Melbourne Gluten Free Expos of the Past

Over the last 7 years since my Mum was first diagnosed a coeliac, her (with or without someone else) has attended 6 Gluten Free Expos. 7 years ago they were set up and ran by Sue Shepherd at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre at South Warf. After about 5 years of running them (in early 2009), she sold off the rights and running of them to an outside company, but still did guest speaking roles at them.

Then in early 2012, that company decided to combine the Expo with the ever popular "Good Food and Wine Show". Whilst they obviously thought it would be a good idea, the exhibitors didn't agree due to the high prices and most of the people not going for the Gluten Free side of things, so they had trouble finding exhibitors to go.

So the Coeliac Society of Victoria and Tasmania decided to run their own. They held a one day Expo at Caulfield Racecourse in September 2012. Due to it being run by CSVT and being an unknown of how popular it would be, the exhibitors were slightly scant with how much products they took.

Then this year, due to the success of last year, the CSofVT decided to host it over 2 days in September at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre again.

I went in 2009 and flew in Friday morning, spent Friday in Melbourne shopping, Saturday at the Expo and flew back out on Saturday night.

I then went with Mum last year. We decided that so we could buy up big, we would drive over from Adelaide. So we left on Thursday afternoon, stopped in Horsham over night and arrived in Melbourne on Friday afternoon, after stopping in Bendigo in the morning. Went to the taping of the 7pm Project (Channel 10) in the evening on Friday, Expo on Saturday, then spent all day Sunday driving home.

I have so many wonderful memories from expos of the past and cannot wait to go this year and see all of the friends I've made and meet new ones!

Mum's Special Chocolate Mud Cake

Last week, we celebrated my Mum's "getting-closer-to-a-signific" Birthday. She often doesn't like a big fuss made - usually she gets unlucky and has to work on her birthday and this year was no different. So I decided to do something a little special for her...a Chocolate Mud Cake.

Since she was diagnosed a Coeliac 6 years ago, I'm 99% sure she hasn't had a Gluten Free Mud Cake. So it was an easy decision on what to make, the hard part was the "How".  Lucky for me, the answer was sitting in my pantry - in the form of White Wings Gluten Free Flour. I've wanted to play around with it and so I went on their website to check out their website to see what recipes they had on offer.

Luckily for me, they had a Chocolate Mud Cake on there! I adjusted it slightly to suit what we like as a family, and I must say it turned out well - despite Mum not wanting candles or us to sing "Happy Birthday" :(

Something I feel I should mention before we get onto the cake - I am a big fan of supporting your local produce (especially with living in Australia and having so much imported produce on the shelves), so from now on, if I do use an Australia produced product, I will say so, that way you Aussie's out there can do so as well!

The Australian brands I have used are; White Wings, Cadbury, Western Star and Bulla.

Mum's Special Gluten Free Chocolate Mud Cake

Yields about 12 average sized slices

Ingredients

Chocolate Cake

250g Unsalted Butter, melted

3/4 cup Cocoa

1 1/3 cup Castor Sugar

3 eggs

1 1/2 cups Almond Meal

1 1/2 cups White Wings Gluten Free Flour Mix

3/4 Cup Milk

Chocolate Fudge Icing

250gm Dark Chocolate, in pieces

1/2 cup Pouring Cream

70g unsalted Butter

Directions

1. Preheat your oven 180 degrees (Celsius) fan forced.

2. Place the Butter, Cocoa, Sugar, Eggs, Almond Meal, Flour and Milk into a large bowl and whisk to combine.

3, Pour into a lightly greased round cake tin lined with non-stick baking paper (I used a springform one). 

4. Bake for 1 Hour or until cooked when tested with a skewer.

5. Next, lick the bowl clean. This is a very important step - maybe one of the most important.

6. Allow the cake to cool in the tin completely.

7. To make the Icing, place the Chocolate, Cream and Butter in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water.

