I just came across this article in today’s NZ Herald – a takeaway shop that is full gluten-free!! Unfortunately, it’s in Rotorua, which may be a little far for me to drive for my Friday night dinner, but HOORAY!! When I am next in Rotorua I will definitely be stopping by!
Salted caramel white chocolate cheesecake
On a recent trip to Sydney, I was lucky enough to eat a salted caramel white chocolate cheesecake with hokey pokey on the top of it. Oh. My. Gosh. I was pretty sure I could recreate the experience by combining a couple of recipes I use often, and I have had some success! The cheesecake is based on Chelsea Winter’s excellent White Chocolate and Berry Cheesecake. I’ve tried to take lots of pictures as I go for a change!!
Ingredients
For the base
- 350g biscuits*
- 75g melted butter
For the cheesecake
- 250g cream cheese
- 1 cup cream, whipped
- 250g white chocolate
- 1/3 cup cream
- 100g white chocolate, chopped into small pieces
For the salted caramel
- 40ml water
- 1/2 cup caster sugar
- 1/2 cup cream
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
Method
Base
- Either process the biscuits in a food processor until they resemble crumbs or put the biscuits in a double plastic bag and bash them with something heavy – I use a rolling pin.
- Mix in the butter until all is well combined.
- Press down firmly into a greased and lined springform tin. If I am using a bigger tin, I normally do the base just over the base of the tin, but if I am making a higher cheesecake in a smaller tin, I go up the sides with the base.
- Put into the fridge to chill while you make the topping.
Cheesecake
- Using an electric beater, beat the cream cheese in a large bowl until it is light and fluffy.
- In a separate bowl, whip the cream.
- In a third smaller bowl, combine the larger measure of chocolate and the smaller measure of cream. Met either over hot water in a pot or in the microwave. I find that in the microwave, it is best to use half power for about a minute. Take the chocolate out and stir until it is all combined and the chocolate is melted.
- In small portions, add the melted chocolate to the cream cheese beating thoroughly between each batch. Doing it this way means that the chocolate doesn’t set when it hits the cold cream cheese so combines better.
- Once all the melted chocolate has been combined, fold the whipped cream and chopped white chocolate through the cream cheese mixture.
- Pour into the prepared base and smooth the top. Return to the fridge and chill for at least 2 hours.
Salted caramel
- Combine sugar and water into a medium sized saucepan. Place over a medium heat and stir until the sugar has dissolved and the mix begins to bubble.
- From this point, do not stir the sugar and water mix. If it looks like it needs to be mixed, then swirl the mix in the pot.
- Allow the mix to simmer away fr about 8-10 minutes (keep an eye on it!). Eventually, it will begin turning a honey colour, then caramel.
- At the point it is caramel in colour, add the cream to the pan. It will bubble up, and the sugar and water will set somewhat. Keep stirring over heat until the sugar and water have combined with the cream and there are no lumps. Turn off the heat and add the salt. Allow to cool.
- Just before serving, carefully remove the cheesecake from the tin and place onto a platter. Pour the salted caramel over the top of the cheesecake, serve and eat.
Notes:
- the biscuits I use for this cheesecake are the Leda gluten-free chocolate chip biscuits. If I am making the berry version, I also add 1/4 cup of cocoa to the base, but for the salted caramel version, I think it is nicer without the extra chocolate.
Eating out in Sydney – Chat Thai
On my very first trip to Sydney, aged 20 and the first time I’d been out of New Zealand, I got horribly lost in the Centrepoint mall. I was stuck in there for what seemed to be hours, unable to find my way out and totally disoriented. I had to keep shopping and eventually found an exit and escaped, likening it in my mind to the 7th plane of shopping hell. I haven’t been back since and still don’t like shopping. On my most recent trip to Sydney, I returned. Centrepoint is now a Westfield Mall and is as confusing as ever. Luckily, I had a guide.
On Levels 5 and 6 of the mall is what can loosely be described as a food court. That is to say it is a group of individual restaurants – a huge variety of them – and a few faster food places. We had been recommended Chat Thai by a colleague and we weren’t disappointed (although there were so many interesting looking places, it would have been nice to have sampled a different restaurant on another night. Oh well, that’s for another trip!).
