Posts tagged as:

My first introduction to this one came when living in Britain during -97 and I was totally smitten at once. I was having some afternoon tea with dreamy fresh scones, some regular cake and then came the Eton Mess; you people who have had fresh warm English scones with jam and clotted cream probably know that almost nothing beats it, but I have to say that the Eton Mess was in fact a little bit better and that is saying a lot!

I’ve never had a proper afternoon tea moment with gluten-free baked goods, but I do hear that they exist; I just have no idea if the cakes and scones match their wheat filled cousins. I do believe that they do not, but with something like Eton Mess, you are not losing anything even if celiac, since it is naturally gluten-free, just as long as the meringue is gluten-free too.

I could go into endless blabbing about how much I love British foods, the UK in general (especially Scotland) and afternoon tea etc. but I think not, I am anyway going there in just a few days and I thought that I might write something of a travel post after it. I don’t think I’ve done any posts of my travels, so maybe it’s time for one.

Eton Mess Recipe

serves 2 as a larger portion and 4 as a very small portion

-1 cup/2,5 dl cream

-4 small meringue nests

-fresh berries (usually strawberries are included, but I think any kind of berries goes, I used wild blueberries and strawberries here)

Whip the cream, crush the meringue nests in and fold very gently. Then fold the washed and diced berries in gently.

I sometimes add a bit of vanilla extract too, but never sugar since it’s so sweet with the meringue, but do add some tablespoons of sugar if you have a big sweet tooth.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Cake With Blueberries and Crème Fraîche

by Emilia on August 15, 2009

It’s all about the bilberries here right now; the forests are filled with them.

We call them blueberries, but they are actually bilberries as I learned not so long ago, they are smaller than blueberries and the taste is not as watery as in blueberries. The taste of them is really intense and a little sour - delicious if you ask me. Bilberries happen to be my favourite berry.

I have been thinking about a bilberry cake for a couple of weeks now and luckily I stumbled across this recipe just when we had been out picking up some berries. The recipe sounded so decadent and lovely that I had no other choice than to try it, I am not someone who can say no to a recipe which uses crème fraîche and lots of butter. The cream cheese icing was also just perfect, it is not common to ice these kinds of cakes here, so to me the icing sounded a bit exotic and different.

The cake itself was very easy to make, I used some almond flour and white rice flour in it and that worked out well. I loved the taste of it, this is just the kind of cake I like, dense and moist, not too sweet and a little bit tart, but not too tart.

I would highly recommend trying this recipe.

I used almond flour and white rice flour, but the original recipe uses wheat flour (of course!), so if you are not celiac you should use just wheat flour instead of the almond and rice flour. Some quinoa flour instead of rice flour would also work out; I have been just very determined to try out some other flours than quinoa, at least for a while, and that’s why I used rice flour here.

I used only 1 dl/1/4 cup confectioner’s sugar in the icing, but the original recipe uses twice that amount.

The cake can be served when it has cooled down; it is very moist, so it will not hold itself together all that well when it is warm.

Bilberry Cake Recipe

The recipe was adapted from Ruoka Pirkka.

Serves 10, takes approximately 10 minutes to make and 45 minutes to bake.

The Cake

-150 grams/5,3 ounces soft butter

-1,5 dl/ 3/4 cup sugar

-3 eggs

-1 dl / a little bit less than 1/2 cup crème fraîche

-1 cup almond flour

-1 dl /a little bit less than 1/2 cup white rice flour

-2 tsp baking powder

-2 tsp vanilla extract

-200 grams/7 ounces blueberries or bilberries

Preheat your oven to 175 C/350 F.

Line a springform pan with baking paper and then grease it with some butter.

Mix together the butter, sugar, crème fraîche, vanilla extract and eggs. Mix together the flour and the baking powder.

Mix the dry ingredients together with the wet ingredients, but leave a little bit of the flour in the bowl and then gently mix the blueberries with the remaining flour.

Gently fold the berries in with the rest of the batter.

Pour into the pan and bake for 30-45 minutes until the cake is done. Let the cake cool down and make the icing.

The Icing

-200 grams/ 7 ounces cream cheese

-0,5 dl/ 1/5 cup crème fraîche

-2 dl/ 3/4 cup confectioner’s sugar (I used just half of this amount)

-2 tsp lemon juice

Mix everything together and then spread the icing on top of the cooled cake.

Popularity: 66% [?]

Potato Salad Recipe

by Emilia on July 20, 2009

Potato salads are something I always associate with summer, maybe because they can be refreshing and cooling when they are not made with mayonnaise.

This recipe is something I make quite often during the summer, I love taking it with us when we go hiking, or to the beach, and the best thing about it is that I can make a lot of it – it only gets better after a day or two.

The lemon juice and the basil together give a nice refreshing quality to the salad. Potatoes on their own are creamy in my opinion, so they need something like fresh herbs and the tanginess of the lemon juice to bring the flavours together in a nice contrasting way.

A potato salad like this - cold, cooling and fresh - is my idea of a perfect summer meal when served together with some hot spicy chicken.

Potato Salad Recipe

The vinaigrette here is not a regular one, this one is really very lemony, and I would suggest using less lemon juice if you are not a friend of a very tangy salad sauce.

If you are using new organic potatoes, I would suggest leaving the skin on them.

The recipe is naturally free from gluten, soy, dairy and eggs.

Potato salad

serves 6

-1 kg/ 35 ounces potatoes

- 4-5 spring onions

- 6 tbls fresh lemon juice

-12 tbls good quality olive oil

-3 tbls finely minced fresh basil leaves

-3 tbls capers

- salt and pepper according to taste

Cook the potatoes and then leave them to cool before cutting them.