8. Stir until melted and smooth.

9. Spread evenly over the top and sides of the cake. FYI: if you spread over the sides, it helps keep the cake moist! 

Enjoy!!

Sprout Cooking Course Part 3

Now for the best part - Dessert (aka. Part 3)....

Peanut Crumble, Peanut Butter Custard with Grilled Bananas :) :)

This is just a combination of all my favourite things - Peanuts, Peanut Butter and Bananas. When I read this was dessert, I almost fainted...ok, so I didn't, but my taste buds did :P

And as you can see that I enjoyed it incredibly - this was one step away from licking it clean...

So the crumble section was basically peanuts blitzed in a food processor with some sugar to a fine crumble.

Before this night, I had never made custard from scratch (I know, I know, such a blasphemy!), but I've grown up in a house where packet custard is the best thing since sliced bread and that from-scratch-custard is the hardest thing in the world...BUT this was so incredibly easy that I've made it numerous times since!!! And it's so easy to get the Peanut Butter flavour - you just mix in your favourite Peanut Butter spread at the very end :)

Then we just pan fried some sliced banana to get a "grilled" effect for it...

Are you hungry yet?? Be Brave and do something you haven't done before, like me with the custard!! 

Sprout Cooking Course Part 2

So here is Part 2 of my Sprout Cooking adventure! This time, the main meal :) But before we could cook and eat it, we had a discussion on restaurants around the Adelaide area that are allergy friendly...some of which I'll be visiting soon to give you an opinion on :)

A fact that is very well known around my family and friends is that I am not a seafood person. In fact, that is a gross understatement - a previous partner would never eat any since I wouldn't go anywhere near him afterwards! However, there are two exceptions to this rule (and don't ask me the logic behind, because I don't know!) - Salmon and Scallops. 

Salmon is due to being able to cook it to get a crispy skin (as shown above) and Scallops are because I had the most amazing Scallops in Seattle - they were topped with crispy Bacon and BBQ Sauce ;)

So when Callum and Themis announced the main course, I was surprisingly excited...This Salmon was crumbed in uncooked Quinoa with some herbs and spices, fried off in a pan to seal all the flavours then popped into the oven to cook properly. 

Check out the Quinoa!! It went so crispy and crunchy and the Salmon cooked perfectly and just fell away as we were eating it!

We then served it with a Pumpkin, Brussel Sprout and Pinenut Salad which had a Honey Balsamic dressing - just perfection!

Sprout Cooking Course Part 1

Here in Adelaide, there's a cooking course called Sprout Cooking. It is run by Callum Hann and Themis Chryssidis. Themis is a local Adelaide dietician who is happy to help replace the bad food in your life with slightly better food, just by using different ingredients. Callum is a bit of a local celebrity here; he starred and came runner-up in Season 2 of Masterchef Australia, then went on to win Masterchef All-Stars last year.

Their class, Sprout, is all about making healthy food easy and affordable and within that, they run numerous different types of classes. I went to a Gluten Free one with my mum in February, then when the chance came to go to another one a couple of weeks ago came up, we jumped. It was a lot of fun. For $90ish, you learn to cook a 3 course meal, get 3 glasses of wine (if you so desire all three) and guidance from Callum and Themis. The beauty is that every season, they change the recipes to adapt them to what is fresh and available.

Entree was Ricotta and Spinach Cannelloni. As you can see, the filling was Ricotta, wilted Spinach and Parmesan. In order to make it more healthy, cheaper and Gluten Free, we used thinly sliced and grilled Eggplant as the Cannelloni and rolled it around the filling.

The sauce was a basic tomato Passata with with sliced Chilli, Garlic and spinach stems. When I make this I will put in no where near as much chilli - these still had the seeds in them! Talk about a bit of heat!!! Haha but it went well with the coolness of the fillings :)

Part 2 and Main Course coming up soon...

