Chocolate Salami

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas with many gorgeous gluten free goodies!

I am starting the year as I mean to go on with a blog post. I plan to keep this updated more often, but I think I've said that every year so far, so we'll see!

This is a great recipe to use up some of your leftover Christmas chocolate/biscuits/nuts. It can be kept in the fridge and sliced up as and when you want it. It would probably also freeze well. From this recipe, I made two large 'salamis' and gave one to my boyfriend's dad as we still have so much to get through!

I first saw chocolate salami on a Nigella Lawson programme and searched for the recipe afterwards. It would seem that most traditional recipes use raw eggs. I know this is perfectly safe, but I always feel a bit funny about raw eggs, so after researching a few more recipes and playing about with different combinations, I ended up with the one below. This recipe could be adapted in so many ways - try just milk chocolate if you don't want it to be so rich, use a flavoured syrup in place of alcohol, try different nuts, biscuits or even dried fruit to create a different texture. You can't really go wrong!

Chocolate Salami

100g good quality milk chocolate
100g good quality dark chocolate
150g unsalted butter
120g sugar
100g cocoa powder
100g hazelnuts, chopped
125-150g crushed gluten free biscuits (I used rich tea)
3 tbsp Cointreau or liqueur or your choice (optional)
Icing sugar to dust
String to 'wrap' the salami
Greaseproof paper

In a saucepan, melt the milk and dark chocolate with the butter, sugar and cocoa powder over a low heat. Pour the mixture into a large bowl and add the biscuits, nuts and Cointreau. Mix to combine it all and leave to cool for a while, before adding the white chocolate chips. Turn out onto a sheet of greaseproof paper and shape into a sausage. Use the paper to help you shape it smoothly and roll it up tightly, twisting each end. (You could also use the same method to create a few smaller sausages)

Store in the fridge until completely cooled. It should feel quite firm to the touch.

Remove the paper and dust the salami with icing sugar. Tie a long piece of string along the whole thing to look like a real salami (I just improvved this bit!). Use another piece of greaseproof paper to wrap it back up, or store it in an airtight container.

Viennese Whirls

Hello!

It's been a while since I posted a new blog. Truth is, I've been stuck in a bit of a baking rut. I always seem to make the same things, so yesterday as I was having a day in with my little girl, I decided to try something different. I also learnt that simply substituting a recipe with gluten free flour doesn't always work!

Pre-coeliac, I used to love these: 

I found a recipe for basic Viennese Fingers, swapped the flour in the recipe for gluten free, added 20g of cocoa powder and a dash of orange extract, carefully piped neat little fingers onto a baking tray and put them in the oven. The house smelled delicious and I checked on my biscuits after 10 minutes to find what can only be described as a heavenly-smelling cowpat. The biscuits had completely spread out into a very thin layer, spilling onto the bottom of the oven. Sigh! All is not lost however, as the crumbs I was left with have made for a very tasty base for a chocolate orange cheesecake. That's today's job!

Anyway, I was still hungry and bored so a few hours later I found another recipe and had another go! This time, Viennese Whirls. Following the recipe, the dough turned out a little too wet and I knew the same thing was going to happen, so I added an extra 50g of cornflour and they turned out perfectly. And just in time for the Great British Bake Off. 

Viennese Whirls

Biscuits

100g unsalted butter
50g icing sugar
2 egg yolks
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
100g gluten free flour
50g cornflour
Strawberry jam

Buttercream

100g icing sugar
40g unsalted butter
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 170 degrees.

Cream the butter, sugar, egg yolks and vanilla together in a large bowl. It's best to use an electric whisk for this so you can get the mixture light and fluffy. Fold in the flours and tip into a piping bag with a large star nozzle. Pipe flat circles of the dough onto a greased baking sheet (about 5cm diameter) and bake for 12 minutes or until golden.

Transfer biscuits to a wire rack to cool and prepare the buttercream by whisking everything together until light in colour and creamy in texture.

Shake a bit of icing sugar over the biscuits and place a small blob of jam on half of them. Put a spoon of buttercream on the other half and then sandwich together.

Try one or two, for testing purposes, and then store in an airtight container for a few days.