Baking update

It's been a while since I last posted, however I haven't stopped cooking. I think I may have even worn out our oven, as we had a gas leak and had to replace the pipe running under our house as well as the oven, which I absolutely loved. So, now we have a new oven and a lot of posts needed to be updated. Enjoy.

Gluten Free Caramel Slice
This has to be the richest caramel slice I think I've ever tasted. I actually liken it more to a home-made snickers bar, whatever the name, it was delicious! I created the slice from various recipes, all I recommend you try. The first was a flourless peanut butter biscuit, which I made from my home-made peanut paste (recipe below). Next step was the caramel, which is the whole reason I set out creating this dish. Earlier in the week I had seen a scrumptious episode of Food Safari where they focused on South American cuisine. One of the recipes featured was a Manjar blanco, aka a thick caramel. I thought this would be perfect for my slice, so rich and smooth, so I set about making it.  A tip for any budding home cooks, read the recipe all the way through before you commence cooking. My little boy had just gone to sleep, so I thought I had about an hour before he woke up. I started the caramel and noticed there was a lot of stirring involved. What Food Safari had forgotten to portray in their story was that it took an hour of constant stirring to get the caramel to the right consistency. So on I went in developing some sweet stirring muscles when after only 45 minutes the whinges start from the other room. Grrrr, he's awake and I have about half an hour of stirring left. Luckily it was a nice-boy day and I managed to keep him semi-happy sitting in his high chair in our kitchen. Once the caramel was to it's glorious thickness, I left it to cool while I melted the chocolate. The final step was assemble, pretty much plonking the caramel on top of the biscuit, then covering the caramel with chocolate goodness. Once set, wow, talk about rich. I took it into work the next day and there were definite moans of joy mixed with hate as the sugar rushed to their heads and they realised just how calorie-packed this treat was. Oh well.

Home-made Peanut Paste
I'm sticking with the terminology of peanut paste for this recipe, as I found out when making it, there is no butter, and it's not a buttery consistency, therefore paste it is.

I had been wanting to bake something from The Stone Soup blog for ages when I finally saw the recipe for home-made peanut paste and knew my time had come. I love peanuts and love peanut paste, so how could I refuse.

The process is pretty easy, my only recommendation is watch how much salt you put in and make sure it's finally grounded salt, otherwise you start tasting chunks of salt in your food.

Check out the recipe here.