Easter Spiced Brioche Scrolls (Low FODMAP)

Happy Easter! 

I hope everyone is enjoying celebrating Easter/Passover/the long weekend! It’s about 30 degrees Celsius here in Sydney, so it kinda seems odd that it’s Easter and technically meant to be Autumn. I am very much looking forward to the weather cooling down and really getting back into the kitchen again. Summer was hot here this year, and it definitely kept me away from the kitchen after the necessities of cooking for Christmas were over. Slowly I am finding moments in the kitchen, mostly to prepare for the work week, but also gradually getting back into the habit of baking and cooking purely for the joy if it. 

This long weekend I plan to make my annual lot of hot cross buns and have my first foray into making matzo ball soup. I’m thinking these are the best dishes of the two religious holidays celebrated this weekend so it is only fitting to give it them both a go. I have tried Matzo ball soup only once before, so I have been looking through my cookbooks and comparing the recipes from the likes of Yotam Ottolenghi and the Monday Morning Cooking Club to get all the tips and advice possible! Here’s hoping it goes well!

But now on to the scrolls! 

Low FODMAP Easter Spiced Hot Cross Buns

A couple of weeks ago I was generously sent some of The Healthy Baker’s Low FODMAP Plain Flour, so I decided that I would use that in my Easter baking and see how it goes. 

Since receiving this flour I have done a little research on the low FODMAP diet, and suffice to say the diet cuts out quite a few things across all food groups. 

The low FODMAP diet was developed by Monash University and aims to provide relief for those suffering IBS. Luckily the diet isn’t intended as a long term thing, rather a 6 or so week program to determine what high FODMAP foods someone may be reacting to. They  can then reintroduce other high FODMAP foods to their diet and continue to minimise those that still act as triggers. 

For these scrolls I have used a tried and tested brioche recipe so I could compare how they turned out using this new flour. And honestly, there is no comparison. The texture of the brioche is exactly the same as using regular plain flour. Which is great as it means everyone can enjoy all sorts of homemade baked goods without compromising on the quality of their bakes and not having to feel unwell after. I have tried to make these as hot cross bun inspired as possible by adding the same types of spices as I would to my hot cross buns. You can however use whatever combination you like, or in keeping with these being low FODMAP and for Easter, use dark chocolate instead. 

To make these scrolls Low FODMAP not only can you use The Healthy Baker’s flour but also substitute dairy milk for almond. I was also going to add dried fruit to the dough to make the scrolls even more like hot cross buns, but as dried fruit are high FODMAP I have left them out this time - so I guess these brioche scrolls can be like a better version of a fruitless hot cross bun for Easter! 

To get an idea about what other foods are low or high FODMAP check out the Monash University website which as some really good resources. 

Easter Spiced Brioche Scrolls using The Healthy Baker's Low FODMAP Plain Flour

Ingredients for the Dough: 

250ml milk (use lactose free for Low FODMAP)

10g dried yeast

75g caster sugar

2 eggs, beaten

485g Healthy Baker Low FODMAP Plain Flour, plus extra for dusting

75g unsalted butter, cubed and softened, plus extra for greasing

Ingredients for the Filling: 

85g unsalted butter, softened

120g panela sugar

1tsp ground cinnamon

1tsp mixed spice

1/2tsp ground ginger 

1/4tsp ground cardamom 

Pearl sugar*, optional 

Method: 

In a small saucepan warm the milk over low heat until lukewarm. Add the yeast, sugar and eggs and stir to combine. 

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, add the flour then the milk mixture and mix on a low speed until the ingredients are starting to combine and a dough is beginning to form. Increase the speed to medium-high for 5 minutes. Add the butter and mix on medium speed until it has been incorporated into the dough, and the dough is smooth and elastic. 

Use some butter to lightly grease a large bowl then place the dough inside. Cover with plastic wrap and leave to rise in a warm place for about 40 minutes until the dough has doubled in size. 

