Toddler's gluten-free birthday cake

My toddler daughter was having a birthday party, and in order to include one of her wee friends we wanted the cake to be gluten free. As she loves eating strawberries and as British strawberries are at the height of deliciousness in August, I came up with an adaptation of Nigella Lawson's apple and almond cake (which is short and squat but very lovely) to come up with a gluten free, dairy free strawberry Victoria sponge (which is tall, light and moist).

Consensus among the parents was that the cake was even more delicious than a traditional Victoria sponge. The kids also loved it. Several people went back for thirds. I would actually make this in preference to a normal gluten-full sponge in future, even ignoring particular dietary requirements. A real hit.

Details:

1. Oven to 180 degrees.

2. Peel, core and chop three eating apples, add to a pan with the juice of half a lemon and two teaspoons of sugar, and cook gently for ten minutes with the lid on until you can mash to a rough puree with a potato masher or fork. Spread thin on a dinner plate to cool down.

3. Oil and line two Victoria sandwich tins. Be sure to line the sides as the mixture can stick. Ideally use non stick paper rather than parchment.

4. Separate six of eight eggs in total.

5. Put six egg yolks, two eggs, 325 grams of ground almonds, 275 grams of sugar and the juice of the other half lemon into a food processor, mix to a batter and then in three batches mix in the Apple puree (in batches so there's not too much concentrated heat being added, as it won't be wholly cool yet). Scrape batter into a large bowl.

6. Separately, whip the egg whites into soft peaks. Fold a tablespoon of the egg whites into the batter to loosen, then fold the remainder in a third at a time.

7. Divide between two sandwich tins (fill to the brim if you like, the mixture is already light and won't really rise much) and bake for 25-30 mins. A test knife should come out fairly clean, if not cook for 5 minutes more until it sets. With all those almonds the cake won't easily dry out, so overcooking is only a problem if you leave it so long you burn the top and sides (which even then adds a nice, bitter biscuity note).

8. Remove from tins ten minutes after leaving the oven, then cool completely on a rack.

9. Fill as you please. I whipped up ~400ml of double cream until soft and holding its shape, then filled the cake with jam and cream and topped it with cream and fresh strawberries. This worked very well.

... I imagine you could put lemon or orange zest in the mixture for a different sort of cake, or any other flavouring really. The base cake tastes buttery and moist, and holds its shape really well. I've never known a gluten free cake made without those shop bought, fairly artificial gluten free flours to sit so tall and light, so this is really a good base recipe to work from.

It may also help that the cake is dairy free, but that didn't matter to me this time round.

A much easier sweet potato macaroni cheese

I have a 21 month old daughter who loves eating Nigella Lawson's most excellent sweet potato macaroni cheese. The thought of macaroni cheese has always appealed, but the reality is usually disappointing: a claggy, heavy, greasy mess often made worse in many recipes by the addition of bacon or chorizo (two ingredients not well known for their capacity to cut through fat). Nigella's recipe is therefore a bit of a revelation, as the sweet potato replaces a lot of the cheese in volume but not flavour, bringing a surprising freshness to the dish. The vivid orange colour also lends a certain retro processed charm, but without the e-numbers. It's also much healthier for my daughter to eat.

I've often put off making Nigella's recipe, as it is a complete faff with its bechamel sauce. Thankfully there is a super easy way to make macaroni cheese without a bechamel sauce by minimising the water you boil the pasta in, to concentrate the starches being released by the pasta which can then thicken the sauce naturally. You can also add evaporated milk rather than normal milk, as the proteins thicken more quickly. I also ditched Nigella's method of boiling the sweet potato and then reusing the water for the pasta to retain nutrients, and instead steamed the potatoes to keep all the nutrients in from the start. You could even try steaming the potatoes over the boiling pasta, I'm not sure how important agitation is to releasing the pasta starch and I'll experiment with that next time.

So here is a cross-breed of Nigella's recipe with the starchy cooking water method, with some added steaming, and the results are honestly just as good while taking a fraction of the time and effort:

500g sweet potato	Peel and cut into 2 cm pieces, steam for ten minutes Mash with a fork.
300g macaroni-ish pasta 360ml evaporated milk (ie 2 small cans) 125g mature cheddar 1 tsp English mustard 0.25 tsp paprika	Put pasta in small medium saucepan, add just enough water to cover (some pasta peeking out is fine). Bring to a boil over a high heat, stirring frequently. Cook for 2 minutes less than the pasta’s official cooking time. Pour in the evaporated milk and bring back to the boil. Reduce the heat, add the cheddar, mustard and paprika and stir continuously until creamy (like, 2 minutes)
75g feta cheese	Stir the sweet potato and crumbled feta into the pasta. I make this for my daughter, so just portion it up at this point for freezing once cool (it makes dozens' of meals, and a single portion cooks in the microwave from frozen in one minute). If you want to serve it as a meal to human adults, pour it into a lasagne dish, scatter with some extra cheddar and some shredded sage leaves, dust with paprika and bake at 200C for 30 minutes (or until bubbling and delicious). The sage makes the dish so much more delicious, but I've not bothered with this for my daughter as I'm not certain it would freeze well.

Bonus Gousto update

Long term readers will have spotted I never got round to posting the results of my other two Gousto meals. Life took over somewhat as we flew 4,600 km away to California to have a baby and this then kept me busy for a year or so. Still, as I recall, they were rather hit an miss affairs, and one was especially disappointing as the instruction came at one point to stir chipotle paste into Heinz mayonnaise, which isn't really home cooking as I would recognise it.