Gluten Free Banana Oat Blueberry Pancakes

www.shropshirebreakfast.co.uk

I often get requests for gluten free options at the B&B and try and offer a good choice.

On request, I can do a gluten free lemon drizzle for the rooms and the gluten free banana bread at breakfast has proven to be very popular even amongst the gluten eaters!

Pancakes are a popular choice at breakfast but by just replacing the flour with gluten free they can taste a bit gritty.  So, as it's the quiet time of year for the B&B, I thought I'd have a bit of an experiment.

I'm very pleased with the result and they have the added benefits of being high in fibre and with no added sugar.

This recipe serves 1 with 3 pancakes. You could also replace the blueberries with chopped apple and add a teaspoon of cinnamon.

The calorie count ( according to my fitness pal ) is about 320 calories for 3 pancakes - 8g fibre, 50g Carbohydrates, 15g sugar, 10g fat, 10g protein.

Adding a tablespoon of maple syrup adds 40 calories.

Gluten Free Oat and Banana Blueberry Pancakes

Ingredients

1 small banana
1 small egg
40 g ( 1/2 cup ) gluten free porridge oats
1/2 tsp gluten free baking powder
25g blueberries
3g butter for brushing the pan

Method

Whizz all the ingredients together in a blender until the mix is smooth. Leave for about 20 minutes to allow time for the mix to thicken up.

Heat a non stick frying pan on a medium heat. Brush with melted butter. Spoon the mix into the pan, creating 3 pancakes, Sprinkle the blueberries over the pancakes. Cook the pancakes until small bubbles appear and the bottom are golden brown, then flip the pancakes, cooking until golden brown.

Best served with lashings of maple syrup......

Buttermilk Blueberry and Lime Zest Scones

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I'm always overtaken with an uncontrollable urge to bake something for breakfast the morning after watching the Great British Bake Off ( GBBO). Unfortunately most of my B&B  guests have filled up on fruit, bircher muesli, toast and full Shropshire breakfast, so don't touch the baked goods, but when a girl's got to bake she's got to bake.

For some reason I've been thinking about making blueberry scones for some time. Scones are a big thing for breakfast in America, but they tend to be shorter crispier beast than the traditional English scone.

These scones are a version of the traditional scone we get in the UK, but with the addition of blueberries and lime zest. They are not too sweet and the lime zest isn't overpowering but somehow enhances them.

You can use fresh or frozen blueberries. I use buttermilk in most of my baking - it really does make a difference. If you don't have buttermilk you can use milk with a teaspoon of lime ( or lemon juice ) added a few minutes before you use it.

Ingredients

• 225g self raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 40g cold butter diced into small cubes
• 40g caster sugar
• 140 ml buttermilk
• 1 egg
• 50g blueberries
• zest of a lime

Method

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees C or fan 200 degrees.

Place some baking parchment or silicon sheet on a baking tray.

Mix the flour and baking powder together, then rub in the butter till it resembles fine breadcrumbs ( I always do this in my mixer as I'm an incredibly lazy cook ).

Stir the sugar and lime zest into the flour mix then, in a small separate bowl, whisk together the buttermilk and egg. Pour the buttermilk mixture gradually into the flour mix, mixing gently together.
You're looking for a soft, not sticky dough, so you may not need all of the liquid. Be careful not to overmix.

Tip the dough out onto a floured surface and fold it in half a few times. Pour the blueberries on top and fold it over a few more times.

I don't bother with a rolling pin, just press out the dough with my hand till it's about 3cm thick. Then using a cutter cut out your scones. A round 7 cm cutter will give you about 6 scones. Pull any bits of dough together and press out again so you get the maximum number of scones out of your dough.

Put the scones on the baking tray and brush with leftover buttermilk/egg mix. Put in the oven for about 10 minutes. You're looking for a nice golden brown top and a well risen scone.
Best eaten warm!

Light and fluffy buttermilk blueberry scones with a freshly brewed coffee

Cheese and Oat Biscuits

I've become very bad at doing Christmas and especially presents. In fact Mr B&B even took me to see Scrooge's grave today in the hope that it might have the same effect on me that it had on Scrooge himself but sadly not.

A little explanation here if you're not from Shrewsbury. The classic 1984 George C Scott version of A Christmas Carol was filmed in Shrewsbury. For the film they took an old gravestone in St Chad's graveyard and inscribed it with "Ebenezer Scrooge" and the gravestone remains there today.

Back to biscuits. Last year, 2 hours before attending a friend's Christmas party, I realised I had no presents so I did a quick search on the internet and found these cheese and oat biscuits.