While the dough is rising prepare the spiced sugar for the filling by combining the panela sugar, cinnamon, mixed spice, ginger and cardamom in a small bowl. 

Once the dough has doubled in size, lightly flour your work surface and place the dough on top. Gently roll the dough into a rectangle (approx. 25 x 48 cm) allowing it to remain about 1 cm thick. 

Spread the softened butter over the dough then sprinkle over the spiced sugar mix. Roll the dough from the long edge to form a log, then cut into about 12 pieces. Line a large baking sheet with baking paper and place the cut scrolls on the sheet in rows leaving room in between each so they can rise. Loosely cover with plastic wrap and leave to rise again for about 30 minutes until the scrolls have doubled in size. 

While the scrolls are rising, pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. 

Once the scrolls have doubled in size, sprinkle with pearl sugar if you wish, and bake for 15-20 minutes or until they are golden brown and sound hollow when tapped. 

Serve warm and if there are any leftovers freeze them in zip lock bags to enjoy later. 

*Pearl sugar (or nib sugar) does not melt at high temperatures and can be used to decorate baked goods. It can be found at specialty food shops. 

Easter Spiced Brioche Scrolls

Reference: The Cook and Baker by Cherie Bevan and Tass Tauroa (Murdoch Books, 2015), p.124. 

Thank you to The Healthy Baker for providing me with some of their fantastic Low FODMAP Plain Flour!

Panela Sugar Shortbread + How to Make Homemade Vanilla Extract

Now that I am well accustomed to using Panela Sugar, I am testing it out in almost every tried and tested recipe I have! And my latest discovering is that Panela Sugar Shortbread is like making a super easy version of a caramel shortbread! The bigger crystals of Panela stay whole within each biscuit, and once cooked they caramelise even more and taste like small pieces of caramel in each bite. 

And as Panela sugar is unrefined, it makes me feel a little less guilty about eating a few of these! Other unrefined sugars, such as rapadura, would probably work well too and give a similar caramel flavour to the shortbread.

I made these a little while ago as my contribution for an afternoon tea, and the leftovers were eaten at the host’s work the next day. I am told they went down really well, with one person commenting that they tasted like Irish Shortbread. Now, I had no idea the Irish had their own version of shortbread, so now I think I need to do a little research and brush up on my shortbread knowledge!

Panela Sugar Shortbread

How to Make Vanilla Extract

• If using vanilla beans for this recipe (or any other!), don’t throw out the pods after the seeds have been used. Fill a small/medium jar or bottle with vodka and add the pods to it as you use them.

• Shake the bottle now and then, and keep stored at room temperature. The more pods you add to the vodka the deeper the colour and the better the flavour you will get.

• Depending on how many pods are infusing, expect to wait at least two-three months before using the vanilla extract. You can judge it by the colour of the extract and the aroma. I think the deeper the colour the better - I’d rather wait longer to use it and have a more intense vanilla flavour. See below for progress shots of making vanilla extract from day one to four months.

• I have mentioned before that vanilla pods can also be used for vanilla sugar, and now that I am using my vanilla sugar I have been rinsing the pods off from that and adding them to the extract too - they still have lots of flavour and it would be such a shame to waste them!

• If you are looking for a good bought vanilla extract, I would of course recommend the one made by Grounded Pleasures! It has a rich colour and really wonderful intense flavour, and each tube comes with a vanilla pod inside - and you don’t have to wait a few months to use it!

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Homemade Vanilla Extract and Vanilla Sugar

Panela Sugar Shortbread

Panela Sugar Shortbread and Homegrown Camellias

Panela Sugar Shortbread

Panela Sugar Shortbread

Ingredients: 

160g unsalted butter, at room temperature

60g Grounded Pleasures Organic Panela Sugar

1 Grounded Pleasures Organic Vanilla Bean, seeds scraped 

250g plain flour

Method: 

Pre-heat oven to 150 degrees Celsius and line two large baking trays with baking paper.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, place the butter (135g), Panela sugar and the vanilla bean seeds. Beat until well combined. 

