Lactose Free Super Yummy Blueberry Muffins

Lactose Free Super Yummy Blueberry Muffins

Everyone always brings salads or meat to a BBQ. So cliche.

We have a gorgeous Blueberry bush which invariably gives us a bumper crop every year for about a week- and so we try to make everything we can with the glut. This is why I was the "cool" person rocking up to a BBQ with muffins, and seeing as the guest of honour Jayne is Lactose Intolerant, I decided to try adapting a recipe that I know works well.

Here is the original recipe- it's great as you can convert from USA to Metric, and choose how many you want to make and it automatically corrects the ingredient weights.

The only change I made to the actual muffin recipe was to replace the Milk with Olive Oil (equal measurements) and then a touch of water to make the consistency to my liking. To get beautifully risen, tall cafe style muffins, use deep muffin trays and tall tulip muffin cases.

For the crunch on top (which I highly recommend!) replace the butter with cold lactose free butter or Ghee. These things aren't the easiest to find, but good supermarkets (especially Sainsbury's) have great Lactose free sections so target that first. If you can't find any, leave the crumb off and add cinnamon to your muffins.

And Voila- these yummy muffins were even transported in a wicker basket and a linen cloth like they do in the good old USA. I am happy to report that they were devoured by the lactose loving and the lactose intolerant alike!

Rachel x

My Two Favourite Things - Wine and Chocolate

This week is my last week at my current job, and so last week I was inundated with requests for some cakes to bring in this week. Whilst browsing the Internet for a bakewell tart recipe to make for these guys, I somehow came across this fabulous blog, Love and Olive Oil.

These guys are incredible, and after browsing through their recipes (there are A LOT) this one really caught my eye. Chocolate and wine, a girl's dream.

The recipe uses olive oil instead of butter in the cake mixture, which gives it a gorgeous richness and helps preserve the cake for much longer. I think I will be using this trick on a few more of my recipes.

I also made a few changes to the original recipe - my edition is below, the original can be found here.

It will take a while to assemble, and you will end up become facetious about how smooth the edges are. If pressed for time, make the cake the night before and assemble the next day.

Rachel x

Flour Free Gooey Goodness

Spying a metro over someones shoulder one december evening on my way home from work i saw Nigella was doing a signing of her new book at Selfridges the next evening. I thought: 

Ah an excellent christmas present for my mum, she'll love this!

The next evening i had about 5 minutes between finishing work in covent garden and getting there to get a good spot in the queue so legging it down a packed oxford street at the peak of christmas time i thought: 

She better actually be there. I better get a good spot in the queue. Man i wish i worked at Selfridges, this would be so much easier (guess where i ironically work now. Dreaming for another book signing of interest that i can be at the front of the queue for. ho ho ho)

Standing in an extremely packed lower ground floor in the middle of a very long queue, clutching my newly purchased Nigellissima book, the front pages bare and ready for a sharpie pen blessing i thought: 

This better be worth it, if all the recipe's are for salad i will be most annoyed.....

Et voila it was all worth it as the chocolate olive oil cake that i successfully baked last weekend was divine and there was a very happy momma Sax on christmas day when she opened her present and saw the message in the front pages. 

I am an awesome christmas present buyer and world renowned attempted cake baker daughter extraordinaire. Aren't my family lucky to have me living with them still.

Baking with olive oil may seem daunting or slightly weird- you may think the cake will be greasy or have a strange taste or that nutty smell that comes with (good quality) olive oil but this wasn't the case at all. It meant the cake retained just the right amount of soft gooeyness you need whilst its in a hot oven without been raw or undercooked in the middle.

You can substitute the ground almonds with flour. However even with no allergy sufferers in the house i still went with the almonds- and the complete lack of butter, milk and flour in this cake makes it seem just a teeny bit healthier doesn't it? (I asked my parents if almonds had dairy in them before writing this. I've said before Rachel is the brains behind this operation.) meaning its also the perfect tea time treat if you have guests who suffer from those allergies. 

Finally standing in front of the beautiful and talented Nigella herself i thought:
Er, nothing. I thought nothing. My mind went completely blank in a way i thought i was far too cool for it to go when around people from the tele. When she said hello and i er'd and ummm'd like a complete and utter loon until she finished signing the book in silence and handed it back to me where i then proceeded to walk away impersonating the blue one from finding nemo. A kind looking Selfridges employee then looked at me and asked if i needed any assistance. Great.

Holly x

Recipe link below to reduce blog post waffling length-