Moreish Flapjacks

So, I am getting sick of all the plastic in our shop and day by day we are gradually cutting back on plastic, either products that are packed in plastic, or plastic straws, or shower gels in plastic bottles, or takeaway cups and so on.

We used to buy in some great flapjacks, gluten free, wheat free, vegan they ticked most of the food boxes but they were wrapped in plastic.

We sold the last one over the weekend, so it looks like if we want to sell flapjacks they'll have to be made from scratch. I made some and they taste amazing. They are very easy to make.


1/ Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2/ Line a 9" x 9" square brownie tin with grease proof paper.
3/ Place the following ingredients into a blender:
1/2 a cup of just boiled water
1/2 a cup of pitted dates, leave to stand for about 5 minutes.
4/ Add a ripe banana and 1/2 a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda to the dates and water.
5/ Heat 4 tablespoons of coconut oil and pour into the blender.
6/ Blend it all together, I use the smoothie setting.
7/ When the mixture is properly blended, add 2 and a half cups of gluten free oats and stir in well by hand.
8/ Scrape the mixture from the blender and press it evenly into the prepared baking tin.
9/ Cook for around 20 minutes. 

Chocolate Beetroot Cake with Frosting

I had such a lot of fun on Facebook this week asking for cake flavour suggestions and then I promised that the one I picked as the winning flavour to bake, would have a free slice sent to them through the post! The overall flavour winner was a Lavender and Vanilla cake suggestion, which sounded wonderfully summery and unusual too, so the lucky lady that suggested it, actually did receive a slice of her bespoke, specially created flavour cake through the post, just a few days later and she was delighted. That recipe however, is for another day!

There were so many excellent suggestions that I have decided that I will indeed bake every single one that I feel could be attractive and appealing and made my way. Cakes made my way are wholesome, vegan and glutenfree.

I would make myself bankrupt sending off a free slice of cake to everyone who had made a suggestion, so I have decided to give back in another way, by baking the cake and tweaking it and then sharing my recipe so that anyone can make it!

An important point for me to make is that I don't like faffing around in the kitchen, making things complicated and fussy, I want quick and tasty results. When I work with a recipe, I want it to be easy to read and not have to weight out lots of ingredients first, into lots of bowls and create lots of washing up! No way. I do not like washing up and cleaning up, so space used is minimal and ingredients are measured out with cups, rather than weighed out on scales, a lot easier. This is why my recipes don't have an ingredient list at the beginning. The way to use my recipes is to read through them once to check you have everything you need, or suitable substitutions. Then follow the step by step instructions.

Chocolate Beetroot Cake with frosting.

The Cake

1/ Preheat the oven to 180°

2/ Line a 9" x 9" brownie tin with greaseproof paper and then grease it with vegetable oil.

3/ Put the following ingredients into a large jug and stir well:
1 cup of Essential Buckwheat Flour
1/2 a cup of Doves Farm Gluten Free Plain Flour
1/2 a cup of sugar
1/2 a cup of Divine Cocoa Powder
1/2 a teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of Bicarbonate of Soda
1/2 a smashed up bar, 100g of Divine Dark Baking Chocolate

4/ Put the following ingredients into a blender and blend well:

1/2 a cup of cooked beetroot
1 cup of water
1/3 cup of vegetable oil
1 teaspoon of Vanilla Extract
2 tablespoons of Biona Apple Cider Vinegar with Mother

5/ Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir well.

6/ Pour the batter out into the greased and lined baking tray and pop into the preheated oven for 20 minutes.

7/ Take the cake out of the oven and cover with foil, then bake for another 10 minutes, or until a knife stuck into the centre of the cake comes out clean.

8/ Leave the cake to cool, with the foil taken off.

The Frosting

1/ Combine the following ingredients finely in your blender:

Just ripe peeled and stoned avocados x 2

10 x tablespoons of Agave Nectar 

1/2 a cup of Divine Cocoa Powder.

2/ When the cake is cool smooth the frosting over the top. If you are lucky, there might be some mixture left in the blender which you will have to eat, to make cleaning easier!

3/ Slice this cake into 8 equal slices, or even 16 little cubes and store in the fridge until you are ready to serve.

This cake didn't last for one day, as everybody loved it!

If you have any questions about this recipe, please let me know in the comments.

Thanks for reading and I'd love to know how you get on when you make yours.