Add the flour and mix on low speed until the flour has incorporated. Mix on a low-medium speed until a dough starts to form. If the mixture remains too crumbly, add the remaining butter and mix well.

Sprinkle some flour on your work surface, bring the dough together with your hands, then turn onto the floured surface. Using a rolling pin, roll the dough out, dusting with more flour as needed, so it is flat and and about 2mm thick. 

Cut the biscuits out using a small round biscuit cutter (mine is 4.5cm), using a small spatula to lift them over to the prepared tray. 

Bake biscuits for about 15 minutes, or until the edges are slightly golden. I like the check the underneath of a couple of biscuits too, if that is a little golden then the biscuits are definitely cooked. 

Cool the biscuits on the trays and store in an airtight container. 

Makes about 45 small biscuits.

Panela Sugar Shortbread

Panela Sugar Shortbread

Panela Sugar Shortbread

Homegrown Camellias

Thanks to Grounded Pleasures for sponsoring this post and providing the yummy Panela Sugar & Vanilla Beans!

Muesli Breakfast Crumble

When I’m working, and there are early mornings, long days and lots of travel ahead, the last thing I feel like doing when I wake up is make breakfast. However, breakfast is exactly what I need to start those kinds of work days off on the right foot. I tend to opt for quick things like toast, though they don’t keep me full for very long. Every so often however, I find something for breakfast that I really like, and can be made in advance and quickly re-heated and eaten before the work day begins. 

A couple of years ago I started making a double batch of these pancakes on the weekend, then kept enough for two per day in the fridge for the working week, or freeze them to defrost in the microwave each morning. While reheated pancakes don’t have the same ring to them as freshly made, I found it so much easier to wake up each morning knowing I had something nice to eat. I made sure I had some nice maple syrup, honey or fresh honeycomb, berries or other fruit and yoghurt to eat with them and it made the start to the day so much easier. 

I have since found a few more breakfasts that can be made in advance, including the crumpets in this recent post, and this Muesli Breakfast Crumble. The crumble is inspired by the dessert crumble I made last year, which I loved, and some homemade muesli I was gifted from a friend at work who later gave me the recipe. I have used finely sliced Pink Lady apples and poached quince as my fruit filling for this Breakfast Crumble, however almost any fruit combination will work. Stone fruit and berries would be amazing in Summer, and rhubarb in Winter. The quantities of the fruit don’t matter so much, as long as they fill your baking dish with enough room for the crumble topping to sit on top. 

What are your tips for easy and tasty breakfasts during the work week? 

Also just a little note to say I'm going to be putting together a (mostly) weekly newsletter, filled with recipes, tips, tricks and recommendations you won't find here on the blog! I'm hoping to share even more exclusive content via the newsletter soon, so click here to sign up! 

Muesli Breakfast Crumble

Grounded Pleasures Organic Panela Sugar - used in crumble mixture

Muesli Breakfast Crumble

Muesli Breakfast Crumble

Ingredients: 

x3 small apples, I prefer Pink Lady, finely sliced then roughly chopped

1.5-2 large poached quinces, roughly chopped

2 tbsp quince poaching liquid

1 Grounded Pleasures Vanilla Bean, seeds scraped

60g wholemeal plain flour

60g oats

1/2 tsp cinnamon

50g margarine or softened unsalted butter

20g sunflower kernels

15g chia seeds

75g Grounded Pleasures Organic Panela Sugar

25g pepitas

30g slivered almonds 

Greek yoghurt, to serve

Method: 

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. 

Mix the apple, quince, poaching liquid and vanilla bean seeds in a baking dish (interior dimensions approx. 24 x 19.5 x 6.5cm), then set aside. 

In a medium/large bowl combine the flour, oats, cinnamon, margarine, sunflower kernels, chia seeds, Panela sugar, pepitas and almonds, until they are well combined and the margarine has evenly dispersed. 

Spoon the muesli crumble mixture over the apples and quince in the baking dish, ensuring the entire surface of the dish is evenly covered. 

Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until the crumble topping is golden. Serve warm from the oven with Greek yoghurt or reheat portions for easy breakfasts later on. 

Muesli Breakfast Crumble

Muesli Breakfast Crumble

Muesli Breakfast Crumble

Thanks to Grounded Pleasures for sponsoring this post and providing the yummy Panela Sugar & Vanilla Beans! 

White Chocolate Ice Cream (Egg Free)

I have been working on this recipe for a little while. It first came about because I got some of the Grounded Pleasures Real White Drinking Chocolate. And recently the lovely Sophie from Grounded Pleasures has gifted me some of their fantastic products, including their Real White Drinking Chocolate, so it was definitely time to revisit the recipe and try to perfect it before the cold weather really sets in and and making ice cream seems a little out of place. 

For some reason I was not content with just making Grounded Pleasures' Real White Drinking Chocolate into hot chocolate (although I highly recommend doing so, a really good white drinking chocolate like this one seemed so hard to come by until now!), I wanted to see if it worked in other things too. At the time I had been making ice cream a fair bit, and enjoying it immensely. So it felt only natural to make a white chocolate ice cream using the Grounded Pleasures Real White Drinking Chocolate. 

Since that first version I attempted, I have refined the recipe and am very happy with how it has turned out. The addition of finely chopped white chocolate (one that you would like to eat, not cooking chocolate) intensifies the white chocolate flavour and adds a little crunch to the ice cream. 

You will notice if you follow along with the blog, that I use the same basic ice cream recipe each time (see basic Vanilla Ice Cream and Panela Sugar and Vanilla Ice Cream). This is because it is so simple and easy, very quick to make, and I love the end result. I have never even bothered to try to make ice cream the traditional way yet, even though I have had an ice cream maker for well over a year now. I just can’t get past the simplicity of this method, yet how lovely the ice cream turns out. 

For a really creamy ice cream, use milk and cream that have higher fat contents, however skim milk and lighter creams work well and still produce a great end result. The first time I attempted making ice cream this way, I only had skim milk and a can of UHD light cream - it ended up being delicious ice cream, that also made me feel slightly less guilty when eating it!

Thank you so much again to Sophie of Grounded Pleasures for gifting me some of their wonderful products. These are truely products that I love baking with and would be doing so even if I hadn't received these generous gifts. 

White Chocolate Ice Cream

Ingredients: 

165ml full cream milk 

6 tbsp white sugar

250ml pouring cream 

1/4 cup Grounded Pleasures Real White Drinking Chocolate

1 tsp Grounded Pleasures Organic Vanilla extract

1 Grounded Pleasures Organic Vanilla bean, seeds scraped

100g white chocolate, finely chopped

fresh raspberries to serve, optional

Method: 

Whisk the milk and sugar together until the sugar has dissolved and the milk has become frothy. Then add the cream, the vanilla extract, the seeds of the vanilla bean, white hot chocolate powder and whisk until combined. 

Transfer mixture into the bowl of an ice cream machine, and process according to machine instructions. Once ready, mix through most of the chopped white chocolate. Transfer ice cream into a freezer safe container, sprinkle with the remaining white chocolate and freeze for at least 4 hours (overnight is best). 

Reference: ‘Lomelino’s Ice Cream’ by Linda Lomelino (Roost Books, 2015), p.13.

Thanks to Grounded Pleasures for sponsoring this post and providing the Real White Drinking Chocolate!

How to Bake with Panela Sugar - Plum & Panela Cake with Vanilla & Panela Ice Cream

This recipe not only celebrates our lovely in season plums, but also a fantastic organic and unrefined sugar called Panela. Panela sugar is a product of dried sugar cane juice. It retains the beneficial nutrients and minerals (so that makes this cake healthy, no?) and has a caramel like flavour. I found it worked so well with the slightly tart flavour of the plums, and gave the cake a rich golden colour. 

