around and hanging upside down from monkey bars. There may have been a nut allergy or two among the class but it was a simpler time.

These days, the world of food allergies seems to have just exploded and it’s all a lot more complicated. There are consent forms, disclaimers, rules on where things can be served and terrified teachers on constant watch for any signs of accidental cross contamination from sticky fingers. No more bringing in a supermarket mix cake for the entire class, you’ll need a few varieties of cupcakes whose recipes have been pre approved! 

With this in mind, I decided to just tackle the “allergy of the moment”-gluten.  Humble gluten, responsible for the elasticity in dough, is found in many staple foods from obvious wheat based candidates like bread, to rye, barley, and any foods containing these grains- so most cakes involving flour whether it be plain, self raising, cake or pastry. So what to do? With Christmas is still on my mind and a desire to throwback to those cake filled childhood days, I settled on a gluten-free variation on my beloved carrot cake, which can be found here 

It’s a simple recipe really, the most tedious thing was grating up all those carrots! It’s also relatively healthy with refined sugar replaced with honey. and I personally loved this variation on the traditional cream cheese icing- the orange zest and orange juice really brightens things, although traditionalists may resist. My husband will attest to the fact that I’m renown for tampering with dessert recipes in an effort to “healthise” them but I’m happy to report that in this case, no one will be the wiser and everyone will ask for seconds.