Free-From Custard Creams

Free-From Custard Creams

When I first went gluten-free and dairy-free one of the free-from products that astonished me at their cost was biscuits. I mean, £3 for a Genius gluten-free loaf from Sainsbury’s is ridiculous, but £1.80 for 8 chocolate chip biscuits from the Sainsbury’s free-from range is just obscene. I know you’re paying for the convenience factor, but fresh biscuits cost next to nothing to make at home so I felt really cheated and ripped off at the cost of free-from versions from a number of shops.

These free-from custard creams are so cheap to make (I’d estimate that a batch of around 12 custard creams cost considerably less than £1 to produce) and they’re really easy to whip up in a hurry. I just measure all of my ingredients into a plastic jug and use an electric whisk to blend it together into a biscuit dough. You don’t even need to roll out the dough and cut them out because you just roll them up in your palms and flatten them out on the baking tray. You can’t get any easier, can you?

I normally sandwich my custard creams with buttercream icing, but these have a little bit more caster sugar in them than my standard custard cream recipe so they’re really nice plain without a filling, but by all means sandwich them if you like. My buttercream recipe can be found here and you can just use dairy-free butter to keep the mix free-from. Equally, you could drizzle melted chocolate over the top of them or icing sugar.

Whether you decide to use the filling or use a sweet drizzle over the top of the biscuits, they’ll still save you a huge amount of money compared to buying them ready made in a shop.

Ingredients:

70g dairy-free butter (or normal butter)

30g coconut oil

80g gluten-free flour (I use Dove’s Farm G/F flour because it’s made with low FODMAP ingredients whereas many other gluten-free flours are made with high FODMAP options.)

20g cornflour

50g custard powder

70g caster sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp xanthan gum

Method:

Preheat your oven to 200C/180C Fan/400F/Gas mark 6.

Measure all of your ingredients into a plastic jug and then mix it all together with an electric whisk.

Lay greaseproof paper out onto two baking trays.

Take small handfulls of custard cream dough and roll into a ball before flattening between your palms and placing them on the baking trays. Continue until the mix is all used up.

Press the tines of a fork onto the top of each biscuit to create the distinctive mark of a custard cream and bake in the oven for 12 to 15 mins or until they are golden brown.

Free-From Custard Creams About to be Baked

Remove from the oven and leave to cool on a cooling rack.

Once cold you can sandwich them with buttercream icing or drizzle with a topping if you like.

Freshly Baked Free-From Custard Creams

Free-From Custard Creams

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Free-From Lasagne (serves 4-6)

Free From Lasagne by The Fat Foodie

Everyone loves lasagne, it’s just one of those universally adored dishes that Italy’s renowned for. However, when I went dairy-free and onto the low FODMAP diet I was concerned that it would be off the cards because it normally has lots of onion, garlic and cheese in it, but I made a conscious effort to adapt my usual lasagne recipe into a FODMAP friendly one and it seemed to have been successful.

When I started looking into the FODMAP diet and for ways to incorporate onion and garlic flavours into my cooking I discovered that you can use chives without it having any impact on your IBS and that garlic-infused oil is fine to use too, as long as you don’t consume the actual garlic itself. During my onion-based investigations though (forgive me, I’ve been reading a lot of old-school crime novels lately), I also found out that there is an Indian spice called asafoetida which mimics the flavour of onion. I was pretty sceptical to be honest, but I ordered some asafoetida online and was thrilled to find out that it genuinely does taste like onion!

Now, you’ve got to be careful when buying asafoetida because some of the spice mixes are blended with gluten flours to make it less potent (it’s a very strong spice), but there are some, such as this one, which are blended with other spices like ground fenugreek instead.

I’d really recommend trying asafoetida if you’re on the low FODMAP diet and you ordinarily enjoy onion and garlic flavours in your cooking because it definitely does what it says on the tin. As a result, my lasagne sheets were layered between a rich, thick, onion-infused meaty ragù that was just as satisfying as the standard version. This free-from lasagne is also topped with a creamy, cheesy dairy-free white sauce that definitely doesn’t make you feel like you’re missing out on dairy (although if you’re not dairy-free you could just use a couple of sachets of cheese sauce mix instead).

