Allergy free mandarin and cranberry scones recipe

Ingredients

• 2¼ cups Orgran self-raising flour
• ⅓ cup Orgran gluten free gluten
• 1 tsp baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 1 tbsp sugar (optional)
• 20g Nuttlex
• 1 cup dried cranberries
• 1 Orgran No Egg whisked with 40mls water until thick
• ¼ cup goat’s milk
• ½ cup sweet mandarin juice
• Zest of 2 mandarins, grated fine
• ½ tsp vanilla essence
• Extra goat’s milk for glazing



Method

• Preheat oven to 220°C
• Lightly grease baking tray.
• Sift Orgran flour, Orgran gluten free gluten, baking soda, salt and sugar into a large bowl.
• Rub in the Nuttlex, using fingertips until the mixture is fine and crumbly.
• Stir through the cranberries.
• Make a well in the centre of the mixture and pour the Orgran No Egg mixture, vanilla essence, mandarin juice and goat’s milk into the well.
• Add the mandarin zest.
• Mix lightly with spoon or spatula to form soft dough.
• Slowly add small quantity of flour to prevent sticking, if needed.
• Gather the dough together (do not knead) and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface.
• Lightly press out the dough until it is 2.5 cm thick.
• Cut out rounds with a floured 5 cm cutter.
• Heat a baking tray in the oven for 5 minutes.
• Glaze with the extra goat's milk.
• Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown on the top.
• If you are serving the scones warm, wrap them in a clean tea towel while still hot.
• Serve with Nuttlex and honey.

Allergy free quinoa and peach scones recipe

Ingredients

• 1¾ cups Orgran self-raising flour
• ½ cup quinoa flakes
• ⅓ cup Orgran gluten free gluten
• 2 tsps baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 1 tbsp sugar (optional)
• 20g Nuttlex
• 1 Orgran No Egg whisked with 40mls water until thick
• ¾ cup goat’s milk
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• ½ cup dried peaches, diced
• Extra goat’s milk for glazing

Method

• Preheat oven to 220°C
• Lightly grease baking tray.
• Sift the flour, Quinoa flakes, gluten free gluten, baking soda, salt and sugar into a large bowl
• Rub in the Nuttlex, using fingertips until the mixture is fine and crumbly
• Make a well in the centre of the mixture and pour the No Egg mixture, vanilla essence and goat’s milk into the well.
• Add the dried peaches.
• Mix lightly with spoon or spatula to form soft dough.
• Slowly add small quantity of flour to prevent sticking, if needed.
• Gather the dough together (do not knead) and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface.
• Lightly press out the dough until it is 2.5 cm thick.
• Cut out rounds with a floured 5 cm cutter.
• Heat a baking tray in the oven for 5 minutes
• Glaze with the extra goat's milk.
• Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown on the top.
• If you are serving the scones warm, wrap them in a clean tea towel while still hot.

Allergy free orange and coconut teacake recipe

Ingredients

• 65g Nuttlex
• ½ cup caster sugar
• 1 tsp Orgran No Egg whisked with 40mls water until thick
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup Orgran self-raising flour, sifted
• ⅓ cup goat’s milk
• Fine zest of 1 orange
• ½ an orange, juiced
• ½ cup desiccated coconut
• Extra ¼ cup Orgran self-raising flour, sifted

Orange syrup

• ½ an orange, juiced
• ¼ cup confectioners sugar

Method

• Pre-heat the oven to 160°C.
• Grease a small bread tin.
• Using an electric mixer beat the Nuttlex, sugar, No Egg and vanilla together for 2 minutes or until combined.
• Stir in half the flour then add half the goat’s milk and beat gently to combine.
• Repeat with remaining flour and goat’s milk.
• Fold in the orange rind, orange juice, coconut and extra flour.
• Spoon the cake mixture into the prepared cake tin and level the top.
• Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. 
• For the orange syrup, whisk together the orange juice and confectioners sugar until smooth and pour over the warm cake.
• Allow the cake to cool in the tin.

