Foodie Friday - Squidgy Gluten Free Chocolate And Caramel Brownies

There seems to be awareness and promotional weeks for pretty much everything these days from charities to illness, to food stuffs. At the moment we're in the middle of National Chocolate Week. Probably the best substance ever invented - I admit it I'm a chocoholic - milk, dark, white, or somewhere in between, whatever it is I'm all over it. So in celebration of National Chocolate Week I present to you my recipe for Squidgy Gluten Free Chocolate And Caramel Brownies. What categorises these brownies is the almost undercooked, sticky squidginess. They're a cross between a brownie and brownie pudding really, but they are super easy to make, and you can rustle them up with pretty much whatever you have in the cupboard.

Squidgy Gluten Free Chocolate And Caramel Brownies

200g Chocolate, Milk, Dark, Or A Combination Of The Two

185g Butter 

100g Gluten Free Plain Flour

50g Cocoa Powder

3 Eggs

300g Caster Sugar 

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

2-4 Normal Sized Bars Of Cadburys Or Galaxy Caramel

1. Preheat your oven to about 180 C and well grease a square brownie pan. I'm using silicone here but I'm still using a bit of oil spray here, and pop your caramel bars into the fridge if they aren't already.

2. Break up your chocolate into a large bowl, I'm using Galaxy here x and add your butter.

Put it into the microwave and cook on high for 30 seconds, then give it a stir and repeat till both the chocolate and butter are melted. Then put it to one side and leave it to cool.

3. In another large bowl break your eggs and add your sugar. I using golden, unrefined caster sugar here that's had a vanilla pod added to the jar.

Then using an electric mixer beat it till it foamy, full of air bubbles and almost mousse like, and add your vanilla extract

4.Then fold in the cooled chocolate and butter mixture.

5. Then weigh out your flour and cocoa powder

Then sieve it in to the rest of your mixture

and fold it in, until it's all combined. The mixture will be very runny but don't worry.

6. Pour it into your prepared brownie pan, it's pretty self levelling so the hardest thing will be scraping out your bowl.

Then break up your caramel bars into the chunks and scatter them evenly into the brownie pan.

7. Pop it in the oven for about half an hour. When it's done the top will be crispy and cracked but the inside will still by pretty squidgy when you test it with a skewer.

8. That's it x Leave it to cool for as long as you can, marking it into squares while it's still warm. 

It will be very squishy and fudgy inside, it will firm up slightly as it cools. You can either eat when it's soft and warm, or leave till it's cool and more fudge like.

The caramel chunks sink to the bottom slightly and some of them burst leaving chocolate caramel trails throughout the brownies. 

If I were you I would probably use four caramel bars - I only used two here (I ate them what can I say) so you can't see them that well in some of my pics

You can of course eat this on it's own but since it is quite pudding like, it would also be lovely with some pouring cream or some ice cream.

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This is the recipe that I use for my Creme Egg Brownies, but I can imagine that it would work equally well  with with Fudge, Rolos, or even chocolate chips, chocolate buttons, nuts or dried fruit. It's not a conventional cakey brownie it's a lot more indulgent and rich than that and makes the ideal dessert, or comfort food. Happy National Chocolate Week :) Will you be joining in? Leave me a comment and let me know what you'll be treating yourself too xx 

Foodie Friday - What I Ate In July

July was a month where I ate what I wanted, when I wanted it. When I look back at some of the things that I ate in July it honestly doesn't look as though I ate that badly, and I genuinely don't think that I did. As I said in Monday's post I think it was more about snacking and portion control. Given the heat I also ate quite a bit of ice cream that I haven't mentioned here and I also make a crucial mistake and discovered the wonder that is Cadbury's Dairy Marvellous Creations Banana Caramel Crisp - bad move! So minus the ice cream and chocolate, here's what I ate in July.

First up savouries and something that I'm having again tomorrow, naughty nachos :) I love nachos so much I make a huge batch of homemade salsa which I pour over tortilla chips, top with grated cheese and bung in the oven for 20 minutes. Not the most healthy dish but quick and easy.

I also made be favourite Double Potato And Halloumi Bake, only using feta and mozzarella instead of the halloumi. Alas no pics because they didn't come out too well but the leftovers were mixed with a bought (sorry!) pasta sauce, and some gluten free pasta, to make a quick pasta dish.