These biscuits really are very good. They are flaky and cheesy and taste fantastic straight from the oven. But they are also very good bunged in a kilner jar ( once cool ) and tied with a ribbon and presented as a present. Best eaten whilst sipping a Prosecco or Kir Royale

Ingredients

75g rolled oats ( I swear by Shropshire Pimhill Farm Oats )
125g plain flour ( using OO pasta flour gives a great result but it's not essential )
85g cold butter cut into cubes
75g very strong cheddar ( Oakly Park Cheddar from the Ludlow Centre is good )
25g pecorino ( or you could use parmesan if you prefer )
2 egg yolks
1/2 tsp Maldon sea salt
1/4 tsp of cracked black pepper ( I love pepper, you may prefer less )
cold water

Optional ingredients that would be good are 1/2 tsp thyme leaves or chopped rosemary or a pinch of cayenne. Experiment with the cheeses or use whatever leftover cheese you have, provided it can be grated.

Method

Preheat the oven to fan 180 degrees C or 200 degrees C

Mix together the oats, flour, salt & pepper, herbs if using, and rub in the butter till you get the texture of large breadcrumbs. I just chuck it all in the mixer. Then grate in the cheese and mix well. Put in the egg yolks and mix together until you get a firm dough. Don't over mix. You may need to add a bit of water to get it into a dough.

Halve the dough and roll it out till it's quite thin. Then using a scone or biscuit cutter, cut out your biscuits. Pull any bits of dough back into a ball and keep rolling out and cutting biscuits until you've used all the dough.

Put on a baking tray ( I always line mine with  a silicon liner ) and bake for 10 minutes until golden. There will be too many biscuits for one tray so I do mine in batches.

If you can manage not to eat them all from the baking tray then place them on a wire tray to cool.

Cinnamon Swirl Banana Muffins

www.shropshirebreakfast.com

We're a bit of a fan of cinnamon here at Hopton House. My husband is particularly keen. Normally I can't tempt Jess & Rob with a fresh baked muffin in the morning, but they both make an exception for these.

This recipe takes the banana bread recipe and raises it to a different level. You can make it in a 1lb loaf tin to make a traditional banana bread. However it takes quite a long time to cook  ( 50-60 minutes at 160 degrees C non fan oven ) & needs to be completely cool before cutting. By cooking as muffins no cutting is required so they can be served warm from the oven and
only take about 20 mins to cook. They are also incredibly easy to do as it's one of the mixes where you just bung everything into the mixer. They also last quite well so can be cooked the day before.

Makes 6 muffins

Muffin Ingredients

50g softened butter ( or you could use 50ml vegetable oil )
90g soft brown sugar ( caster sugar will do )
1 tsp mixed spice
1 egg
1 ripe banana
110g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp buttermilk ( you can happily substitute 1 tbsp milk or 1 natural yoghurt as who wants to open a whole buttermilk carton for 1 tbsp but it does create a fluffier result )

Cinnamon Swirl Mix
4 tbsp of white sugar
1 tbsp ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C ( or 180 degrees for a fan oven ). Put all of the muffin ingredients ( not the cinnamon swirl mix ingredients these are added separately ) into a mixing bowl and mix with an electric mixer on high for 2 minutes. Combine the white sugar and cinnamon together in a small bowl.

Line a muffin tin with a 6 muffin cases. Put a tablespoon of muffin mix into the bottom of each case. Take a good heaped teaspoon of the cinnamon swirl mix then  sprinkle over the wet muffin mix. You're looking to have the mix completely covered with sugar & cinnamon. Then add the remaining wet muffin mix to the cases and finish off with another good teaspoon of the sugar & cinnamon.

Be careful not to overfill the cases - you only want them 3/4 full - they will rise quite a lot.

Bake for about 20 minutes till they're firm to touch. Just keep an eye on them to make sure they don't brown too much.

If you have any remaining sugar & cinnamon mix you can store it in a airtight jar for next time ( or sprinkle some on your porridge in the morning )

Sarah's Chocolate Cake

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I can be very boring on the subject of Twitter and the real life connections it makes, but, living in a rural area and quite often stuck in the house waiting for guests to arrive/leave, it is a real lifeline for the country B&B landlady.

Just this week I had another B&B landlady Twitter friend to stay. We've talked online by direct message nearly every day for the last 3 years & it was finally time to meet. I must admit to being very nervous before their arrival. The nerves were two fold; first they run a fabulous 5 star B&B that has won B&B of the year & second, if we had hated each other in real life, it would have been the end of a beautiful online relationship & left a huge gap. And I have discovered that just because you get on well with someone online doesn't always translate to a great face to face relationship. Luckily it all went well & I was very sad to see them leave.

A few months ago I met another virtual B&B friend, Sarah of Ferndell in Shrewsbury. I took the train up to the "big city" and we nattered for hours and compared B&B stories over coffee & lovely cake. Sarah is known for her chocolate cake and has kindly offered to share the recipe with us all! In fact if you were looking for a country / town 2 centre break in Shropshire you might find Hopton House & Ferndell would be the perfect combination......

