Charity Dinner Menu 2011

Every January I attend the Lord Mayor's Charity Dinner held in Sheffield's Town Hall. There, I auction off my rather specialist cooking skills (!) with a lot described as "A bespoke menu for 6 people, especially designed for those with dietary restrictions, cooked for you in your own home."

For the last two years the couple with the highest bid have requested a gluten free, vegetarian meal. In 2010, one of the dishes I designed for them was featured in ITVs 'Britain's Best Dish'.

For this year's menu I did an Ottolenghi tribute. Ottolenghi  is one of the most influential cooking styles to come out of London in the past few years. The ethos of the founders, Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi, is to create a feast of bold colours and generous gestures. It is driven by an unapologetic desire to celebrate food and its virtues.

I can heartily recommend "Ottolenghi: The Cookbook" for those of us on a gluten free diet. The dishes are so colourful, appetising and flavoursome.

There are lots and lots of extremely tasty recipies in it and most of them are naturally gluten free. Where they are not, they are easy to tweak to get them there. Click here to link to the book.

Click here to see the menu. I'm putting the full, tweaked dessert recipes down here because gluten free baking is the trickiest part. The rest of the recipes can be found in the book.

Hazelnut and cinnamon meringues

These meringues are so delicious - they are delicately spiced with cinnamon and slightly darker in colour.

Ingredients
200g freerange egg whites (around 7 eggs)
260g caster sugar
140g dark brown muscavado sugar
Half teaspoon cinnamon
30g hazelnuts, roughly chopped

• Preheat oven to 110C
• Half fill a medium saucepan with water and bring to a light simmer. Place the egg whites and both sugars into a heat proof bowl large enough to sit on top of pan. Don’t let bowl touch water. Simmer for 10 mins, stirring occasionally until temperature is 40C and sugars have dissolved into whites.

Pour into the bowl of a freestanding mixer and whip up on high speed, using whisk attachment. Work the meringue for about 8 mins. When ready it should be firm and glossy and keep its shape when on a spoon

• Sprinkle the cinnamon over the mix and use a rubber spatula to fold it in
• Line two flat baking trays with grease proof paper. Use meringue mix to stick the paper edges to the sides so that they don't flutter in the oven and stick to raw meringues
• Use a dessert spoon to place meringue mix on the paper. They can double in size in oven so you need to account for this
• Sprinkle with hazelnuts
• Place in the oven and bake for anything from 45 mins to 1 hour
• Remove from the oven and leave to cool. Do not store in fridge.

 

 

Hazelnut and white chocolate brownies

Unbuckle your belt a notch in anticipation because these brownies are so moreish that they will not last long. They are very rich and sticky!

As the Ottolenghi book instructs, the trick with brownies is to remove them from the oven before they are overbaked.They need to be dry and firm on the top but sticky in the middle. You can use the skewer test to check this. Stick the skewer in to the middle of the tin and pull it out. The gooey crumb should be sticking to the side of the skewer but it mustn't be the type of mix that you started off with. It should be thicker and sticky to the touch, with a tendency to to set once it has cooled down.

Ingredients
200g hazelnuts
200g unsalted butter plus melted butter for greasing
280g plain flour
5g xanthan gum
1 teaspoon salt
300g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
2 eggs
230g caster sugar
1teaspoon vanilla essence
2 teaspoon instant coffee
200g white chocolate, broken into pieces

• Brush a 22cm cake tin (or 22cm rectangle tin) with removable bottom with melted butter and line with grease proof paper
• Preheat the oven to 170C
• Sift together the flour, xanthan gum and salt
• Put the butter and chocolate in a heatproof bowl and place over a saucepan of simmering water, making sure water does not touch bottom of bowl
• Leave to melt, stirring from time to time. As soon as they have melted, remove from the heat. Do not let mixture overheat
• In a large bowl, lightly whisk together the eggs, sugar and vanilla. Work them just until combined, a few seconds only. Fold in the coffee, melted chocolate mixture and then the sifted flour
• Then fold in the white chocolate pieces and half the hazelnuts
• Pour the mix into the lined tin
• Place in the centre shelf of the oven and bake for 15-20 mins. Once out allow to cool completely and then chill before removing from the tin
• Cut the brownies to shape. I chose a circular shape to match the meringues
• Arrange on the plate with the meringues, serve with whipped cream and enjoy!

Pistachio and ginger biscotti

Biscotti are twice baked biscuits. They were made to be dunked in hot drinks. Their texture should be dry, crisp and crunchy. I love the spiciness of stem ginger so these biscuits are a real favourite.

Ingredients
80g unsalted butter
110g caster sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoon brandy
Grated zest 1.5 oranges
150g plain flour
3-5g xanthan gum
Half teaspoon ground ginger
Quarter teaspoon salt
80g shelled pistachios
60g stem ginger

• Line a baking tray with grease proof paper
• In an electric mixer cream the butter and sugar until they lighten in colour and texture. Gradually add the eggs, beating well after each addition. Stir in the brandy and orange zest, followed by the flour, gound ginger and salt. Lastly fold in the pistachios and stem ginger
• Spoon the mixture into a food bag. Leave to rest in the fridge for 30 mins
• Preheat the oven to 170C
• Take the dough out of the fridge and using your hands and more flour, shape in into a flatish looking log about 25cm long. It does not need to be perfect as the mix will spread during baking
• Bake for 20 mins then remove and cool. At this point the log will be half baked
• Adjust the oven temperature to 130C
• Once log has cooled, use the serated knife to cut it across into slices 1cm thick
• Lay them flat on the baking tray and return to the oven for around 40-60mins, until crisp. Remove and leave to cool. Store in a sealed container.