All of our sauces in Blairs Inn have been gluten free for many years now and you wouldn't know the difference. However I find it's more difficult when it comes to producing top quality gluten free cakes to suit everybody. This Chocolate Gateau is one of those recipes which will please both coeliacs and non coeliacs alike. It's absolutely delicious and quite easy to make. Anyway if you stuff it up the first few times you'll be at least left with a chocolatey mess, and that always tastes good. Just persist with it and you'll be fine. And if any of you have any other delicious gluten free recipes that appeal to all, please send them on.

Blairs Gluten Free Chocolate Gateau

Ingredients

200g quality plain chocolate, Valrhona is our favourite
75ml milk
175g very soft butter
175g golden caster sugar
175g ground almonds
50g gluten free flour (we use tritamyl flour) 5 eggs seperated
2 lb loaf tin
icing 200g plain chocolate
4 tablespoons milk
40g soft butter
175g icing sugar

Grease and line a 2llb loaf tin with melted butter and gluten free flour. You could also use a 9 inch round cake tin.

Melt the chocolate in a bowl as indicated below.
A note about melting chocolate: Melting chocolate is a delicate proceedure and if not done right it becomes grainy and lumpy. However that doesn't mean it needs to be difficult. All you do is bring a saucepan of water to the boil. Take it off the boil. Then place a pyrex or metal bowl snugly over it. It's important the base is not touching the water. Simply place the chocolate in the bowl and leave for ten minutes. It's melted ... easy!

Heat the milk to lukewarm and add to the melted chocolate. Stir until smooth.

Cream the butter in a seperate mixing bowl. Then add the sugar and ground almonds, beating until light and fluffy. Now beat in the egg yolks one by one. Add the melted chocolate and sieved flour and stir until well combined.

In another bowl (we're making some mess here) whisk the egg whites. It's vital that the container is spotless or else the eggs won't whisk properly. A metal bowl is best, but a pyrex bowl is fine. Anyway whisk the egg whites until they are forming stiff peaks. Transfer a quarter of the whisked egg whites to the chocolate mixture and fold in. Then fold in the remainder of the egg white.

Turn the mixture into the prepared tin and level the surface with a spatula. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 C, Gas Mark 4 for 30 minutes, or until surface feels just soft to the touch.

Leave to cool before turning out on to a wire rack. Now it's time to make the icing. Melt the chocolate. Melt the butter and add to the melted chocolate. Beat in the icing sugar until smooth.

Hope you've been cleaning as you go, otherwise your kitchen looks like it's been hit with a chocolate bomb. Nearly there now.

Now cut the chocolate sponge into two layers. Spread icing on one layer. Then place the other layer on top. Now apply the remainder of the icing until the cake is covered. Allow to set.

Garnish with a few mint leaves, strawberries and chocolate flakes. Serve with a dollop of freshly whipped cream ... delicious!

Good luck and let me know how it goes.

Although it's the middle of "summer" here, it's more the weather for a hearty casserole. This is a recipe for one our most popular winter dishes and it's a perfect accompaniment to the Beamish Stout Bread which I posted a few days ago ... and I guess you could drink a can of Murphy's Stout along with it, so everybody's happy!

The important thing to remember when cooking this casserole to cook it slowly for the full period of three hours at the low heat of 140C. Otherwise there might be a slight bitter tinge to the sauce if the stout is cooked too quickly. Cooked correctly the stout tenderises the meat and gives the dish a deliciously rich and malty flavour. And what's more it tastes even better the day after, so it's ideal if entertaining friends as it can be prepared well ahead of time.

Ingredients

1kg of good quality locally sourced beef (rump steak is best for this recipe, but shoulder is fine too)
1 tablespoon flour 25g Kerrygold butter Olive oil
250 gr red onion, chopped into thin wedges
1 large carrot, peeled and cut into thick slices
1 turnip, peeled and cut into cubes
1 celery stalk, diced
500ml bottle Black Rock Irish Stout
250ml beef stock (a stock cube is fine)
1 tablespoon thyme
1 bay leaf
4 cloves crushed garlic
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tablesoon sugar
A good pinch of salt and some freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 140C. Cube the beef pieces and toss in flour. Melt the butter and a little olive oil in a large casserole on the stove. Brown the meat in small batches, over a high flame, and remove the browned meat to a dish. You want a good deep brown, almost charred finish to give the flavour depth ... but be careful not to burn the meat. (You're not trying to cook the meat fully, you are merely sealing the edges of the meat so it retains its juices and flavour while it is stewing).