Over to Sarah:

Chocolate sponge

www.ferndellbandb.co.uk

Firstly I would like to thank Karen for asking me to place my chocolate cake recipe on her lovely blog, I usually ask my daughter age 12 to make me a quick cake before the guests are due and between the pair of us it usually turn out alright…

I use a Kitchenaid mixer to do the hard work starting with mixing the Marg and Sugar together, then add 3 eggs mixing again followed by the flour and cocoa powder…how simple, I don’t even use a sieve. I separate the mixture between two 8” tins greased and lined and into the bottom Aga for 25 minutes but luckily with an Aga  if you forget a few extra minutes wont spoil it…as my Aga is off at the moment (sad face) I have to use a timer on the oven so 25 minutes at about 150/160..

Now the butter icing I simply make straight in the bowl the cake mix has come out of, so Marg Cocoa Powder and Icing Sugar, all whizzed up leaving a cloud of icing all over me and the worktop etc as I often forget to drape a damp tea towel over the mixer.

Sandwich together and generously sprinkle over icing sugar (my favourite bit)

Sponge mix                                                          

6oz marg                                                               
6oz granulated sugar
3 Free range eggs
5oz SR Flour
1oz cocoa powder

For the butter icing I tend to plonk the marge icing sugar cocoa in and if it looks too sloppy add more icing sugar and if its too stiff add a little more marg…not very professional I know

Cheese and Herb Sausages

www.shropshirebreakfast.com

I always try and provide a good selection of vegetarian breakfast options that aren't just the full English without the meat. However quite a few people still choose the full breakfast but with vegetarian sausage. So I decided to have a go at making my own veggie sausages.

I have tried different recipes in the past but without any huge success. I needed a sausage that I could make in bulk, freeze and then be able to cook from frozen without it all falling to mush.

This is a recipe from Delia's Vegetarian Cookbook. Her recipe uses Parmesan in the coating. Parmesan isn't actually suitable for strict vegetarians, so I've replaced it with a strong local cheddar from the Ludlow Food Centre which is suitable for all vegetarians; Oakley Park Cheddar.

Delia's recipe reckons it makes 12 sausages but I've only every managed 7-8.

I freeze them individually on trays and then put into plastic bags.

I use whatever bread is leftover from breakfast. But I find it works well with a mix of my homemade seeded granary bread & white bread.

Sausage Ingredients
100g vegetarian cheddar cheese, grated
125g breadcrumbs ( white, granary or wholemeal or a mix )
1 medium onion, either grated or minced in the food processor
1 tablespoon mixed fresh  herbs ( I use parsley, chives & thyme )
3/4 tsp dry mustard powder
1 egg yolk
salt & pepper

Coating
1 egg white, beaten
25g breadcrumbs
25g very finely grated cheese

Mix together all of the dry ingredients for the sausage, then mix in the egg yolk. I find it easier to do this with my hands. Take small amounts of the mix and form into sausages. Roll the sausages in the egg white the mix of breadcrumbs & grated cheese.

If you're eating straight away I would suggest putting them in the fridge for about half an hour to firm up. Otherwise freeze on trays and then bag up when frozen.

To cook fresh, fry them gently in olive oil till golden all over - 5-10 minutes.

To cook from frozen. Brush with some olive oil and bake at about 200 degrees ( or top AGA oven ) for about 20 minutes, turning halfway through.

Sticky Ginger Cake with Ginger Wine Butter Icing

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If you've stayed with us at Hopton House you'll know that there is a whole cake waiting in your room on arrival. This is normally a homemade lemon drizzle. It's a fairly safe bet as it seems to be most people's favourite! However I'm always happy to make something different on request.

 

This week I was asked for a sticky ginger cake with butter icing. I'm glad I'm not asked to make this that often because it is one of my favourites, and I would end up eating far too much of it! It is so sticky & light all at the same time.



My favourite butter icing has a teaspoon of vanilla extract in it. Since my homemade vanilla extract is just rum with vanilla pods steeped in it I decided to switch it for a teaspoon of ginger wine and it works very well.

I've done this recipe in imperial measures as it's so easy to remember that way. It's easily halved if you don't want to make 4 cakes.

I bake it in 4 1lb loaf tins, lined with loaf liners. This means I have 1 cake for the guest room and the others I put in bags, seal and put in the freezer for up to a month. The cake keeps well and gets stickier over a few days.

The icing is enough to generously cover 1 cake

Cake Ingredients
8oz treacle
8oz golden syrup
8oz dark muscovado sugar
8oz butter
16oz white self raising flour
4 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon of mixed spice
2 large eggs
1/2 pint milk

Icing Ingredients ( for one cake )
2 oz very soft butter
7 oz icing sugar
1tsp ginger wine

Preheat oven to 150 degrees Celsius Fan oven, 170 degrees Celsius non fan.
Put the flour, ginger and mixed spice in a large bowl and mix well.
Put the treacle, syrup, sugar and butter in a large saucepan and heat gently until it all melts. Mix it well together.
Beat together the eggs and milk.
Pour the contents of the saucepan and then the eggs & milk into the flour and spices and beat well till it's all well combined.
Divide the mixture between the 4 loaf tins and baked for about 40 minutes until a knife comes out clean.
Leave to cool completely then make the icing by beating together the butter, sugar and ginger wine. Spread it over one cooled cake.