SCONES

Easy and quick comfort food. These are very soft and delicate with a crispy top even when made with gluten-free flour mix.

I have a theory that shop-bought gluten-free scones are actually just surplus astronaut food that NASA are selling out to minimise losses.




3 parts self-raising flour (gluten-free is fine)
2 parts lemonade of sparkling water
1 part cream
a pinch of salt
more flour until workable


Mix until smooth, and gosh almighty it'll be very smooth.

Bake in 200°C until golden.

YOGHURT VANILLA CUSTARD

This is one of those brainchilds of a lazy mind. I had no eggs and no cream but there was some leftover custard powder from making vanilla pumpkin pie. Normally I'd never make custard from powder but this turned out quite nice because of all the additional ingredients.

My guests said the custard was a perfect match with the pie.


Yoghurt vanilla custard

90ml milk
2 inches vanilla pod
30ml (or more) sugar
30ml custard powder
3 drops orange oil
enough Greek yoghurt to thinnen, about 100ml.


Heat up the milk, sugar and vanilla.




Add custard powder. Stir continuously.




Add the Greek yoghurt one spoonful at a time when the custard starts to thicken. Mix in the orange oil. Serve hot or cold.

VANILLA PUMPKIN PIE

Halloween got cancelled.

On Wednesday we went down to London, to visit The Dungeons among other things. The sight of the 4-and-a-half hour queue stretching half-way around the block – a mighty big block it was, too – was plenty of horror for us so we decided to ditch that plan. Luckily we had other plans in London as well.

At the weekend I did 29 hours of work between Friday evening and Sunday afternoon. I was about to keel over out of exhaustion. I think I looked quite a bit like a zombie – I definitely felt like one. Actually quite fitting for Halloween, don't you think?

My sister-in-law had carved us a pumpkin lantern but I was too tired to put a candle in it and take it out. I was having a nap when we got trick-or-treaters but managed to get myself up, forgetting my glasses so I have no idea what they looked like.

Oh well, at least I made a pumpkin pie earlier last week.



Crust:

100g unsalted butter
75ml sugar
150ml plain gluten-free flour mix


Filling:

5oog cooked pumpkin
40g custard powder
100g condensed milk
2 eggs
0.5ml ground cardamom
1ml nutmeg
4ml cinnamon
1.5 inch vanilla pod, seeds separated

Prepare the crust and roll out on a 10"/26cm pie dish. Chill before baking in 200°C until only just done. A disaster will happen if you use self-raising flour so keep away from it.

Puré the pumpkin and add remaining ingredients. Pour onto the crust and bake until set.

Serve with vanilla ice cream or some quality custard.

Before

After

Served with yoghurt vanilla custard.