For a quick and easy, tasty lunch, try grilling a block of Violife Mediterranean Style Block (a dairy free Vegan halloumi substitute).
Cut the block in half, season with salt and pepper and serve in a toasted pitta with hummus, falafel and a handful of mixed salad leaves. Yummers!
I’ve. Just. Had. The. Best. Ice cream. EVER!
I’m staying in Cardiff at the moment, singing with a visiting choir at Llandaff Cathedral. In between services we have a bit of time to ourselves to see the sights and hit the shops. This weekend Mr Allergy joined me, so I Googled top things to do in Cardiff.
We started out with a walk to Cardiff Bay, which was blustery and a bit drizzly. We had hoped to look around Cardiff Castle, but it was really busy with groups of tourists. So instead of touring the castle I took us into Castle Arcade, which is opposite the castle.
The arcade is filled with quirky eateries and shops such as Magic and Mayhem, a shop dedicated to all things Harry Potter. Opposite Magic and Mayhem is something called Science Cream. This is an ice cream parlour, but not as you know it. The ice creams are all made using liquid nitrogen and are made to order.
The flavours are quirky and fun, and change from day to day. Best of all, they have a vegan ice cream which is made using coconut milk.
Today’s vegan ice cream was Parma Violet flavour, served with edible viola flowers, honeycomb and a purple berry sauce. After only a short wait, the ice cream sundae arrived and it looked amazing. I ordered a small, and it was huge! It was so pretty with the violas, I almost didn’t want to eat it.
Sometimes things that look good let you down on flavour but boy, that was not the case with this ice cream. It tasted just like the Parma Violet sweets I had as a child. The ice cream was silky and smooth, which is different to many coconut milk ice creams that tend to be a bit grainy. The berry sauce was slightly tart, which perfectly complemented the sweetness of the ice cream. The honeycomb pieces were an added stroke of genius, and added a lovely crunchy texture to the sundae.
Mr Allergy had the Chocolate and Peanut Butter Swirl sundae, which looked equally amazing, but was not very Allergy Girl-friendly!
Science Cream is a fantastic gem and I would highly recommend a visit for allergy sufferers and normals alike, as it produces top quality products with a touch of panache and theatre that you won’t find elsewhere. Next time I’m in Cardiff I look forward to trying a different flavour, or maybe I’ll try a Masterclass. In the meantime it has inspired me to get the ice cream maker out at home and have a crack at making my own. I wonder what a weird and wonderful flavours I’ll come up with?
Shopping in my local Tesco I found this new treat from Livia’s Kitchen in the Free From section. Not one to pass new things by, I thought I’d give it a try. I really like the Salted Caramel Raw Millionaire Bites, so I had high hopes for these cookie dough Nugglets.
The serving is a good size for a not-too-naughty perk me up on the commute home, but there is quite a lot of sugar in the recipe (although from good sources including dates, maple syrup and coconut sugar). At £1.50 for 35g it’s quite expensive, but most Free From foods generally are.
The recipe is dairy, egg, nut and gluten free, however it is produced in a factory that handles nuts and eggs.
The packet was a little tricky to enter, as once I’d ripped at the indicated area, I was l left with only a small gap to get into.
Not wanting to let that deter me, I wiggled a finger in and expanded the opening. Having freed the Nugglets from their trapping it was time to taste. They’re a good bite-sized, chocolate-coated morsel, probably about Malteser size. The chocolate coating wasn’t entirely even and didn’t look quite as perfect as on the packaging, but it looked ok. I took a bite.
The filling is very sweet from the dates, with a hint of saltiness from the Himalayan Pink Salt. Although tasty, unfortunately the filling is rather dry and not as squishy as I was expecting from cookie dough – instead it was quite crumbly. On the packaging the chocolate is described as ‘velvety.’ I’ve had more velvety chocolate (Ombar, for example), but it wasn’t bad chocolate.
My verdict is that they’re ok. They’re not terrible, but neither are they my favourite. Will I buy them again? Probably not, especially if given the choice between these and the Millionaire’s Bites. I have a Chocolate Brownie flavour to try next, so watch this space for my next review!
Ok, so I promised I would review Swedish Glace’s new Caramel Toffee ice cream cones. Here goes ! (Any excuse to eat ice cream!!)