I was introduced to Panela sugar by Sophie, one half of the Ballarat based business Grounded Pleasures. Sophie and I met last year at a Local is Lovely Workshop, at which she brought along some of the Grounded Pleasures products which mostly consist of exquisite hot chocolates. We made hot chocolates the old fashioned way over the gas stove in the shed in which our workshop was hosted in. And since it was a very chilly Winters day, they were much welcomed by everyone. 

Sophie told us about some of the other products they sell at Grounded Pleasures, which included the Panela Sugar, vanilla (beans & extract) and a Real White Drinking Chocolate. I was quite interested in the latter, since I am unable to eat (or drink) chocolate for health reasons and thus always miss out on a warming cup of hot chocolate in Winter. 

Soon after the workshop, I got some of the Panela Sugar and the White Hot Chocolate and instantly loved cooking and eating/drinking both. The Panela Sugar is easily substituted in many recipes where caster sugar is called for, and I found it added a lovely depth of flavour to muffins in particular. 

Since then Sophie has sent me some more of their delicious products, which has lead to much recipe inspiration. I found the Panela Sugar and vanilla products not only worked really well in this cake, but also made a really nice simple homemade ice cream. The Panela Sugar gave a rich caramel flavour and colour to the simple vanilla ice cream, which paired well with the cake, but also tasted so good on its own as a simple mid-week dessert. 

A note on using vanilla beans in baking - don’t throw away the vanilla pods after the seeds have been used in the cake/ice cream. Keep them to make vanilla sugar or homemade vanilla extract, even without the seeds the pods retain a lot of flavour. 

Plum & Panela Cake

Ingredients: 

125g flavourless margarine, or softened unsalted butter

150g Grounded Pleasures Organic Panela Sugar, plus extra

1 Grounded Pleasures Organic Vanilla Bean, seeds scraped

1/2 tsp Grounded Pleasures Organic Vanilla Extract

75g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

150g almond meal

3 eggs

2 plums (any variety)

Method:

Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius. Line a 20cm round loose bottomed (or springform) cake tin with baking paper.

Beat the margarine/butter with the Panela sugar, seeds of the vanilla pod and the vanilla extract, until fluffy and creamy. In a separate bowl, gently whisk together the flour and baking powder.

Add the eggs one at a time to the creamed mixture, beating well after each addition. Then fold in the plain flour and baking powder, along with the almond meal. 

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and smooth the top. Cut the plums in half, then in half again. Then slice up each plum quarter into 3 or 4 slices. Place the plum slices onto the top of the cake, working your way around the outside of the cake then moving into the middle (you might not need all of the two plums, it will depend on their size). Keep the slices of plum fairly close together as they will separate a little when the cake rises. Sprinkle the plums with some more Panela sugar. 

Bake for 40 minutes, or until the cake is golden in colour and a skewer comes out clean. The cake will be a deep golden colour due to the Panela sugar. 

Leave the cake in the tin for 10 minutes, before transferring to a wire rack to cool - alternatively serve warm as a dessert with the Vanilla and Panela Ice Cream. 

Vanilla & Panela Ice Cream

Ingredients: 

165ml full cream milk 

6 tbsp Grounded Pleasures Organic Panela Sugar

250ml pouring cream 

1 tsp Grounded Pleasures Organic Vanilla extract

1 Grounded Pleasures Organic Vanilla bean, seeds scraped

Method: 

Whisk the milk and Panela Sugar together until the sugar has dissolved and the milk has become frothy. Then add the cream, the vanilla extract and the seeds of the vanilla bean and whisk until combined. 

Transfer mixture into the bowl of an ice cream machine, and process according to machine instructions. Once ready, transfer ice cream into a freezer safe container and freeze for at least 4 hours (overnight is best). 

References: ‘Holiday’ by Bill Granger (Murdoch Books, 2007), p.124; ‘Lomelino’s Ice Cream’ by Linda Lomelino (Roost Books, 2015), p.13.

Thanks to Grounded Pleasures for sponsoring this post and providing the Panela Sugar, Vanilla Beans & Extract!