Best Brownies Ever, Fairtrade, Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free, with Free-Range Eggs in just TEN STEPS

It's not every day that you go to someone's funeral and taste a cake that is so deliciously chocolatey and gooey and chewy, all that same time, that you have to ask the person who gave it to you from her tin, for the recipe. 'Ah', she responded,'It is a secret family recipe and I can't tell it to you.' I knew that I had to get that recipe, it couldn't remain a secret any longer, I wanted my customers in my shop to be able to enjoy a slice of this indulgent deliciousness with their coffee. Poor lady at the funeral, I followed her around asking and asking, finally, she smiled a secret, cheeky smile and told me the truth, that it comes out of a packet mix from Costco.

So, we went to Costco and found the mix that she was talking about and it was so easy, we just had to add some oil and some eggs and they came out perfectly, every time, which was great for me, as I don't see myself as a naturally great cook, I'm the kind of person that would always burn myself when cooking, or burn what I was cooking! Also, my concentration is not my strong point, so remembering where I am in a recipe or even planning ahead to pre-heat the oven, is still an achievement in itself. That I suppose, would be the end of the story, if I didn't feel passionately about Fairtrade and making sure that our cakes do something to help heal the planet and are ethical too. I called up the mix manufacturer and asked if they would be doing a Fairtrade version, with Fairtrade chocolate and sugar in and they said that it wasn't on their radar at all. I was really disappointed and after a lot of thinking decided to try to create a recipe as simple as theirs, no egg separation needed, no fancy stuff, just quick ingredients that you can throw in the bowl and then cook and it comes out right, every time, no matter who makes it and it is Fairtrade and I decided that I wanted to make it Gluten-Free too.

So, I tried and I tried and I tried, again and again and our customers were lucky enough to taste them and tell us what they wanted it to taste like, then one day, after lots of failures, I created a recipe that tasted so beautiful, gooey, chewy and rich but with a clean aftertaste! Success! Not only that but it was Fairtrade and Gluten-free too.

Well, after that build-up, you'll want the recipe now, won't you!

I write my recipes as step by step instructions, how you would do things logically, none of this suddenly being told to put things in a pre-heated oven, without being told it needed to be pare-heated, at the beginning of the recipe.

Best Brownies Ever, Fairtrade, Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free, with Free Range Eggs. Suitable for Vegetarians.

1/ Preheat the oven to 170 Degrees Celsius

2/ Line a 9 x 13 inch baking tray with grease-proof paper and grease with oil.

3/ Into a big bowl put 450g of raw cane caster sugar, Fairtrade, with 3 eggs and 1 teaspoon of Fairtrade Vanilla Extract. Mix together well, with a fork.

4/ Into a measuring jug, measure out 200ml of vegetable oil, then add 70g of Divine Cocoa Powder. Mix these together well with a fork and then add to the sugar and egg mix and mix it all together.

5/Next, measure out 120g of Doves Farm Organic Gluten Free Self Raising Flour and add 1 and a half teaspoons of Doves Farm Gluten Free Baking powder and add this to the chocolatey mixture, stir in well.

6/ Take a 100g bar of Divine Dark Chocolate and smash into pieces whilst still in the packet, using a rolling pin, I prefer a hammer though!

7/ Mix the chocolate pieces into the mix.

8/ Pour and scrape the mix into the prepared baking tray.

9/ Place in to the preheated oven for 19 minutes. Then take out, cover with foil and place in the oven for another 19 minutes.

10/ Take the brownies out and give them time to cool, then serve up and enjoy!

These brownies are great for a teatime treat, or even as an extra delicious dessert. If you can't be bothered to make them for yourself, then please pop into our shop and get some.

These brownies are full of sugar, so they are not the healthiest thing in the world to eat but they are very, very tasty and enjoyable!

My Maca Bliss Balls

My Maca Powder arrived today and I could not wait to experiment with this new taste. Reading up about it on the web, I see it is said to have libido raising properties, that it can energise and lift your mood and other positive things and it tastes sweet and malty, what's not to love. So, after browsing a bit more, I created these truffles, a mish mash of other recipes tweaked and completely changed and mashed up and My Maca Bliss Balls, is what I have created!

This is what I did, all the ingredients are available to buy or order from us, by the way.

My Maca Bliss Balls

Soak 1/2 a cup of cashews and 1/2 a cup of walnuts in boiling hot water.

Take 10 pitted organic and Fairtrade dates and soak those in a separate bowl of boiling hot water.

Prepare the other ingredients.

Put 3 tablespoons of coconut butter in a container and put somewhere warm, or maybe put the container into hot water, so that it melts and add a drop of vanilla extract.

Then measure out 1/4 cup of Raw Cacao Powder, plus a 1/4 of a cup of Maca Powder and two tablespoons of Hemp Protein Powder.

