Spelt Cookies

This is an easy recipe which uses Cathys Spelt for Health White Scone Mix. These cookies would make a pretty delicious food present especially as the festive season is coming up.

What you need is;

280g White Scone Mix

225g of butter

140g of caster sugar

Lemon or orange zest

1 egg yolk lightly beaten

Half a teaspoon of cinnamon

A pinch of salt

Method:

Mix the butter, sugar and lemon zest in a bowl with a wooden spoon until well mixed.

Add in the egg.

Sieve the flour, cinnamon and salt into the mixture until it forms a dough

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees C/170 degrees C/Gas 5

Line two flat baking trays with baking parchment

Roll out the dough and cut out shapes with cutter

Space the cookies apart on the tray and put in oven for 10-15 mins until golden.

If you would like to use normal spelt flour keep the recipe the same. If you would like a healthy version use dairy free margarine, coconut oil and replace the sugar with Xylitol or coconut sugar. Most importantly enjoy!

Oklahoma Pumpkin Pie

Paradise Pumpkin Pie

This recipe for pumpkin pie comes courtesy of Rhonda Malahy from Oklahoma who is  my daughters mother-in law. I got a great recipe book called Cafe Oklahoma from her and Paradise Pumpkin Pie is straight from it. Its was our first time ever making pumpkin pie and it is really good. 

 

Step 1: Shortcrust pastry base

Preheat oven to 350º.

We made the shortcrust pastry base with spelt flour.

7 oz spelt flour sifted

pinch of salt

3.5 oz chilled butter cubed

approx half a medium egg beaten    

Method: 

Place the flour, salt and butter in a bowl and rub in the butter with your finger tips. Add the egg until the mixture comes together and place on a sheet of baking parchment.  Using a rolling pin roll out until flat and lift into the pie tin. This saves the pie sticking to the tin!  

 

Step 2 Pumpkin Pie:

 1 x 8oz packet of Philadelphia

2oz sugar/xylitol

½ teaspoon vanilla

1 egg beaten

Method:

Combine softened cream cheese, sugar and vanilla, mixing until well blended. Blend in egg. Spread onto bottom of pastry base. 

  

Step 3 Pie filling:

10 oz pureed pumpkin (we used a real pumpkin boiled and mashed but you can buy tinned pumpkin)

237 ml of evaporated milk

4oz sugar/xylitol

2 eggs lightly beaten

1 teaspoon cinnamon

¼ teaspoon ginger

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

Dash of salt

59ml maple syrup

Pecan halves to garnish

Method:

To make the pumpkin puree we chopped up the pumpkin and boiled it until soft enough, mashed it and allowed the water to drain by placing it in a strainer over a saucepan when cold. You will have enough left for another pie if you use a large pumpkin and you can freeze this for later!

Combine remaining pie ingredients (10 oz pureed pumpkin, 237 ml of evaporated milk, 4oz sugar/xylitol, 2 eggs lightly beaten, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, ¼ teaspoon ginger, ¼ teaspoon nutmeg, dash of salt) except maple syrup and pecan halves and mix well. Carefully pour over cream cheese mixture. Bake for an hour.

Step 4: Spiced Whipped Topping

4 oz brown sugar/coconut sugar

1/3 teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

200 ml whipping cream

½ teaspoon vanilla

Method:

Allow to cool and brush with maple syrup and garnish with pecan halves if desired. For topping, mix brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg in medium sized bowl. Stir in whipping cream and vanilla and allow to chill for an hour. Take from fridge and whip until stiff. Spread on top and enjoy!.

Blas na hEireann 2012

Just back from a brilliant weekend in Dingle at the Blas na hEireann awards, it is a bit of a trek but well worth it I can tell you. Its a beautiful part of the country and as the Dingle Food Festival was on the town was heaving and the atmosphere was just brilliant. The sun was so warm that I even ended up with sun burn!

Cathy was sick and so couldn't make it this year but hopefully next year we will get shortlisted and have a great excuse to head down again. 

The morning started out at the marina where all the shortlisted producers had their photos taken with their products and then headed off the the Dingle Brewing Company where all the products were on display with plenty of samples to try.