Flourless Fudge Chocolate Chip Cookies

In all my time in being Gluten Free, I've been hesitant to try out these Gluten Free flour mixes - I've gotten it in my head that they'll never be as good, so I just won't try them. That means that whenever I find a good looking flourless recipe, I'm eager to try it. Enter these Chocolate Chip Cookies...

These are just amazing and chewy and wonderful! They taste a lot like a chocolatey chip meringue...slightly crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside. They were incredibly simple to make and made so many - if I made them smaller, I could definitely have made more. 

Flourless Fudge Chocolate Chip Cookies

Yields about 40 Cookies

Ingredients

3 Cups Icing Sugar

2/3 Cup Cocoa Powder

1/8 Teaspoon Salt

2-4 Large Egg Whites, room temperature

1 Tablespoon Vanilla Extract

1 1/2 Cups Dark Chocolate Chips

Directions

1. Pre heat your oven to 175°C/350°F.

2. Set aside 2 baking trays covered with Baking Paper.

3. In a large bowl, whisk together the Icing Sugar, Cocoa Powder and Salt.

4. Whisk in Vanilla and Egg Whites, starting with just 2.

5. Beat until the batter is moistened. You're looking for a brownie-like, thick and fudge batter consistency. If it seems too thick, add another Egg White, then a 4th if need be*.

6. Stir in the Chocolate Chips.

7. Scoop the batter by the tablespoon on to trays, leaving enough space for the batter to spread.

8. Bake for 12-14 minutes, or until the tops are glossy and slightly cracked. 

9. Let the cookies cool completely on the baking sheet. Enjoy!

*I ended up using all 4, but I reckon it was because my eggs weren't large enough, so keep that in mind. 

Throwback Thursday

Today's "Throwback" is reminiscing on my first good meal after going Gluten Free. I'd been on the diet for just over 2 months and during that time, I'd been planning my 21st. I had decided to do something with my friends and something with my family/family friends. I had done the whole party piss up and get blindly drunk for my 18th, so this time around, I wanted to remember it all.

I ended up settling taking 20ish friends out to do Laser Skirmish. At that stage, I was heavily in love with How I Met Your Mother (still am, but more so then...), so that swayed my decision slightly haha

                                                                All of us afterwards.

It was a truly wonderful night and I'm so so happy I went down that route :) Anyone looking for a different sort of celebration for any birthday - consider it, you won't regret it!

The following day, I had my celebration with family and family friends. I hummed and ahhhhed about this for a while and what to do...in the end, I decided to go out somewhere for a high tea. I decided to go to the Stamford Plaza in the Adelaide CBD. It was more worthwhile (money-wise) some of the other hotels I looked at and was more central than Glenelg. I ended up choosing the Indulgent High Tea. It was fantastic!! We got a glass of champagne upon arrival and had too much food to know what to do with haha. The were incredibly helpful with everything gluten free...they were able to do food for me and my coeliac mum and allowed us to bring our own cake (more on that later though).

This was what I got - Vanilla Panacotta, some finger sandwiches (bread wasn't amazing, but I give them points for trying), lemon curd muffin, vanilla ice cream and chocolate wafer stick. Overall it was amazing and the staff we incredibly helpful. Mind you, when everyone else is getting this....

There is a certain amount of jealousy you feel :( But, everyone enjoyed it and had fun, so that's what really mattered!

The cake, however, was the biggest highlight (apart from having everyone I love in the same place) for me. We went with a local South Australian company, Heidelberg Cakes. We'd heard good things about them, plus the owner's daughter is Gluten Free, so they were very careful with making Gluten Free cakes, so much so that they have an entirely different bakery for them. They're also very welcome to changes. So I wanted this cake, but I wanted it round, so they did that. They have numerous gf cake flavours and I went with the Baci flavour. This is what the end result looked like....

I'm so so happy with it!!! And with the whole weekend actually - was the most incredible celebration and I'll always remember it :)

My absolutely wonderful family - they made it that much more special <3