Drain the water from the nuts and put the nuts into your superduper strong blender, not just any ordinary blender, otherwise this won't work. Then pulse and blend, until nicely combined.

Next drain the water from the dates and add them to the blender and then whizz away.

Keep blending and slowly pour the melted coconut butter with vanilla extract into the mix.

Then add the powders and blend well together, until it is all stodgy!

Put the mix into a metal container then put into the freezer, whilst you prepare the coatings for your truffles.

I used Cacao nibs on some, melted chocolate on some others and cacao powder on the ones that were left. 

It's pretty much up to you how creative you get and what you'd like to do.

Once you have your coatings ready, it's time to get the mix out of the freezer and start rolling walnut sized balls, you should get around 12 to 15 balls. Then roll them in your chosen coating, put them into the fridge and then ENJOY!!

I am now going to take these home to my family to enjoy and hopefully we will have a blissed out evening.

Please let me know what you decide to coat your balls with! (Hmmm, that doesn't sound too good but you know what I mean). xxx

The Easiest, Quickest, Tastiest Gluten-Free Pizza Ever!

I have just enjoyed the most delicious gluten-free pizza that I have ever made, no, I have just enjoyed the most delicious gluten-free pizza that I have ever tasted! Here is the recipe and it is PERFECT! The base is also brilliant for Vegans too, with no milk, or eggs needed! (If you are making Vegan pizza make sure that the toppings you choose are suitable for Vegans and don't put cheese on and I do NOT recommend any cheese replacement either, they are yuck, in my opinion!)

The base of the pizza is made with the Glebe Farm, Gluten Free Seeded Brown Bread Mix, which you can buy from our shop.

1/ Preheat your oven to 190 Degrees.

2/ Line a 9" x 13" baking tray with greaseproof paper and then grease well with oil.

3/ Pour a whole packet of 375g of Glebe Farm, Gluten Free Seeded Brown Bread Mix with Linseed and Sunflower Seeds into a large bowl and add the 10g of yeast included in the packet. 

4/ Stir in 1 tablespoon of raw cane caster sugar and 1 teaspoon of salt.

5/ Then into a measuring jug pour in hot water up to the 200ml mark, then add cold water to make up to 275ml in total.

6/ Add 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil to the water and stir in, then pour into the flour mixture and stir round until it is well mixed.

7/ Scrape the mixture into the baking tin and level it off, with the back of a spoon.

8/ Next, top with any toppings you like, put in the oven and cook for 20 to 25 minutes.

That's it!

In the photos, I used a tomato topping that I had whizzed up in the blender of tinned tomatoes, olives, herbs and tomato puree, with garlic, I spread that onto the base, layered baby spinach leaves on top of that, sprinkled on some cheddar cheese, and placed olive slices and torn sun-dried tomatoes on top.

The end result is the most delicious gluten-free pizza ever! Don't forget, you can make it suitable for Dairy-Free Diets and Vegans by missing out the cheese and ensuring you use only Dairy-Free/Vegan toppings.

Chickpea, Tomato and Quinoa Dahl

Lunch for Tuesday 5th May 2015, this gorgeous tasting, Chickpea, Tomato and Quinoa Dahl! Presented in a bowl for £2.70, at the time of writing and presented with a poppadom on the side. I have been told many times that I should charge more but I want to make healthy food accessible for all, I want to inspire people to eat like this at home too! People love my cooking but I am not a naturally great cook, the way I cook is to make it as easy as possible for myself, whatever I make is easy to emulate, I promise. Lots of the ingredients we use in our dishes, I stock on our shelves for you to take home and make it for yourself. These prices too are kept as low as I possibly can.

Since around the beginning of March, we have introduced a Daily Dish of the Day in our Shepton Mallet shop, I kept turning people away for lunch and didn't want to do sandwiches. Then one day a beautiful Vegan couple turned up in my shop, they love playing Bananagram, so I got one in for them and maybe that was when they realised I might be open to gentle persuasion. That lovely couple are now a family of three and have completely convinced me to keep cooking Vegan lunches for Shepton Mallet.

