I can’t remember the last time I looked at Twitter and didn’t find post advertising Bionita’s gluten free gnocchi at the top of my feed. It’s a tireless campaign. But I do like gnocchi and after initially swearing not to because I was fed up with the sight of it, I eventually succumbed to the marketing and ordered some with my online shopping.
I have to say, it was good! Tea is always a bit rushed on Wednesday nights as hubby tends to go out riding his bike in the evening so there’s not much time to make a meal after work. So this was a pretty perfect solution. The gnocchi cooks in a few minutes, then once drained, I added some freshly chopped sage from the garden, extra virgin olive oil and lashings of pepper and parmesan. Plain and simple, as it should be – lovely.
I was very kindly sent some of the new 
Ilumi have created 4 flavours: Tom Yum Gai, Singapore Style, Vietnamese Style Beef Pho and Sweet Chilli. All are given a “one chilli” spice rating, except for the Sweet Chilli pot, which has a “2 chilli rating”, so it is a bit spicier, but don’t be put off by that – it won’t blow your head off.
in the direction of this high end gluten free pasta, made by 
and 3 eggs. Mix until even and divide between 8 large or 20 small muffin cups. Even I can handle that with 4 noisy boys running around the place!
The mix was very easy to make and it combined really well. Although I thought it a bit odd at first, I actually liked measuring the butter by volume rather than weight, as it melts to a perfect level so you can see exactly the right amount.
I filled 8 muffin cases as evenly as I could and cooked them for the full 17 minutes after checking them at 13. As you can see, some of the muffins had a bit of a splurt out, but they cooked fine other than that. I wonder if that could be to do with using butter instead of margarine?
When the muffins had cooled a bit, I nipped off the bits that had leaked out to neaten them up, which gave a nice opportunity to have a sneaky taste before the kids snaffled them. Warm fresh muffin straight from the oven. The texture was nice and soft, and they had a good chocolatey taste, just right for kids. I’d say they were less dense than your usual non-gluten-free muffin, but lovely and light. Maybe more like sponge cake than muffin, but a delicious treat nevertheless.
You’ll have to excuse my photography. This post was a bit of a last minute idea and this is just a quick snap from my phone.
My oldest friend (as in length of time, not age) came round to stay the other week and very kindly brought me a bag of gluten free goodies from a farm shop in Congleton (I think). The thing I was most excited to try was this packet of 
I had mine with some BBQ leftovers – hummous, coleslaw, lentils and veg, but they would be great with any toppings really – cottage cheese, salsa etc. I found two was plenty with my salad as a light lunch.
I’ve had some fun this afternoon making retro fairy cakes using a gluten free Vanilla Sponge Mix from 
I started with this mix, which can be used to make 2 regular 20cm sponges for a birthday or Victoria sponge cake. But I fancied making some old fashioned buns, and I ended up making an assortment of little fairy cakes and a few bigger blueberry muffins. They were nice and quick to make, although I did then spend a while playing around with the different toppings.
I don’t tend to buy much gluten free cake mix or indeed really make cakes very often, as my skin is still quite sensitive to sugar. Mind you, it’s got a lot less sensitive the longer I’ve been gluten and sugar free(-ish), so things are starting to look up.
It was light, moist, soft and actually had the texture of CAKE, properties which aren’t always guaranteed with a gluten free sponge cake. All this and it didn’t even have a filling. I can’t praise it highly enough. It was also still slightly warm from the oven, which was lovely, and had a thin drizzle of icing on the top that had dripped down the side.
This picture shows both after they’d been left a few minutes to steep. We tipped them out to eat into bowls to eat them though, as we’re very sophisticated. You can see straight away that there’s quite a difference between the two.
The noodles are big and soft.
