Recipe: Lactose free Carrot & Cream Cheese Cupcakes

I've been lactose free now for the last 2 and a half weeks and I am definitely feeling a lot better for it.  It does however mean that when it comes to baking there is a LOT of stuff I can't eat due to the vast amounts of butter and milk that are used for the tasty little cakes and treats!

I am delighted to say that I have now finally got a new oven so baking was top of the to do list yesterday but I needed to find a lactose free recipe.

I adapted this one from BBC Good Food (it was only really the icing that needed changing) and these turned out amazingly!

With all the tasty spices I have to say - it's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

Ingredients

Cake mix:

175g Muscovado Sugar

200g self-raising flour

200g carrot grated

1tsp bicarb of soda

1tsp Allspice

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2tsp cinnamon

zest 1 orange

2 eggs

150ml sunflower oil

Icing:

100g soft cheese (lactofree)

100g icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

• Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4 and line a 12-hole muffin tin with cases. 
• In a large mixing bowl, mix the sugar, flours, bicarbonate of soda, mixed spice and orange zest. 
• Whisk together the eggs and oil, then stir into the dry ingredients with the grated carrot. 
• Divide the mixture between cases and bake for 20-22 mins until a skewer poked in comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack before icing.
• For the icing, beat the soft cheese, icing sugar and vanilla. 
• Use a palette or cutlery knife to swirl the icing on top of the cakes, then sprinkle with decorations.

Recipe: Microwave Crumble

So I have something to let you all in on...I don't have an oven!  I did, back in April, and then the element blew and since then everything has all been a bit of a roller coaster and it just hasn't been top of the to do list.  Don't get me wrong, I massively thought it would be, and then it sort of became a bit of a challenge in myself to see how long I could last.

To be honest I think it has been good for us.  Instead of popping something in the oven for dinner I've been cooking a lot more fresh food on the hob and grill.  I miss being able to bake, make bread and home made pizza.  I've found that I can make flat bread on the grill, we make fudge and on the hob treats instead of baked goods, and I do still have a microwave.

I've never really been one for using a microwave instead of to reheat things, and defrost.

But the other week I thought I would try a crumble.  This was inspired by the fact that G found a recipe for microwave brownie and it really worked.

Sure Microwave crumble doesn't go crispy on the top, but if you think of it as a different thing then it actually works!  Last night we had homegrown pear and blackberry crumble! Yum!

Serves 2-3

Ingredients 

(all are rough as I tend not to measure with crumble)

4 tbsp plain flour

4 tbsp rolled oats

2 tbsp grape nuts (optional)

4tbsp caster sugar

50g butter

1tsp baking powder

4 medium pears (pealed, cored and chopped)

blackberries

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Dark Brown Sugar

• Heat fruit, vanilla extract and sugar in microwave until fruit starts to soften.
• In a separate bowl rub the butter into the flour.
• To this add oats, grape nuts, sugar, baking powder
• Mix all this together
• Add to the top of the fruit
• Microwave for 2 minutes
• Check and the depending on the heat of your microwave heat for another 1-2 minutes.