Varomas and Teeny Slow Cookers

You may know that Sand Cake is pretty much my favourite go to recipe. Once I tasted it I decided I was never going back to a packet mix. I always make it Gluten free and have turned it into golden syrup pudding, caramel flavour, cupcakes, lamingtons and strawberry short cake. It is so versatile and this week I turned it Dairy Free chocolate flavour, which I think would also be ok for diabetics too. Served with GF custard, this was a lovely treat.

I had told Honey a while back how delish my mums orange meringue used to be and was delighted when she made some one evening for our relatives that were visiting. Yeek she used fake sugar, it totally did not do the dessert justice. So I wanted a dessert up my sleave for “next time” that also was handy for people who cannot do dairy.

My green grocer ages ago told me about a trick for replacing eggs and fat with apple sauce in cakes and how nice they turn out. I needed to use up egg whites so I just replaced the butter this time, making a 1/2 batch in case it did not work out, so I also wanted to steam them in the varoma so I didn’t have to turn the oven on… To my delight it worked, very well. The batter divided evenly between 2 ramekins and I used the TB1 on 120c for 15 mins. It probably could have gone for a shorter time. If you decide to make this for yourself, please keep an eye on them.




Mini Slow-cooker bread

At last I was able to test my smallest slow cooker (1.5L) with bread baking. It worked rather well, though it did get rather humid on the lid, so the crust was a little moist. This may improve with a tea-towel under the lid which I plan to try in the near future. when the bread cooled however the crust was normal and the slices a lovely shape. If I had not had access to my new GF toaster or the sandwich loaf pan this would have been more of a fantastic thing for me, as the slices were quite well-suited to sandwiches… for GF bread that is. Finding that the yeast bread can be made in the slow cooker without a 2nd rise has taken a lot of the headache out of bread-making for me.  I like that the dough can be left in the fridge until needed for up to a week and popped into the slow cooker. I have also frozen some slices in pairs for the forthcoming crazy weeks ahead with TAFE. Once again recipe here