I served the free-from lasagne with a fresh green salad that was liberally dotted with fat, plump little jewel-green caperberries whose piquancy cut through the richness of the lasagne and added a tart freshness to the dish, but feel free to just serve it with chips if you’d prefer. You’ll find no judgement here from me, my friends.

Ingredients for the pork ragù:

450g pork mince (use beef if you’d prefer)

200g red bell pepper (diced)

1 tbsp olive oil

2 tsps dried oregano

360g of tinned chopped tomatoes

1 tsp salt

1 tsp asafoetida

Gluten-free lasagne sheets

Dairy-free cheese for lasagne topping

For the white sauce:

25g dairy-free butter

25g gluten-free flour

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

2 tbsps Engevita

200ml rice milk

Preheat your oven to 190C/170C Fan/375F/ Gas mark 5.

Method to make the ragù:

Put the pork mince in a saucepan with 1 tbsp olive oil and cook until done.

Add the red peppers, oregano, salt, asafoetida, chopped tomatoes and tomato puree and cook until hot.

To make the white sauce: melt the butter in a saucepan over a medium heat before whisking in the flour, black pepper and Engevita.

Slowly add a little rice milk at a time, stirring continuously, so that eventually a thick sauce is created. (Don’t panic if it looks really lumpy, just keep stirring and adding more milk and it’ll come together.)

Once the white sauce is thick take it off the heat .

Take a rectangular casserole dish and put a layer of ragù on the bottom and top it with lasagne sheets. Repeat until you’ve used up all of the ragù.

Whisk the egg thoroughly into the white sauce mixture, pour on top of the lasagne, top with the dairy-free cheese and bake in the oven for around 45 mins.

Serve with a salad (and/or chips!).

Free From Lasagne by The Fat Foodie

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Going Dairy-Free

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The Numerous Dairy-Free Options Available

Since the start of January my social media pages have been inundated with posts by people who are doing Veganuary, a movement which encourages people to try a vegan diet for the month of January in the hope that it’ll help them to adopt the lifestyle permanently. This has got me thinking, not only about animal welfare issues, but also about how much dairy I consume.

I’m allergic to cow’s milk, not highly allergic as in ‘requires an EpiPen’ allergic, but medium level allergy as in ‘has constant rhinitis and bowel issues’ allergic. My IBS has also been flaring up a lot recently so this exposure to the Veganuary movement has made me decide to cut out dairy from my diet to see if it will improve my health.

I think one of the reasons I’ve never successfully stuck to a dairy-free diet previously is because the symptoms I suffer as a result of it aren’t that severe. Or perhaps I’ve just got used to them over the years. However, one of my colleagues at work is highly allergic to nuts (EpiPen allergic) and talking to her has made me realise that if she can successfully navigate her diet around avoiding nuts then I’m sure I can manage it in relation to avoiding dairy. I’m also concerned about the long-term effect the constantly flared up auto-immune response is having on my body.

One benefit to working in a bookshop is that I can peruse the vegan cookbooks for information on the dairy-free lifestyle and get inspiration for meals to cook. The Thug Kitchen cookbook is a particular favourite that I’ve already started using and, let me tell you, it’s recipes are incredibly tasty and very easy to make. The fact that another one of my colleagues used to be vegan and is a fount of knowledge on leading a dairy-free lifestyle doesn’t hurt either!

I’ve tried to adopt a dairy-free diet a number of times in the past, but I’ve never been able to get it to stick due to a number of reasons. Firstly, I love coffee and coffee made with plant milks taste very different to the delightfully creamy latte taste you get from a cow’s milk one. Secondly, milk is in a lot of products that you wouldn’t expect to find it, such as in a number of brands of processed sliced chicken. And thirdly, it’s still much easier to pick up a jug of cow’s milk from a shop than it is to go hunting for a carton of plant milk that won’t curdle in your coffee or tea in the morning.

However, I’m committed to adopting a dairy-free diet and I’m really hoping that I’ll see some benefits quite soon. Needless to say then that my posts going forward will be dairy-free ones, but I guarantee that they’ll remain tasty. I’m actually rather looking forward to trying to make my own ‘moxarella cheese’ out of cashew nuts. Stay tuned!

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