If like me you have become sensitive to yeast, gluten, carbs and sugars or any one or combination of these foods or have a member of the family or friends with this experience then please read on as I hope that by sharing some of what I have learnt you will be able to derive pleasure from new and varied foods.
I became sensitive to these foods over a number of years following a car crash and the onset of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/ME. Fortunately through meeting the right people and a certain amount of effort, luck and determination I am virtually well now - how wonderful to be able to say that!
I have always had a sweet tooth and simply love food, especially everything wicked for the waistline. Don't you find that life leads you in mysterious ways? So, there I was salivating over chocolate cake, cakes in every shape and form and size, profiteroles, bread, toast, pancakes, biscuits, desserts but knowing that if I enjoyed any mouthfuls I would pay for them later by being unwell. There was absolutly no question of living life without the joys of all these sinful delicacies and that is how I started becoming very interested in finding alternatives and making up new recipes, thank goodness with some success!
So, which recipe to share with you first? I absolutely craved all those bread-like carb-laden foods so hard to imitate well without wheat and yeast when I first discovered that they were off the menu.. What I longed for most with every winter's roast were.....yorkshire puddings!
So, here's my version of that delight:
Recipe for Gluten-free Yorkshire Puddings
Yeast-free, soy-free, low carb, sugar-free, vegetarian, coeliac friendly, diabetic friendly
One jug
One handheld mixer - I use my Bamix with the beater blade (the one which is flat and round) for the entire recipe
Scales
12 pocket bun tin
Oven
Time: 15 mins to find, measure and whizz, plus one hour to allow batter to rest plus cooking time around 20 minutes depending on your oven
Total 1 hr 35mins
Ingredients:
1oz rice flour
1oz tapioca flour
1 large egg - free range and if at all possible organic from happy hens (like our dear Boadicea)
1/4 pint milk - could also use rice milk although sweetens the mix, water works but makes a slightly more dense yorkshire
pinch of salt - I like to use ground himalayan pink salt
1 dessert spoon olive oil - or rice bran oil
1 egg white
more oil to cover the base of each pocket of the 12 pan bun tin.
It is the easiest thing to make this batter in a jug and use a hand-held mixer to whizz it all until smooth.
Method:
Put flours and salt in the jug
Add the egg, liquid and oil
Whizz with hand mixer until the batter is smooth and free of lumps
Allow to rest for an hour
Preheat the oven to Fan 210 C
Put oil in the base of each of the 12 pockets of the bun tin to the depth of around 1mm.
Put the tin in the oven and heat the oil until it just starts to smoke.
While the tin is in the oven whisk the egg white until it forms soft peaks, like for meringues, and gently stir it into the batter using a metal spoon. The idea is to keep the air of the egg white in the batter and to use this as a raising agent.
Remove the tin from the oven.
Pour the batter equally into each of the 12 pockets of the tin and put in the oven immediately.
The oil has to be v hot for the yorkshire batter to raise.
What should happen is that the batter rises and turns a lovely golden brown colour during the cooking time.
If the yorkshires look pale leave them in until golden and voila scrummy accompaniments to your roast to be enjoyed with lashings of gravy.copyright M Atkey
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