Gluten-Free Dessert

I am not much of a candy eater -chocolate being the only exception- but I do like making candy for Christmas, I find it very relaxing and the taste is better in my opinion than with bought candy.

There is one kind of candy I usually make every year and that is a Swedish toffee called knäck; it is so, so very good and so knäck has stayed with me for many years. It is made with equal amounts of sugar, golden syrup and cream, it usually also has some chopped almonds added to it, some add butter, cocoa powder for chocolate knäck and vanilla extract. I usually use sugar, cream and butter, but I replace the golden syrup with some darker syrup and most importantly I always use salted butter in them. They are easily made dairy-free by replacing the cream with some almond cream for example; the taste does not suffer from it.

The other kind of candy I made this year was some apple flavoured marzipan dipped in dark chocolate; I got this recipe from my father and he said that it is very good, but I was not so sure until I tried them - they are really very delicious. I tweaked the recipe a bit by using apple juice concentrate instead of calvados and the apple flavour ended up being just right. These are free from gluten, soy, dairy and eggs.

Apple Marzipan Candy Recipe

Use dairy-free chocolate for a dairy-free version.

These are very easy and fast to make. You can store them in an airtight container in the fridge.

The ingredients-

-50 grams or 1,7 ounces of dried apples (if you don’t want to count, just throw in approximately 1 1/2 cups)

-2 tbls calvados or apple juice concentrate

-300 grams or 10 ounces of marzipan

-some confectioner’s sugar, one tbls is enough

-250 grams or 8 ounces of dark chocolate

Place the marzipan, apple juice and dried apples into a food processor and make them into a paste.

Place some confectioner’s sugar on some baking paper and place the marzipan paste on top of it. Mold it into a log shape.

Cut it into equal size pieces, it is better to make these rather small.

Roll them into balls between your hands.

Melt the chocolate in a bain-marie or in a microwave oven.

Dip the balls into the chocolate; I used some toothpicks for help.

Leave them in a cool place to firm up. I placed some silver decorations on top of them so that the holes from the toothpicks wouldn’t show.

Enjoy eating them; I sure did.

Toffee Recipe

Use almond cream for a dairy-free version. The butter can be left out completely.

The pinch of salt is only necessary if you are using unsalted butter. Add two tablespoons of cocoa powder to the recipe if you want to make chocolate knäck. Usually almonds are used here, but I like using hazelnuts and pistachios are also great here. You could also add one teaspoon of vanilla extract if you want to.

The less you make and the bigger your saucepan is, the less time this will take.

The ingredients-

-3/4 cup or 2dl golden syrup

-3/4 cup or 2 dl sugar

-3/4 cup or 2 dl cream

-half a cup or 1 dl of chopped nuts

-1 heaping tbls butter (optional)

- a pinch of salt (if you are using unsalted butter)

Remember to be careful when making these; the sugar gets very hot.

Take a saucepan and place it on medium heat. Measure the cream, syrup, and sugar into it, let it cook on low heat stirring occasionally. Keep an eye on the knäck.

The time it needs to cook depends on the size of your saucepan, but it usually takes 30-50 minutes. It will start to thicken in the end and you can test it with a glass of cold water to see if it is done; drop some knäck into a glass of cold water, it is done if you can form a ball easily out of it. If you want to use a thermometer the right temperature is 125 C or 260 F. For harder toffee the right temperature is 145 C or 293 F.

Place some paper candy forms on some baking paper while the knäck is cooking.

When you can roll the knäck into a ball after it has been dropped into some cold water, stir in the nuts and the butter.

Work fast and place the knäck into the candy forms with the help of two spoons, if it hardens before you have made this, you can just warm it up again. I pour it straight from the saucepan, but this is a risky way to do it.

Let them cool. You can store them in an airtight container with some baking paper placed between them so that they don’t stick together.

This is my last post this year; I will be spending the rest of the year with my family celebrating Christmas and the New Year. I will be back next year posting recipes and taking some photos.

I hope you all have a great time during the holidays!

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I have decided to have two more cakes for Christmas dinner - one with almonds and dried fruit and the other one a chestnut and chocolate cake.