This beer was NOT gluten-free but it was extremely nice and locally made in Sydney
Chat Thai was busy and bustling, but the service was great and the food was fabulous and very reasonably priced and they have a HUGE menu. The flavours were amazing and very different in the three dishes we had selected (roasted duck red curry, water spinach with garlic and grilled chicken with lemongrass, turmeric and chilli). We ate until we were stuffed and then had to go for a walk to recover! Best of all, most of the food was gluten-free.
Chat Thai can be found on Level 6 of the Westfield Mall in the Sydney CBD, but has other locations throughout Sydney as well.
Cross Eatery – best gluten-free breakfast in Sydney!
OK, so as I can’t claim to have tried every cafe which offers a gluten-free breakfast in Sydney, the title of this post may be somewhat unsubstantiated! However…some of you may have read about my disastrous breakfast experience on morning one of my recent stay in Sydney. On morning two, my colleague suggested we find something on our way to the bus. I strolled along Clarence St and poked my nose into a very large and flash looking café. Cross Eatery is so named after the heritage Red Cross building, the lobby of which they are located in. It’s different from many of the central Sydney cafes in that it has a large floor space and is light and open – giving the impression that it is larger than it is.
The staff were welcoming and when I sat down and asked what they had that was gluten-free, they pointed me towards Nonie’s Roasted Hazelnut muesli with fruit and yoghurt or a coconut rice pudding. I’m not a fan of coconut, so thought I’d try the muesli. As I was talking to them, I discovered that they source as much of their ingredients locally as they can, and aim for fresh and unusual combinations and flavours.
This is what came out.
Healthy, filling, fresh and incredibly tasty. It was so good that even though Cross Eatery had many other gluten-free options for breakfast and lunch, this was my breakfast for the rest of the week.
Highly recommended – great food, lovely staff and excellent service.
Cross Eatery
155 Clarence St
Sydney, NSW 2000
They don’t seem to have a website, but you can find them on Facebook
Vapiano – great gluten-free Italian Food in the heart of Sydney
After a few years’ hiatus, I was back in Sydney for a work trip last week. I had an inauspicious start on Monday morning when the café we went to for breakfast had NO gluten-free options. They couldn’t even give me just yoghurt and fruit, as all their breakfasts were pre-made with muesli in them. They had no gluten-free bread available, and only very grudgingly agreed to make me avocado and bacon for breakfast.
However, this was redeemed in the evening when my colleague and I went to Vapiano – the Italian restaurant in the ground floor of our hotel building. This was a very slick operation. At the front desk you are given your own card. There is a pasta station, a salad station, a pizza station and a bar and dessert station. You place your order, swipe your card and then at the end of the evening, you pay your bill. It’s a very simple and efficient way of taking orders and organizing a bill split between multiple people if that’s the way you choose to do it, as you each have your own card.
Vapiano describes itself as ‘fresh casual’ and that is very true of the look and feel of their restaurant. There are tubs of fresh herbs growing all through the restaurant and even at each table and it gives the whole place a welcoming and informal feel. There are a selection of high and low wooden tables, with soft lighting. The air is redolent with garlic.
The menu is fairly simple, and broken down into the four categories or stations mentioned above. I was a little disappointed that there was no gluten-free pizza available – they make the pizza dough themselves on premise. Happily, I was reassured by the many ‘GF’ notations against the pasta sauce options. Underneath these was a tiny footnote to say that the gluten-free pasta was gnocchi. GNOCCHI!!!! I had to double check to make sure. Happy, happy days – I love gnocchi and rarely have it as I can’t be bothered making it. Just a note that they also make all their pasta on the premises too!
At the pasta station, you tell one of the chefs at the counter what you would like to have. That night, I chose the gnocchi with a fresh basil pesto (made on the premises), roasted pinenuts and extra mushrooms. And here’s the kicker – when I asked for it gluten-free, the chef said “are you coeliac and would you like this cooked in fresh water?” How great is that?
I inhaled my pasta so fast that I forgot to take a photo that night or a couple of nights later when I grabbed another order of gnocchi, this time with sundried tomatoes and chilli. Again, the chef asked if I was coeliac.