When the meat is removed from the pan, add some more olive oil, and add the onions, celery, turnip & carrots to the pan, stirring them until the onions are soft. Return the meat to the dish with its juices, and stir in the flour. Continue stirring for a minute, then add the Black Rock Stout, the stock, thyme, tomato paste, garlic and sugar. Season, bring to a simmer, and then put the lid on and put the dish in the oven.

Three hours later ... et voilà! a deliciously rich and warming casserole, the perfect antidote for the, er, long summer evenings.

Good luck and let me know how it turns out.

Bread and butter pudding is always a very popular dessert here, in Blairs Inn. People who have never made it don't believe quite how easy it is to make. Now this is a great recipe. You literally just bung everything together and bang it into the oven. At the end of it you have a delicious bread pudding. We serve it with a light cinnamon custard. It's all very old fashioned but extremely popular with young and old alike. Just don't tell them how simple it is.

Ingredients

1 White Sliced Pan, 1-2 days old
8 eggs, whisked
1 litre milk or 3/4 litre milk, 1/4 litre cream
200 gr white sugar
100 gr butter
100 gr mixed dried fruit

Tear up the bread by hand ... always a nice stress reliever. Put all of the ingredients, into a large bowl and mix throughly. Now if you have a wet gloopy mixture which looks like it could never amount to much then it's perfect. Pour into high sided oven tray. Allow to rest for half an hour. Half fill a bigger oven tray with water and place the tray of Bread Pudding into it (the water evaporates in the oven and keeps the pudding from drying out). Put into an oven at 200 C for about 50 minutes. And hey presto ...

This recipe is the result of hours of painful experimentation … I’d like to assure everyone that not one drop of Beamish was wasted (hic!). The Beamish gives the bread a very distinctive taste and creamy texture . If you don’t have any Beamish to hand you could use another stout. I'm beginning to use the delicious Black Rock Stout from Dungarvan Brewing Co.. You could also leave the stout out altogether and simply use water.
So let’s get stuck in:

Ingredients

20 gr Fresh Yeast
1 generous teaspoon of treacle
1/4 pint luke warm Beamish
500gr Wholemeal Flour (250gr Coarse and 250gr Extra Coarse)
1 teaspoon of salt
1/2pint approx of lukewarm water
Seasame seeds
2 lb loaf tin (brushed melted butter or oil and lined with white flour)
Turn oven to 200 degrees for a fan oven or 220 for a conventional oven.
Crumble the yeast into a container. Spoon in the treacle (leave the spoon in). Add a 1/4 pint of lukewarm water. The water should be above body temperature (if it’s too hot you will kill the yeast). Leave aside for ten minutes, while the yeast is activated by the warmth and feeds off the treacle.
Heat the Beamish on the hob, being careful not to boil it. Should be above lukewarm. While this is heating, you can measure out the flour and salt into a large bowl. Mix with your hand, making a hole in the center.
After ten or so minutes the yeast mixture should be frothing at the top. Now stir this mixture vigorously and pour into the hole in the center of the flour. Mix the Beamish with 1/4 pint lukewarm water (mixture needs to be just above body temperature). Pour into bowl.
Now it’s time to get sticky. Using your hand in a circular motion from the center, mix the flour with the liquid. Mix well being sure not to leave any dry flour. The mixture should be like wet cement. Pour into the buttered and floured loaf tin. Sprinkle with seasame seeds (a mixture of black and white seasame seeds looks great). Fennel seeds work well too.
Allow to rise in the heat of the kitchen for five to ten minutes, ‘til the dough is nearly level with the lid of the tin. Place in the oven for forty minutes. Cook for a further five minutes out of the tin.
Now get cracking and let me know how you get on.