Gluten Free Peanut Butter Blondies

Ingredients:

• 100g unsalted butter (or olive/sunflower spread)
• 150g peanut butter
• 175g caster sugar
• 1 egg
• 100g white chocolate
• 125g gluten free plain flour (I just used a supermarket's own brand)
• 1 tsp baking powder

Method:

• Pre-heat the oven to 160C and line an 8 inch square tin.
• Beat the butter and peanut butter together.
• Mix in the sugar and egg.
• Chop up the chocolate and add into the mixture.
• Sift in the flour and baking powder and mix well.
• Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 30-40 minutes until it starts to brown at the edges.

Gluten Free Whoopie Pie Recipe

A while ago I made some cookies using coconut flour and I remember them being very chocolatey, sturdy and not too sweet. When I had a sudden urge for one I thought these cookies would be pretty perfect, especially after adding a bit of chestnut flour to make them more spongey. 
For the middle I basically ended up with toasted marshmallows (hence the stickyness and slight browning) because most recipes use frosting or some kind of marshamallow fluff/frosting but I didn't want mine to be be too sickly sweet plus everyone likes toasted marshmallows.

Makes 4 whoopie pies

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup coconut flour
• 2-3 tbsp chestnut flour
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• just under 1/4 cup coco powder
• Marshmallows

Method:

• Pre-heat the oven to 180C and line a baking tray with baking paper
• Combine the flours in a bowl and mix in the eggs followed by the sugar, salt and oil.
• Sift in the cocoa powder and baking powder.
• Leave to rest for approx 5 mins (the coconut flour will absorb some of the moisture)
• Spoon the mixture into 8 circles.

• Bake for 8-10 mins and remove half of the cookies. Balance marshmallows   on the remaining cookies (the number of marshmallows is up to you) and return to the oven. Cook until the marshmallows melt (this won't take long).
• Sandwich the cookies together.

Gluten Free Cake Pops (what to do with leftovers)

Previously I made Nutella cakes with peanut butter icing (see previous recipe) and I decided to take some to jury service with me but they got a little mushed and were no longer very attractive.

So I decided that the best thing to do was to make them into cake pops.

The good thing about cake pops is that the ingredients aren't very specific. You can use leftovers, buy some cake or make some fresh cakes. It doesn't even matter if the cake is stale.
This time I used 4 leftover cakes which were already iced (400g in total) which make 10 pretty big cake pops. But you can use as much or as little as you like as long as you have enough icing to hold it together. You can use whichever cake you want and if your making them for an occasion you can prepare these well in advance.


Ingredients:

• Cake
• Icing/frosting
• Chocolate for melting

You will also need sticks (I don't always bother unless I'm making them for someone else but it does make them look better) and a deep bowl or cup.

Method:

• Crumble the cake into a large bowl and add in some of the icing.
• Use your hands to try to form balls. It may help to warm the mixture up in the microwave on medium for 10-20 seconds. If you can not easily form balls just add some more of the icing/frosting.
• Don't worry if their not very solid at this point. Place them on baking paper on a tray and make sure you have room in the freezer. 
• Melt a small amount of chocolate to hold the sticks in place. Make a hole on each ball using a stick (stop just before the stick reaches halfway through the ball).
• Get a clean stick and dip the top in the chocolate (the top 1/2 to 1 cm approx should be covered in chocolate). Push the stick into the hole you've made in the ball so the stick is pointing up.
• Repeat for each ball and then put the tray in the freezer for at least 30mins-1 hour.
• Melt chocolate in a deep bowl or cup.

• The cake should be pretty sturdy on the stick buy now so you can dunk each pop in the melted chocolate one by one.
• At this point you can add any decorations you want before the chocolate sets (I didn't have time to decorate them as nicely as I would have liked as my friend turned up etc...but you can make them as impressive as you like).
• Because they've been in the freezer the chocolate sets pretty quickly so you don't have to stand there holding them for long.
• You can stand them in a glass, vase or polystyrene but if it is a hot day you may want to put them in the fridge so they don't melt of their sticks (this happened to me here in London so mine are currently living on a plate in the fridge)

Gluten Free Nutella Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Icing

I was just experimenting when I made these and this recipe made around 7 large cupcakes so I would recommend doubling it if you want more.

Ingredients:

• 100g butter (or olive/sunflower spread)
• 100g caster sugar
• 1 egg
• 100g chestnut flour
• 1/4 tsp xantham gum
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 3-4 tbsp nutella

• 75g butter
• 100g peanut butter
• 225g icing sugar (approx)
• milk

Method:

• Pre-heat the oven to 180C.
• Cream together the butter and sugar.
• Add in the egg and mix.
• Add in the flour, gum and baking powder (I don't find that chestnut flour needs sifting)
• Add in the nutella and mix until well combined.
• Spoon the mixture into cupcake cases in a cupcake tray and bake until the cake springs back to touch.

• Once the cakes have cooled add the butter and a splash of milk in a bowl and add in some of the icing sugar until it starts to form butter cream icing.
• Add in the peanut butter and the remaining icing sugar until well combined (you may need more or less icing sugar, if it becomes too thick just add a small amount of milk).
• You can either spread the icing on the cooled cakes or pipe it on.