Coconut and Cranberry (Tiana) Bites

Today I made a variation of an old favourite:-

Check out the Tiana coconut flour recipe here for the basic "cookie" recipe. 

In May I adapted this to make some similar treats which contained extra protein for those on exclusion diets, since this often means omitting many proteins. Check out the "Protein Power Bites" here.

Today's Recipe is just the first one with 1/2 cup of dried cranberries added. Really easy!

Coconut Loaf

This delicious cake recipe was supplied by Michelle, from FABED, the only charity supporting families affected by Eosinophilic Disorders. You can read more about EGID here.

This recipe is MEWS free, gluten free, egg free and depending on your choice of flour, corn free, potato free too. I think it's also evidence for people like me who can bake with eggs that they are NOT required for a lovely, light texture and a large cake that rises!

Ingredients

• 300 g free from flour
• 2tsp free from baking powder
• 1tsp ground cinnamon
• 4tbsp flaxseed or linseed
• 225g golden caster sugar
• 150g desiccated coconut
• 350ml coconut milk
• 50 ml sunflower oil
• 900g loaf tin

Method

• Pre heat oven to 180 and lightly grease the loaf tin
• Sift the flour, baking powder and cinnamon in a large bowl, add ground flaxseed, caster sugar and coconut and mix together. 
• Pour over the coconut milk and sunflower oil stir until you have a batter.
• Tip into tin and bake in the oven for 45-50mins until it is slightly risen and golden.
• Leave to cool and turn on to a rack.

Serve warm or cold!

Coconut Almond "Protein Power" Bites

Actually the title should say "Coconut, Almond and Cranberry "Protein Power" Bites" but they are optional and interchangeable with other fried fruit you might prefer. (Cranberries are really good with coconut though!)

These are NOT egg free, but I have challenged myself to try new protein powders as my daughter's dietician is concerned that her restrictive diet and difficulty swallowing meat in combination have produced some mildly concerning blood test results.

So we are "on a mission" to boost her protein intake. There are a couple of options which suit those with food allergies and sensitive stomachs. Pea Protein or Rice Protein powder. (It is important to try as pure a protein powder as possible, our dietician is an expert and recommended that brown rice protein powder to us.)

My daughter can tolerate egg, which again adds to the protein content so I revisited my Tiana coconut flour recipes and decided to alter this one. I swapped a few things around and this is what I came up with:-

Tip - I really recommend getting hold of some cup measures as it makes life a lot easier! All Tiana recipes are in cups.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup sifted Tiana flour
• 1/2 cup of chopped almonds (I used flaked today as I was out of chopped)
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 4 eggs
• 3/4 teaspoon almond extract
• 1/2 cup pea protein powder
• 2 tablespoons almond milk
• 1/2 cup cranberries

Method

• Nothing very scientific here, I have a Kenwood mixer and I just chucked it all....... and blitzed it!
• BUT - and it's a big BUT, Tiana flour takes a little while to soak up the liquid and start working. Leave it for 10 minutes before the next step. Really.

You might need to add a little more almond milk, if you want "bites" it needs 

to still be relatively stiff, like these 

You could make them more moist and then let them bake as cookies - they will be less soft.

• Bake at 180C for 15-20 minutes.

My suspicious little monkey agreed to tentatively try one.....

Let me know how your little ones get on with this recipe - and big apologies to those who cannot eat eggs....

Chocolate Nutty Crunchies

This recipe is from the "Kid Friendly Food Allergy Cookbook" by Leslie Hammond and Lynne Marie Rominger. It's a book I have more recently got to grips with, the breakthrough moment was buying myself a set of cook's measuring cups so I wasn't trying to convert all the time..... genius lol.

This recipe is MEWS free, but DOES CONTAIN NUTS. If you tolerate coconut I'm pretty sure you could swap the nuts for desiccated coconut. I didn't have whole nuts to blitz in the food processor in any case, so I substituted ground almonds.

My biggest problem was stopping myself eating the dough, it's DELICIOUS. Seriously more-ish!

Ingredients

1 cup (175 grams) safe chocolate chips. (Dark chocolate would be less sweet)
1 3/4 cups (250g) almonds (I used ground almonds, desiccated coconut would work fine)
1/3 cup (70g) sugar (I used caster sugar)
1 teaspoon powdered vanilla or vanilla essence
2 egg whites, or 2 eggs' worth of egg replacer.  I made the egg free version.