The recipe is dairy, nut and gluten free, but does contain soy.
As with the strawberry and vanilla cones, once removed from the wrapper, the ice cream looks just like the one in the picture.
Unfortunately the bottom of my cone was missing, but I guess that might happen with any cone, as they can be quite delicate and easily bashed during transport. Luckily there is a thick chocolate coating inside which stopped the drips!
The chocolate topping is the same as the strawberry and vanilla cone so I won’t repeat what I’ve previously said, and instead concentrate on what’s underneath. The ice cream is creamy and rich as expected from Swedish Glace, but the toffee flavour is quite subtle. I think that if I didn’t know it was toffee flavoured I wouldn’t have guessed. The caramel is also quite subtle, possibly because my tastebuds have got used to salted caramel, but the flavour is good and, as with the strawberry sauce, it is generous.
I think personally out of the two I prefer the strawberry, but both are very enjoyable and made a nice change from Tesco’s own brand Free From cones.
I bought another pack recently and I found this new batch to have a more intense toffee flavour, so perhaps I was just unlucky the first time around.
I’ll definitely buy these again, and it’s great to have more choice in a fairly limited market. Thanks Swedish Glace for another good quality product. I look forward to seeing what comes next!
What is the fascination with Brioche?
I recently spent a long weekend in Hamburg and was looking forward to eating a proper Hamburger (not a person from the City, the food). But every single burger restaurant served their burger in Brioche, which I’m allergic to.
Everywhere you go there is Brioche. In breakfast rolls, bruschetta, pulled pork buns and now it has even made its way into the Wetherspoons Beer and Burger deal. Boo, hiss!
The top of the Brioche bun is always photogenically shiny like Kim Kardashian’s perfectly highlighted cheekbones. Don’t get me wrong, it looks nice, and is definitely Instagram worthy. But when you get inside it’s yellow. To me, bread comes in two colours: white and brown. Since when has bread been yellow? Does it taste nice? Mr Allergy says not particularly – it’s too sweet. I’ll never know, but it doesn’t appeal to me.
Maybe the reason for the current Brioche overload is that enriched dough sounds more luxurious and expensive than a floured bap. But what’s wrong with a good old fashioned sesame seed bun? Or if you’re pushing the boat out, a rustic ciabatta. You’re going to get dusty hands from the ciabatta or the floured bap, but surely that’s part of the joy of munching your way through a massive burger.
I guess that until this current phase is over and done with, I’m not going to get a good burger unless it’s cooked at home. And who knows what might follow the Brioche craze? Whatever it is, I’m sure it will look beautiful on social media, regardless of the taste!
There is nothing better than a cold ice cream on a hot day, so I was very excited to try these new vanilla and strawberry cones from Swedish Glace.
There are lots of new dairy free ice creams on the market, but many are made with almond milk and/or hazelnuts, which is no good for a nut allergy sufferer like me. These ice creams from Swedish Glace seem to tick all the right boxes.
Sometimes the ice cream looks nothing like the picture on the box, so I was rather pleased to open the wrapper and find it most definitely resembled the picture on the packaging.
The chocolate coating is really good. It’s dark without being bitter, nice and rich and thick. This is the coating I wish was on their ice cream sticks, it’s much better.
Once I got through the chocolatey layer, the vanilla ice cream is what you would expect from Swedish Glace if you’ve ever eaten any of their other products. It has a good creamy consistency and the flavour is an intense deep vanilla.
The next test was the strawberry sauce, which is a generous helping of sweetness, swirled all the way to the bottom.
The cone is substantial, held together well compared to some other gluten free products, and didn’t go soggy.
My only real gripe is that the packing of each individual unit is identical to the toffee flavour packaging so if, like me, you have both flavours in the freezer you have to store them in the boxes, which takes up a lot of room.
In terms of price, at £3.89 these are a bit dearer than Tesco own brand Free From strawberry and vanilla cones, which were £2.25 at the time of writing. There’s not a massive difference in terms of taste, but in my opinion the Swedish Glace cones use slightly better quality ingredients for a richer, more decadent treat.
Watch this space for my review of the toffee cones!
Being a food blogger can be bad for someone that is trying to eat less, especially on days like today when I found two new Swedish Glace products at Tesco.
Watch this space for my reviews!