Highly recommend Vapiano for a great dining experience (and I’ll talk more about the salted caramel white chocolate cheesecake in another post!).
Vapiano is located on the ground floor of the Grace Hotel, corner of King and York Sts in the Sydney CBD.
The Unbakery – raw, organic, delicious
I’ve seen this place for weeks now as I walked along Customs Street, and finally went in the other day to see what they had on offer. Turns out most of their sweet things are gluten-free – woohoo!!! And look at these little beauties – brownies, slices, cheesecakes and more! They are all uncooked, organic and really very nice, using unusual ingredients for interesting tastes.
They have all sorts of other food as well – muesli from Little Bird, savoury food and lots of pre-packaged product. Well worth a visit if you’re in Downtown Auckland and looking for a snack.
Just a note, I had a piece of the salted caramel tart. It was lovely, but at $10 a piece, very pricey. The Unbakery will definitely be a “treat” visit shop for me!
Yes, everything in this cabinet is gluten-free!!
14 Customs St E
Auckland CDB
Go Nuts with Mother Earth Gluten-Free muesli bars
I was doing the weekly shop at Pak n Save this week, and hit the muesli bar aisle. I know they’re full of sugar. but they’re also incredibly convenient. If only all six children liked the SAME bars, my life would be easy. But no. As a result, I have to browse the muesli bar section quite intensely. And what should I see, but these little beauties! Three different flavours of Mother Earth baked muesli bars (one of them is pictured).
The bars look and taste great and have become a staple in my “snack food at work” cupboard, my car glove box and my pantry at home. It’s nice to have a convenient, healthy-ish on the go type of food available.
I’ve put a shot of the ingredients list for those like me who have multiple avoidances, but hope these will be useful for someone else! The best part? They are EXACTLY THE SAME PRICE as the normal muesli bars. Stop.The.Press. Well played Mother Earth, well played!
Obviously I can’t speak for the possible gluten contaminants in the factory, but this is a fantastic start. And I wasn’t paid or bribed in any way to do this review – I had to buy my own bars even!
Gluten-free scones – an updated recipe
The quest for the perfect gluten-free scone is a long and arduous one, involving many failed attempts, chewy, rock-like, “shiny on my teeth texture”, very average recipes and general disappointment. Dear readers, I have endured these sacrifices for you. Well, actually, I’ve selfishly endured them for me really, because I love scones 🙂 I’ve been making lemonade scones for a while now as my standard family scones (that is to say, they are not gluten-free) and have had a couple of goes at converting this recipe to make them gluten-free, and think I have finally cracked it!
Longtime readers will know that I prefer to use flour blends appropriate to what I am making, but to be honest, I don’t do very much gluten-free baking any more. Primarily because I am the only one in my household that eats it, and one of two things happens – I throw away half or I eat it all and the ever-expanding waistline really does not need the assistance! I recently ran across the Edmonds Gluten-free self-raising flour and decided to keep a packet of that on hand for when I need just a little flour. So it was time for the experiment!
Ingredients
- 3 cups gluten-free flour
- 3 teaspoons gluten-free baking powder (or use self-raising flour)
- 1 cup lemonade
- 1 cup cream
Method
- Preheat oven to 200 degrees C.
- Combine flour and baking powder (or use just self-raising flour).
- Add cream, then lemonade and mix quickly with a bread and butter knife until combined.
- Knead very briefly to collect up any loose flour. Note that the mixture is very sticky, and this is how it should be.
- Press or roll out onto a floured board to about 2cm thick and cut into pieces. I often use a glass to get more even shapes. Makes about a dozen good-sized scones.
- Cook for about 15-20 minutes until scones are golden. Transfer to a wire rack and allow to cool a little before serving.
- Serve with jam and cream for a nice Devonshire tea, or cheese and chutney, or just eat with butter.
Some things to note:
- I’ve made these very successfully using soda water if I wanted them to be savoury. I also normally use diet lemonade.
- These are extremely nice with sultanas. If I’m doing sultana scones, I normally add 1 tsp of vanilla essence and 1 tsp of cinnamon.
- I have made them into pinwheel type scones, but the mix does not roll up very well, so tend to just add lots of cinnamon to the mix for a nice cinnamon scone.
