Gluten, sugar and dairy free treats

How hard is it to find or make gluten and dairy free treats? I want to share with you a very quick and easy recipe that will fill the void with none of the guilt!

Dairy, gluten and sugar free chocolate crispy cakes 

Ingredients:  

Half a bar good quality dark chocolate (check the ingredients to make sure it doesn't contain dairy)

30g gluten free cornflakes - check your cereals, a lot of 'corn' and 'oat' based breakfast cereals also contain wheat. This ones I used were Whole Earth.

Teaspoon of honey - I used a jar from a local beekeeper.

Method

Heat the chocolate in a bowl over a saucepan of water, very slowly. You want the chocolate to melt, not cook, or even worse, burn. 

Don't take your eye of it, keep stiring, it won't take long to  melt. 

When it's fully melted stir in the honey. 

Finally stir in the cornflakes. It will take a bit of stiring until they're fully coated. Place in cupcake cases to set. Enjoy! 

Woman versus cake

I gave the giant cupcake another go and it beat me.

I did a 6 egg mix which was plenty and made enough mixture for cupcakes too. So far so good. I lined the tin with ground nut oil as advised but given that my previous attempt cooked unevenly I decided to cook the top and bottom separately (on my mum's advice).

I cooked the bottom section for an hour on gas mark 4, turning the pan around in the oven after 40 minutes. I checked the bottom section at 40 and 45 minutes but it was still uncooked in the middle so it was in the oven for 50 minutes in total.

The bottom layer came out of the mould with ease, but was overcooked and crispy on top but seemed soggy on the bottom. Also, there seemed to be a gap in the sponge in the middle when I turned it over.

The top section of the cupcake was a disaster. It got stuck in the mould and broke off. Gutted.

I don't know if it was the heat affecting the second batch of mixture which was sitting on the side whilst the first half cooked - it was 28 degrees here today - or whether it was because I put the mixture into a hot mould but the result makes me very reluctant to try the giant cupcake again.

Instead, I am going to make a Victoria sponge and cover it with raspberries to make it really summery.

Here is the replacement cake: I went into nearly every shop in the village for the raspberries, but there were none to be found, so it was topped with blueberries instead.

Giant cupcake first attempt

Mom has bought me a new cake mould in the shape of a giant cupcake so I decided to give it a go for my sister in law's birthday.

The cakes baked unevenly, despite starting the bottom of the cake before adding the mixture into the top tier so will have to remedy that somehow next time.

The cake released from the tin OK, which was worrying me the whole time it was cooking. I lined the tin with melted butter but I've since seen a video where they use ground nut oil so I will try that next time.

It was iced quickly and simply as it needed to be ready quickly so I spread buttercream on the top and covered with hearts that I cut out of rolled out modelling icing.

The result is a bit 'valentine's day' but overall I think it looks OK.

Another modification next time will be to add another layer of filling, the cake was a bit dry so I will be more generous with the buttercream in the middle.