I met the nicest of producers who are based at Mahon Point Farmers Market and we ended up hanging out for  the evening. Lucy from Ballyhoura Mountain Mushrooms, Una from Unas Pies and John and Sylvie who make macarons and cake pops. Lucy picked up two awards and Una's pies  won gold , silver and bronze as well as best in farmers market and Supreme champion 2012! 

I hope that next year we will be a bit more organized and will get to head off on the taste trail. It was just so lovely to walk around and soak up the atmosphere. We got a silver for our flapjacks which was the icing on the cake, pity mam couldn't make it, but there's always next year!

 

Rude HealthShow

We (myself and Cathy) were at the Rude Health Show in the RDS for the third  or maybe fourth year which is a bit scary!

As always it was a great show and great to meet customers, shops who stock us and distributors. The hit at the show were the flapjacks which were made with coconut oil and date syrup. We also made them with rice syrup which was great too they were more golden but harder. The date syrup gave the flapjacks a darker colour and they were softer to eat. The date syrup is more expensive however. All the breads were made with different milks, the wholemeal was made with coconut milk which was lovely and moist, the multiseed with soya milk, good but I think a little dry, the tomato and herb was made with oat milk and the scone mix was made with normal low fat milk. We got great feedback and lots of tips and suggestions which we will use in our future recipe development.





We were sharing a stand with Lizzie B who produces the loveliest handmade cosmetics free of parabens and other nasty stuff.

Lizzie B

Our other neighbor was Quality Sea Veg which have the most amazing array of sea weeds all handpicked and dried in Donegal. We will be adding Atlantic Spirulina which is a superfood to our bread for extra healthiness.

Quality Sea Veg

 

The York Test Laboratories were also there and we got our first step food intolerance test as both Cathy and myself and half the family suffer from allergies of one kind or another. Cathy suffered anaphalyxis a few years ago and they never found what she was allergic to they thought it was a build up of allergies. I have acne rosacea which flares up badly at times so we can wait to get the results. It was great chatting to the team and I found Dr Gill Harte's talk on Food Allergies and Intolerance very informative but I only caught part of it. Cant wait to get back the results!

Baking with Coconut Oil

Last weekend I popped into our local Health Food Store Health at Hand in Arklow and met with Ashling and had a great chat about coconut oil as I wanted to use it as a substitute for butter in our scones. I bought Bionas’s Organic Coconut Oil and did a little bit of reading around on the internet about it and it really has so many health benefits. 

The website OrganicFacts gives a lot of information on it  It is antimicrobial, antioxidant, antifungal, antibacterial, soothing and can be used for hair care as a moisturizer and one girl even uses it as deodorant. 

 If you want more scientific research on the benefits of coconut oil the Coconut Research Centre has plenty!

 I substituted 56g of butter for 56g of solid coconut oil and made the scones in exactly the same way as I would normally do.

I added cherries and walnuts for a change and they really turned out great. The texture was excellent and it was so easy to rub the coconut oil into the flour. 

They really tasted great and they did have a hint of coconut but I like coconut and it added a lovely flavour to the scones. I even went as far as to use it as a spread to replace butter and it wasn’t bad at all. I will be using this again for sure and next time with the Flapjacks so I’ll keep you posted!

Tinahely Show 2012

 Yesterday we were at the Tinahely Show it was a really great day our third anniversary! Our first time we were located in the prime position between two massive tractors in the machinery section! We have since worked our way up into the IFA food tent.








Its a great show which has been running since 1937 which is amazing and all voluntary. Its a 73 acre site so I didnt get a chance to look around all the tents and displays. Everyone was in such good form. Its great to meet so many new people and characters.
So until next year!

Our cup for best Wicklow Product

Lovely wellies!

Tomato and Herb Spelt Muffins

Its been a while since we last posted but better late than never! So last weekend we were doing a spot of baking trying out new recipes and getting a few new pics for the new website which is a work in progress at the moment.

We tried out our tomato and herb mix and added in some grated cheese chopped olives and popped them in some 'non-stick' muffin cases which did stick but this is probably because they are muffin cases not designed for our mix! Next time I'll use baking parchment. They tasted great with smoked salmon, creme cheese and a squeeze of lemon. A nice treat for the weekend!