- The recipe halves well – 1.5 cups of flour, .5 cup of cream, .5 cup lemonade – but sometimes is extra wet and sticky so you may need a little more flour.
- I tried making mini scones for an afternoon tea, but this recipe really doesn’t lend itself to bite-sized scones.
Apparently I had used up all my cream making the scones themselves. Top – butter and jam. Bottom – cheese and chutney.
Go forth and enjoy! The scones are best eaten the day they’re made (but that’s true of the gluten-containing lemonade scones as well) but are OK the next day if warmed up.
Abe’s Gluten-free Bagels – Part 2: Return of the Bagel
A while ago, Abe’s were kind enough to send me some of their new gluten-free bagels to try out. I talked about them here.
Last year, they contacted me to ask if I’d like to try out their new Six Seed Bagel – gluten-free of course! It took me a while to decide if I wanted to try some new product…about .1 milliseconds…and in due course my bagels arrived.
I like to look at the ingredients and nutritional breakdown nowadays, so here’s that information for you!
As with the plain bagels, these come in a three-pack. The gluten-free bagels are smaller than the regular bagels, but still make for a good breakfast. Here’s what they look like with nothing on them – these are just toasted:
Nice and seedy, with the chewy bagel texture just right and the seeds add a little extra flavour. They went very nicely with hummus and plain butter, but would work brilliantly with your favourite bagel topping. I really liked the high fibre content and the fact that they are made in NZ and have no GM ingredients. But really, it’s the taste that’s the best thing!
What would I change about these? If I was being picky, I would ask Abe’s to cut these in half in the same way they do with their regular bagels. I always forget to do it before I put them in the freezer and then have to defrost them before I can cut them and put them in the toaster. And I don’t know about anyone else, but I really struggle to cut bagels in half easily!
Also, I would have them in more supermarkets, but I guess that’s not really up to Abe’s. I don’t see the regular bagels around often (so always buy a couple of packets when I come across them and chuck them in the freezer) and have yet to come across the Six Seed bagel anywhere.
Note to self: I have no bagels in the freezer, so must remember to pick some up. And this time, cut them in half before I freeze them!
Check out the Abe’s Bagels website for more information.
Note: I wasn’t paid in any way to write this, apart from being sent some bagels to try. In fact, I have taken a shamefully long time to write this review!
Pita Pit – oh how I love thee!
I miss Subway. The fresh, sweet smell of bread baking never fails to make my mouth water. Despite my repeated requests, they don’t seem to want to trial gluten-free bread, and to be fair, it would be hard to keep the bread from cross-contamination. So I’ve grown accustomed to not eating at most of the fast food outlets but it can be tricky when I’m travelling for work or helping out during a sports trip. My very helpful kids are all about looking out for gluten-free things for me, and happy day, daughter #2 told me that Pita Pit offer gluten-free pitas! I tried one and it was very good, but I wasn’t watching too closely as they made it, so couldn’t answer for the cross-contamination.
However, we were recently in Mairangi Bay with a team of hungry waterpolo players and we went down to the nearest Pita Pit, the one on Apollo Drive. I ordered my gluten-free pita and watched the process with an eagle eye. I was totally impressed. They changed their gloves before getting out the pita bread and used a different knife which came from a selection of clean knives to cut the pita open. They then put the pita on a piece of greaseproof paper to pas it on to the next stage. The next person also changed their gloves before handling the pita. When the pita was put into the toasting grill, the baking paper stayed around it, so that even if the paper came into contact with gluten on the grill, the pita itself didn’t. Finally, they used a new piece of paper to wrap the pita pocket in.
I’m not sure whether the other Pita Pits around the place are as rigorous as the Mairangi Bay outlet, but I was amazed by the care the staff there took. And do please note that we had 10 starving 14 and 15 year old boys with us so there were a pile of orders to be made up. Full marks Pita Pit, well done to you!
Click on Pita Pit NZ for more details.
Since I posted this a couple of weeks ago, I’ve heard again and again how good Pita Pit is from all sorts of people all over the country! Pleased this isn’t confined to just the Mairangi Bay Pita Pit.
Note: this post was not sponsored in any way by Pita Pit. Also, I can’t talk about the processes used to make the gluten-free pita bread.
Being Gluten Free in NZ 