I am NOT a vegan myself but what inspires me to keep cooking these vegan dishes? Well, there are several things, I do enjoy challenges and cooking something Vegan and making it look and smell so tasty that even meat eaters will buy it, try it and come back for me, is pretty exciting for me! Our business is based on sustainability, the vegetarian and vegan way of eating is much better for the earth and we are already committed to our business being 100% suitable for vegetarians, there is just less harm done to our world when animal products are avoided and I have to say that all the Vegans I've met so far seem to look fit, healthy and slender. I don't know if that's because they have to keep saying, 'No, I can't eat that, no, sorry, can't eat that', or whether it could be the discipline they show in saying no to certain products, extends over into their own health and self-control. I can't imagine a Vegan person sitting down and just deciding to stuff their face with raw cane sugar, even if it is entirely suitable for vegans. Vegan eating in general fits in with Paleo style diets, apart from the slabs of protein made out of cows or pigs that Paleo eating encourages us to have on our plate. I also like the idea of conscious, mindful eating, of having standards and sticking to them, it appeals to me. If you are going to eat animals, then at least call them by their proper names and don't suddenly change a pig to bacon and a cow to beef, it's silly and a cover up of the truth.

I like the way that these dishes I am creating are nearly always gluten-free, they are always made from scratch, no pre-made sauces, or additives, certainly not bought in from a manufacturer and passed off as my own! My dishes are always great for Slimming World members because they are usually SYN FREE! I am proud of that. That's why I wrote it in big letters. They are not so synfree though, if I have cooked something with tinned coconut milk in, so always check with me first! They are always dairy free too and packed with protein. I don't eat dairy or gluten myself, I feel so much better for it, healthier, fitter and slimmer, so it's easy for me to make those kinds of lunches for everyone else. The other thing is my partner Gunter is diabetic, so I am very aware that foods of a low to medium GI are better for all of us, not just for diabetic people.

The great thing about these Vegan, Dairy-Free, Gluten-Free, Slimming World friendly lunches, is that they embrace people from all cultures, people who have to follow all kinds of restrictions in their diets, people that want to eat healthily, well, tastily and sensibly! I like it when people connect together and these vegan lunches are doing exactly that! Imagine going somewhere to eat where there is NO menu, there is only one dish on offer and that is Dish of the Day! I love seeing people that don't know each other, sitting down to enjoy the same food and people that do know each other and are coming out as a family or as friends sit down and share the same food, it's very, very special. The whole way of doing this means I don't ever have to throw food away. Why ever did we think it was such a good idea to have so many choices in what we eat in restaurants? This way that I am discovering for myself is leaner, greener, healthier and proving to be very popular!

Here are the ingredients that I used in the Chickpea, Tomato and Quinoa Lunch, so you can check through them. Allergens are in bold.

Onion from the Friday Market
Garlic from the Friday Market
Ginger from My Coffee Stop
Tomatoes from the Friday Market
Tinned Tomatoes from My Coffee Stop
Cumin from Peppers
Coriander from Peppers
Turmeric from Peppers
Chilli flakes from Peppers
Yeast Extract from My Coffee Stop
Spinach Leaves from Aldi
Fresh Coriander Leaves from Aldi
Cashew Nut Butter from My Coffee Stop
Quinoa from My Coffee Stop
Kallo Yeast Free Stock Cube from My Coffee Stop, (Contains Celery)
Chick Peas from My Coffee Stop
Leek from the Friday Market
Celery from the Friday Market.

So come along and taste it for yourself, or make it for yourself!

Gluten Free Awareness Week UK

Gluten-Free Awareness Week, From 12th May to 18th May 2014!

We are celebrating this event by offering more flavours than ever before in our Shepton Mallet Shop! Today, I have just finished baking some absolutely delicious Blueberry Gluten-Free and Dairy-Free Muffins. I've worked hard on perfecting our Gluten-Free recipes, our cakes do not taste dairy or gluten-free. In fact in Shepton Mallet, all our cakes are Gluten and Dairy-Free! 

I really enjoy seeing the look on people's faces as they ask what Gluten-Free or Dairy-Free options we have available and they actually have a choice and it's not just one token cake.

Coeliac UK are the charity that are promoting this Awareness week, part of their campaign is to ensure that supermarket chains commit to stocking the essentials you need, so that you don't need to go all over the place for your weekly shop! 

We have a massive range of Gluten-Free goods available to you, that we can order in for you from either of our shops, so if it's important to you to support the independents, please let us know what you are finding it hard to find and we will get it! Just pop into either of our shops and tell us exactly what you are looking for.

In our Enfield shop we provide a range of ready wrapped grab and go snacks that are great for Coeliacs, or those on a dairy-free diet and in our Shepton Mallet shop, we have ready wrapped snacks available, as well as handmade, home baked artisan Gluten-Free and Dairy-Free Cakes!

We hope to stock these cakes in our Enfield branch soon.

Out of interest, what would your favourite Gluten-Free cake be? Please let me know by commenting here.

Have a great Awareness Week 2014!