Method

Weight and place the chocolate into the food processor.
TIP: If you use a block, break into squares first and be prepared for a lot of noise, but it works fine.

Weigh and add the sugar, almonds and vanilla essence, then mix.

Add the egg whites or egg replacer and mix to form a smooth dough.

Form the dough into balls approx 2cm across according to the recipe, although mine were a little larger. It says to leave plenty of room between them on the tray - which i did, but they didn't spread much.

Bake at 180C for 8 minutes (recipe says) but mine took a few mins longer. I also used a metal spatula to flatten them a little as the balls didn't melt down on their own - probably because I used the ground almonds.

Leave to cool. Try and resist eating and they *might* keep in an air tight box for a fortnight. but I doubt it...... Truly scrummy!

Chocolate coconut cupcakes

This is actually the muffin recipe here.

Today I created a more speckled effect throughout using finer chocolate which went in the food processor first.

I had run out of the Doves Farm Self Raising flour I usually use so substituted for the same weight of the Juvela Harvest White mix we have.  I did add a teaspoon of baking powder too.

To be honest, the Doves Farm flour is definitely better, but since there are only two of these left they can't be that bad - my non allergic children enjoyed them too!

Cakes!

This is a general post about cakes, the birthday cake post I wrote some time ago is still valid, in so much as it works well, and the cake is still available. Tesco's chocolate version is even more yummy though!

It comes ready iced too, always a bonus! All our family love this moist, chocolatey cake.

There are lots of options now, it is definitely getting easier to find cake alternatives or ingredient alternatives. My children love decorating their own cakes and biscuits with icing pens too.


If you prefer a dry mix, I have tried two recently. The Hale and Hearty mix on the right (which is good but I prefer their brownie mix for taste)
and the Glebe Farm Mix which is fool proof, works every time and I would love to know why it is so much better than my own efforts when the ingredients are pretty much the same!

My friend Suzanne at "Free From for Kids" has a reliable stock of the Hale and Hearty mix, sometimes found in Sainsbury's and the Glebe Farm one is increasingly available at local outlets like farm shops etc. They make a blueberry muffin mix, carrot cake mix and pizza base mix which I have recently bought to try. Muffins were very successful!

Of course, you can use a regular sponge cake recipe (4oz/100g of flour, same of marge, same of caster sugar with 2 eggs) and substitute everything for free from ingredients which I do very successfully pretty frequently. Works fine with muffins and if you can tolerate banana they help with the rising for beautifully tall cupcakes and muffins.

There are lots of variations on this theme on the "Sweet Treats" page. There is a fantastic chart for alternatives to egg in cakes here too.

Happy Baking! 

Delicious Chocolate Coconut Muffins

I have been experimenting with muffins and cupcakes lately, because I have had limited success with anything which doesn't contain banana of late, unless it's quite small it either goes dry or doesn't rise properly. So you can imagine the excitement when I found this recipe - which not only WORKS but as it only has 1 egg it is pretty easy to substitute to make it MEWS free.

Ingredients

• 5oz / 150g Self Raising Dove's Farm Gluten free flour
• 4oz / 100g caster sugar
• 4oz / 200g of either broken up free from chocolate (small pieces can be achieved in a food processor of chopped) or free from chocolate drops/buttons of your choice.
• 2fl oz / 50mls sunflower oil (NOT olive, hemp or heavier oils)
• 4fl oz / 100mls milk substitute of your choice
• 1 egg
• 2oz / 50g desiccated coconut
• optional vanilla essence

Method

• If, like me, you have a Kenwood Chef or a KitchenAid you can quite successfully chuck it all in and whizz it up. Otherwise you need to put flour, sugar, chocolate into the bowl. Mix well and make a well in the centre.
• Pour in the oil and milk into a bowl/jug and break the egg in. (ALTERNATIVELY ADD THE EGG REPLACER IN WITH THE DRY INGREDIENTS.)
•  Beat with a fork and pour into the well you made in the first bowl.
• Mix everything together and stir in the coconut.
• Spoon into cupcake cases, or larger muffin cases. 
• Cupcake cases will bake in 15 mins, the muffins take a little longer. Bake at 180C until golden on top.