I ate a lot of pasta in July, probably more than I have in the rest of the year put together but I've missed it. I'm a huge pasta fiend! One of my favourite pasta dishes ever is macaroni cheese. When I'm in a rush I love the Amy's Kitchen Rice Mac And Cheese, which you get from must major supermarkets. I'm not a huge lover of ready meals but I would definitely recommend the Amy's Kitchen range of vegetarian and gluten free meals for quality and taste. This time though I fancied making my own, so using Heinz Gluten Free Macaroni, I made a huge batch to see us through a few hot days.

After I posted this on instagram a few people asked for a recipe, well to be honest it's so easy that it doesn't really justify a recipe. All I did was cook the pasta, and whilst the pasta was cooking I made a basic gluten free cheese sauce (just a combination of butter, milk, gluten free flour, seasoning and grated cheddar) which I then mixed into the cooked pasta, and a packet of  Redwood Vegan Chorizio Sausage Chunks. I then poured the lot into a huge baking dish, and topped it with a homemade breadcrumb topping made from gluten free bread zapped up in the food processor and mixed with more grated cheddar, garlic granules, and chilli flakes and then baked in the oven till crispy and bubbly.

Me and Mummy Lou devoured this full baking dish full over the course of 3 days It kept really well the fridge and heated up easily in the microwave. I imagine it would also freeze really well too The only thing was the topping went a touch soggy but it still tasted great.

Something else that I made in July was wrap pizzas. I am seriously in love with the Warburtons Newburn Bakehouse Gluten Free Wraps. I particular love them stuffed with salad and hummus but on this occasion I made them into pizzas, topping them with some veg, some tomato puree, and some cheese.

Yes, it's curry loaf again :) Again I made this with pimped up golden vegetable rice, and baked beans only this time I threw a handful of sultanas into the mix for good measure. Really enjoyable as per usual :)

In July my momma had a meat craving! Bless her she's so good and eats more veggie food than meat these days but sometime she just craves burgers, so we headed to Chiquitos to take advantage of the lunch menu. I had the halloumi salad which is incredible, my love for the squeaky cheese hold no bounds! The one downer this time is that they were out of the cranberry and mint relish so I just had basic salsa, never mind it was still yummy.

Mummy Lou got her usual cheeseburger and salad but I fancied being a bit naughtier so I got a portion of sweet potato fries for us to share - so, so good and something that I will definitely order again. After all that Mummy Lou still wasn't satisfied lol, like mother like daughter I guess so we moved on to the dessert, where we both had a portion of the Golden Nugget Cheesecake (alas not pictured) but it's basically a vanilla cheese cake stuff with chocolate and plain honeycomb - being good I left the base which Mummy Lou was more than happy to eat :)

When it came to sweet things through July I tried to be good but July was the month where I discovered the amazing Gower Cottage Gluten Free Chocolate Brownies..

Mmm so good, squidgy, chocolate morsels that you can't event tell are gluten free. You can read my post on them here, and I'm sad to say that my box is now all gone :(

I was a little bit god as you can see here though and I did have mine with some fresh summer fruits. My mum paid a couple of visits to the local fruit farm and bought a mountain of freshly picked strawberries and a couple of punnets of raspberries.

I may have demolished the raspberries but the majority of the strawberries were for jam. My mum loves making jam and she made about 16 lbs of strawberry jam!!! A few jars will go to friends and relatives but otherwise we are well stocked for the winter :) So far I've had some on top of ice cream and on top of some gluten free digestives with some cream cheese to make my own mini cheesecakes, in August though I can definitely see myself making some scones to have an albeit healthy version of a cream tea.

Speaking of home baking Mummy Lou also tried a bit of an experiment and made a chocolate and vanilla marble cake stuffed full of the lightest, fluffiest, butter cream you have ever tasted! So good!

That's just about it bar a couple of Costa Raspberry And White Chocolate Creamy Coolers, and one of my newest loves the Starbucks Banana Yogurt Frappuccino

So that was my July, I really want to try a bit harder to eat more healthily in August but at the same time I also want to experiment a bit more with my cooking, I really think that mixing it up a bit will make a huge difference diet wise, so if you have any healthy, vegetarian recipes hit me up x Thanks for reading and happy eating x

Foodie Friday On A Saturday - Gluten Free Gower Cottage Chocolate Brownies

This post, like a lot of my Foodie Friday posts doesn't exactly fit in with my "I'm trying to lose weight" philosophy, but as you know I'm not a fan of denial, if you deny yourself something weight loss seems much more of a challenge, rather than the lifestyle change that it should be. I have three real little treats and food things that I need in my life, and cutting them out entirely would be nigh on impossible, so I go with the flow and have the occasional treat. The three things are cheese, cake and chocolate, and this post really combines the last two.

