Don’t miss Raymond Blanc tonight (Monday 29th March 2010) when he shares his kitchen secrets for brilliant bread making. Amongst the buttery brioche and traditional french bread he explores gluten free baking:
“Legendary chef Raymond Blanc welcomes the cameras into his kitchen to share his cooking secrets. Filmed in the lively surroundings of his Oxfordshire restaurant kitchen, this programme features a range of achievable and inspirational recipes for cooks of all abilities.
Raymond focuses on bread and the miracle of yeast. His first recipe is a French classic, brioche, a buttery bread using eggs that is the easiest of bread recipes. Using this as a base, he makes a celebratory gateau a la creme brioche filled with a lemony creme fraiche. To follow, we get down to basics with a French country bread recipe essential to any bakers’ repertoire, that is formed into beer-topped rolls, a basket-shaped loaf and an olive-and-tomato-topped fougasse. To finish, there’s a delicate yet spectacular dessert of apple croustade made from the thinnest pastry baked until crisp and golden.
Along the way, Raymond visits one of the UK’s oldest flourmills, Shipton Mill in Gloucestershire, to experiment making bread with gluten-free flour.“
If you miss both the live and iPlayer versions, I found this Raymond Blanc recipe on Hub UK for rye bread. Sounds delicious. I love rye bread with smoked salmon and watercress, or humous and roasted vegetables. Toasted it’s really nice too with honey or jam.
Raymond Blanc obviously cares about those with allergies; he also presented the award for Gluten Free Chef of the year in 2009 to Peter McKenzie. Visit the Gluten Free Blog for more information.
Genius Gluten Free bread is supposed to be the next best thing to the real mccoy; created by a mother who hated to see her allergic kids miss out on simple sandwiches and scrummy toast and butter. I haven’t tried it yet, I’ve been hunting but haven’t seen it anywhere, but it should be available in all major supermarkets and some health food shops. Visit the www.geniusglutenfree.com website for more information.
Which is your favourite wheat/gluten free bread? I used to love Stamp Collection bread but it’s hard to find these days in the shops. The Village Bakery also do two very tasty rye bread loaves but these seem hard to find also. I’d love to hear which you love best and why, and what do you enjoy most on your rye bread?
I watched this last night and Raymond cooked some Chestnut bread, he genuinely seemed to be enjoying eating it with the miller from Shipton Mill. It looked quite dense but deliciously honey coloured. Wish I could have tried it. If I find the recipe I’ll post it here. Shipton Mill produced lots of different gluten free flour including corn flour, rice flour and chestnut flour, to name just a few. Worth watching, although it’s only a tiny segment of the rest of the buttery puddings and breads he also made. “Three cheers for Raymond!” He clearly sees allergies as a very important part of being a chef and respects that it’s serious.
Ruth I am inquiring to see if you attained Raymond Blancs recipe for gluten free bread. I have searched high and low and failed miserably. Hope you had more success than I did!
Hi Carol, NO I haven’t either. Very ellusive. I’ll try to contact him and find out. In the meantime I found this recipe from The delicious Miss (Sophie) Dahl for Flourless Chocolate Cake! http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/flourlesschocolateca_93580.shtml
Ingredients
For the cake
300g/10½oz plain chocolate, broken into pieces
225g/8oz caster sugar
175ml/6fl oz boiling water
225g/8oz salted butter, cut into cubes, plus extra for greasing
6 free-range eggs, separated
1 tsp instant coffee powder
2 tsp vanilla extract
For the topping
200ml/7fl oz crème fraîche
255g/9oz summer berries
1 tbsp plain chocolate, grated
icing sugar, to dust
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.
2. For the cake, grease and line the base of a 23cm/9in springform tin with baking parchment.
3. Blend the chocolate and sugar in a food processor until a fine powder forms. Add the boiling water, butter, egg yolks, coffee powder and vanilla extract and blend until well combined.
4. In a clean bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form when the whisk is removed, then, using a metal spoon, gently fold into the chocolate mixture.
5. Pour the mixture into the prepared cake tin and bake for 45-55 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
6. Remove the cake from the oven and allow to cool in the tin, then transfer to the fridge for 2-3 hours.
7. To serve, remove the cake from the tin and place on a serving plate or cake stand, spread the crème fraîche on top, then scatter over the berries. To decorate, grate some chocolate over the top, or dust with icing sugar.
Many thanks for your efforts and kind reply. the chocolate cake will help with the suspense and hopefully with his (Raymond that is) keen interest in gluten allergy he will be kind enough to reveal all….fingers crossed and once again many thanks carol