I’m addicted to food magazines. I love looking at pictures of food, reading recipes and making food. Of course, the eating part is pretty fabulous too.
Every month I have Good Food Magazine delivered to my door. It’s exciting when I hear it fall through the letter box. I like to sit down with a cup of tea or glass of wine and decide what I’m going to try making.
I also regularly buy Sainsbury’s Magazine, although I wish they’d do away with the home and lifestyle stuff and just concentrate on food!
While browsing the pages of last month’s Sainsbury’s Magazine I came across an Easter recipe for Oreo Egg Truffles. I’ve never attempted anything like this before, but I thought I’d take a crack at making them over Easter weekend.
The recipe seemed quite straightforward and most ingredients could be substituted for non-dairy options. I couldn’t find non-dairy double cream, and I’m not aware of anywhere that sells it, so I had to buy Alpro single cream. I found a dairy free cook’s dark chocolate in the baking aisle of Sainsbury’s (I think it was from their Taste the Difference range), and a bar of dairy free white chocolate in the free from aisle.
The recipe was really easy to follow, I used 175ml of the Alpro cream instead of 200ml and it worked really well. The egg shapes were a bit wonky and I ran out of white chocolate (note to self, buy two bars next time), but the finished products were amazing. They were rich and creamy and oh so moreish! To make the white chocolate stretch further I completely coated some in the white chocolate, drizzled others with it and rolled the remainder in cocoa powder.
I will definitely make these again, and I’m really pleased that a normal recipe could be modified so easily.
I discovered this recipe several years ago. I was busy googling dairy and egg free cake recipes and I came across this. Now, this was back in the day when a mobile phone was just that, which meant the search was carried out on my PC and I had to print the recipe out and stick it in my recipe folder (which is still going strong today). I have no idea where the recipe came from, but this is what it looks like:
I pretty much follow the recipe as written, but the more alert reader will note there are two lots of oil in the recipe. I use 4 tablespoons of light olive oil and it works every time. Please don’t put a third of a cup of sunflower oil in as well, you’ll end up with a goopy oily mess. Yuk!
I add a little bit extra bicarbonate as I found that the loaf didn’t rise particularly well. I also amended the temperature and cooking time as 200 c for 30 mins just didn’t work in my oven. I have a fan assisted oven and I do it on 160 c for 45-50 mins.
I always bake it in a silicone loaf mould and the cake pops out easily when partly cool.
When you take the loaf out it might initially seem a bit dry, but it’s one of those tea breads that gets better with time, and will moisten up.
Once the loaf is cool, I slice it, put it in a freezer bag and freeze it. As and when I want a slice for work I take one out in the morning and wrap it in cling film. By the time I want to eat it it’s nicely defrosted and perfect with a cuppa!
Because there is no added sugar the loaf is a lovely little treat that isn’t too naughty. It also makes a great alternative to energy bars when exercising. A loaf of this got me through the Three Peaks Challenge in 2011, and it was an ideal snack to take on each hike.
The recipe is easily modified to change the flavour. For example you could swap one of the bananas for a carrot or courgette and add a bit of cinnamon. It’s also really nice topped with Betty Crocker’s cream cheese style icing and sprinkled with chopped pumpkin seeds.
I’ve previously tested Creative Nature a Superfoods Raw Cacao Superfood Flapjack, so I thought I’d give the Salted Caramel Flapjack a whirl. And ohmygod it’s great.
It’s full of crunchy seeds, with no added refined sugars – the sweetness all comes from the dates. The touch of pink salt added to the dates creates a marriage made in heaven.
The packaging is slightly confusing as it states in the front that it is peanut free, but doesn’t mention other nuts.
There are no nuts in the recipe but I’m guessing because this is made in a factory that handles nuts they can’t guarantee it is nut free.
The flapjack didn’t last long, which is testament to how good it tastes. It feels like an indulgent treat, which in my opinion is what a good healthy snack should be. I often need a little something to keep me going on my commute home or before exercise (which is why my photos often feature train tray tables), and these flapjacks are just the ticket! Filling enough, but not too heavy.
I’m extremely grateful to Creative Nature Superfoods for creating a range of good quality, good value products that suit my strange combination of allergies. And did I mention they taste great?
Adventures of Allergy Girl UK 
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