Since I was diagnosed with gluten and wheat intolerance, I've had to change my attitude entirely to cake. The majority of bought gluten and wheat free cakes and dry, mealy and pretty uninspiring. Thankfully after a lot of experimentation and dare I say it disasters, me and Mummy Lou can make various cakes that we're proud of. 

One of my biggest disappointments with commercially  available gluten free food, is the humble chocolate brownie. You buy a gluten free chocolate brownie in any supermarket or coffee shop and I can pretty much guarantee that it will be dry, and cloying with only the smallest hint of the dense fudginess that a good brownie should have. So the obvious solution when I get that brownie craving is to make my own, and I do, I've just about perfected my own blondie and brownie recipes, which I'll show you soon, but sometimes I just want to be able to buy something yummy and as good or if not better than what I can make at home, thankfully fellow blogger Kellie from BigFashionista and QVC came to my rescue, and introduced me to Gower Cottage Brownies.

Founded in 2007 Gower Cottage Brownies, is the epitome of a cottage industry. The owner Kate Jenkins started supplying a local shop with her chocolate brownies, made fresh everyday in her cottage kitchen on the beautiful Gower Peninsula in South Wales. The huge popularity of her brownies with both locals and tourists meant that an expansion was inevitable. Kate now supplies a number of retailers and establishments throughout the UK, and she also sells direct to the public via her own website and also via QVC UK.

In reality though nothing really has changed, the brownies are all still handmade,and made fresh for every order using only the finest ingredients available including local free range eggs.

After watching a QVC presentation and reading a post from Kellie I eventually took the plunge and placed an order. There are several varieties to chose from including the Original, With Walnut and With Hazelnuts, but I went for Kate's Gluten Free Chocolate Brownies.

I ordered mine via QVC but they came directly from Gower Cottage. They are  boxed, and the brownies themselves come beautifully wrapped and then wrapped in waxed paper with a tag and tied with a ribbon. I loved the fact that was no plastic packaging. Everything has been thought of perfectly your not just opening a cake box it's almost like your opening a present, all be it a beautiful chocolate, vanilla scented present!

At this point I really should be showing you a picture of the unwrapped brownies but my mum dived into them too quickly, sniffing and portioning them out!- you get 12 small sized brownies in each box x We decided to be good and only leave a couple out. They freeze really well, just wrap them up well, and either defrost at room temperature or pop them into the microwave for 20 seconds or so to defrost and serve them warm. Each box though comes with storage and freezing instructions x

Okay, I'm sorry I'm leaving you in suspense aren't I? You wanna know what they taste like, well I don't think I have words! The smell when you open the box is exactly what they taste like, rich, rich buttery chocolate, squidgy yumminess! You can really taste the quality of the ingredients that Kate uses, these gluten free ones, have only 5 ingredients, sugar, eggs, butter, chocolate and gluten free flour, and that is what you can taste. The chocolate taste is smooth and velvety and when you heat them up you can almost smell the butter.

Yes they aren't the biggest brownies I've ever seen, but they don't need to be, they are rich, dense, and squidgy but without being sickly, they hit the spot perfectly and 1 really is enough, especially if your trying to show restraint!

Unlike a lot of gluten free brownies you don't need to drench them in cream or ice cream, the slightly crisp outside melds perfectly with the soft centre, meaning they're a treat in their own right. That said a scoop of vanilla Ice cream turns them into a decadent pud, and a bit of fresh fruit add to your 5 a day. If I didn't know that these were gluten free then I wouldn't be able to tell they really are that good.

These aren't the cheapest brownie out there by any means but what your getting is quality, unlike a lot of commercial  products, they are still made with care, and you know exactly whats gone in them. Kate has won praise for her brownies from food writers, local and national media, and to be honest I'm really not surprised. I still think I make a pretty decent brownie but I'm not sure that they are a good as this. I have to say I'm now a Gower Cottage covert x You got me Kate ;)

They maybe aren't for everyday munching but for a special treat they're perfect. You can also get a box delivered to someone else, so I think they would make a great and unusual gift for any occasion.

Gower Cottage Brownies are available from their website and also from QVC UK. 12 Gluten Free Chocolate Brownies retail at around £17.99, but prices vary depending on the variety you choose. I'd also recommend that you follow Kate on twitter, she's really sweet  and so passionate about what she does and pleasing her customers, she's also a serious enabler :) If you have any questions please leave me a comment - We have 4 brownies left so I'm away to raid the freezer  :)