The chestnut cake had the classic Mont Blanc dessert as an inspiration; Mont Blanc consists of meringue, whipped cream and chestnut puree and sometimes chocolate, it is also naturally gluten-free. The taste of chestnut is something I wanted to include in our Christmas desserts, but I did not want to make Mont Blanc, although it is very tasty. Thus the idea for a chestnut cake was perfect. The taste is somewhat sophisticated, I would say, and very rich, a small piece of this cake goes a long way in satisfying the need for something sweet with chocolate.

My other cake is a simple one with dried fruit and some almond flour; I can not think of Christmas without a  fruitcake. This cake is not overly sweet since I did not use all that much sugar in it and the texture is very dense because I did not whip the eggs together. My choice for the fruits was some golden raisins, some dates and lastly some dried apricots, which work well together, but any kind of dried fruits would do.

Now I have my desserts planned out for Christmas, we are going to have three cakes, these two and the Galician almond cake, gingerbread ice cream and cardamom ice cream, then some cheese poached in cream with cloudberries and maybe some cloudberry quark - quite simple, but sweet, easy and tasty.

A Chocolate and Chestnut Cake

This is a naturally gluten-free and egg-free cake; you could use a dairy-free margarine instead of the butter to make this dairy-free.

I did not use any sugar in this, but you could add some sugar for some sweetness. The chocolate was 70%, for a rich chocolate flavour, but anything above 50% will work. My chestnut puree is sweetened and flavoured with vanilla, if you have something without vanilla, add 1-2 teaspoons of vanilla extract to the cake. The rum can be left out, or you can use some other kind of alcohol to flavour this with.

A Chestnut Cake Recipe

serves 10 and takes 10 minutes to make, but has to be cooled in the fridge for at least 5 hours

-250 grams or 9 ounces chocolate

-2 cups or 5dl chestnut puree

-200 grams or 7 ounces butter, which should be rooms temperature before you start

-2 tbls dark rum (optional)

Grease a cake pan with butter.

Place the chopped chocolate into a bain marie, which means that you should take a bowl and place it on top of a saucepan which has water in it - make sure that the bowl does not touch the water - and place the saucepan on medium heat.

When the chocolate has melted, take the bowl away from the saucepan, add the butter into it and let the butter melt, you don’t have to do anything; it will melt by itself into the chocolate.

Add the chestnut puree and the rum, mix them together. Taste the mixture to see if you would like to add some vanilla or maybe sugar.

Pour the mixture into the greased cake pan.

Let it cool in the fridge for at least 5 hours, or overnight.

Serve with some vanilla flavoured whipped cream and crushed meringues or with some ice cream.

A Gluten-Free Fruitcake

You can make this dairy-free by using a dairy-free margarine, or leaving the butter out altogether.

Fruitcake recipe

Serves 10 and takes 20 minutes to make and one hour to bake

-1 cup or 2,5 dl fruit jam, I used French apricot jam which is really thick and has a lot of flavour, you can also use sweet fruit juice, but use a bit less of that

-3 cups or 7,5 dl chopped dried fruit, I used half dates, 1/4 golden raisins and 1/4 dried apricots

-4 tbls water

-8 eggs

-1 cup or 2,5 dl unrefined sugar, brown sugar or honey, white sugar is to plain in this

-2 flat tbls ground cardamom

-2 flat tsp cinnamon

-5 heaping tbls melted butter (optional)

-2 cups or 5 dl almond flour (ground almonds)

Preheat an oven to 150 C or 300 F.

Grease a cake pan with butter.

Place the dried fruit, water and the jam into a saucepan on medium heat and let them melt together.

When the fruit has gone soft add the eggs, sugar, melted butter and the spices. Mix together.

You will end up with a rather gooey mess.

Mix in the almond flour and pour the batter into the cake pan.

Bake for approximately 1 hour. You can take a toothpick and test the cake to see if it is done. I used the same apricot jam to glace this with. If you want to, you could also make small holes in to the cake and then add some brandy to it.

Serve with some coffee - I love this cake with some coffee.

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