Allergy free orange and date scones recipe

Ingredients

• 2¼ cups Orgran self-raising flour
• ⅓ cup Orgran gluten free gluten
• 1 tsp baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 1 tbs sugar (optional)
• 20g Nuttlex
• 1 cup pitted dates, roughly chopped
• 1 Orgran No Egg whisked with 40mls water until thick
• ¼ cup goat’s milk
• ½ cup orange juice
• Zest of 1 orange
• ½ tsp vanilla essence
• Extra goat’s milk for glazing

Method

• Preheat oven to 220°C
• Lightly grease baking tray.
• Sift Orgran flour, Orgran gluten free gluten, baking soda, salt and sugar into a large bowl.
• Rub in the Nuttlex, using fingertips until the mixture is fine and crumbly.
• Stir through the chopped dates.
• Make a well in the centre of the mixture and pour the Orgran No Egg mixture, vanilla essence, orange juice and goat’s milk into the well.
• Add the orange zest.
• Mix lightly with spoon or spatula to form soft dough.
• Slowly add small quantity of flour to prevent sticking, if needed.
• Gather the dough together (do not knead) and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface.
• Lightly press out the dough until it is 2.5 cm thick.
• Cut out rounds with a floured 5 cm cutter.
• Heat a baking tray in the oven for 5 minutes.
• Glaze with the extra goat's milk.
• Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown on the top.
• If you are serving the scones warm, wrap them in a clean tea towel while still hot.
• Serve with Nuttlex and honey.

Tea in fiction: great scenes and tea as character traits

Arthur Dent crashes the Heart of Gold's master computer by asking it to synthesise a cup of tea in Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. Also, In Restaurant At The End Of The Univers in "found a Nutri-Matic machine which had provided him with a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea".

Cold Comfort Farm's not-so-romantic scene in the tea house

Inara Serra's companion welcoming ceremony in Firefly
(Don't bother playing this as it is just pictures)

Picard and his Earl Grey in Star Trek: The Next Generation

A cup of tea "couldn't hurt" in A Bridge Too Far

Sen-no-Rikyu's a ten-day tea-drinking orgy in Kyoto and Osaka with Hideyoshi in Rikyu

Mad Hatter's tea party in Alice In Wonderland

Bricktop always wants a cup of tea in Snatch. Best line: "Goody gumdrops. Get me a cup of tea, Errol."

Sherlock Holmes loves a cop of tea for thinking. His preference is commonly thought to be lapsang souchong even though the tea's flavour is never actually described in the books. For those who haven't tried it, it smells like bacon and is essentially smoked tea.

Willy Wonka's tea with edible teacup in Charlie And The Chocolate Factory

Tea and comfort given and much scheming done over tea in Pride and Prejudice

Inspector Thompsom pouring the milk in first in Gosford Park

Chocolate melted into Earl Grey tea in Chocolat

Allergy free corn and cinnamon scones recipe

Far nicer than you're thinking. Simon, the husband, was rambling of flavours to go with corn to me, first thing in the morning. It started out with bacon-esque things, scooted through cinnamon - to which I replied "I can't think of a worse combination" - and ended with anus and the like. A typical conversation really, especially when both of us feel like death barely warmed up. Anyway, I decided to give it a whirl as I figured if people put cinnamon straight onto corn then having them as a scone combo might not be nearly as bad as I'd said. Turns out they're really, really nice. Subtle too.

Ingredients

• 2¼ cups Orgran self-raising flour
• ⅓ cup Orgran gluten free gluten
• Pinch of salt
• 1 tbs sugar (optional)
• 20g Nuttlex
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp Orgran No Egg whisked with 40mls water until thick
• ½ cup goat’s milk
• ¼ cup creamed corn
• Extra goat’s milk for glazing

Method

• Preheat oven to 220°C
• Lightly grease baking tray.
• Sift Orgran flour, Orgran gluten free gluten, salt, cinnamon and sugar into a large bowl.
• Rub in the Nuttlex, using fingertips until the mixture is fine and crumbly.
• Make a well in the centre of the mixture and pour the Orgran No Egg mixture, creamed corn and goat’s milk into the well.
• Mix lightly with spoon or spatula to form soft dough.
• Slowly add a small quantity of flour to prevent sticking, if needed.
• Gather the dough together, (do not knead the dough) and merely turn it out onto a lightly floured surface.
• Lightly press out the dough until it is 2.5 cm thick.
• Cut out rounds with a floured 5 cm cutter.
• Heat a baking tray in the oven for 5 minutes
• Place with the extra milk.
• Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 10-15 minutes.
• If you are serving the scones warm, wrap them in a clean tea towel while still hot.

Note

• As these fall somewhere between savoury and sweet they're best eaten with Nuttlex or if you're lucky, butter.

Allergy free Irish barm brack (fruit cake) recipe

Ingredients

• 2 cups Irish tea, cold
• 1½ cups light brown sugar
• 1 cup sultanas
• ½ cup candied peel, chopped
• 2½  cups Orgran self-raising flour
• 1 tsp Orgran No Egg

Method

• Put the tea, sugar, sultanas and peel into a bowl.
• Cover and leave to soak for at least 2 hours.
• Preheat oven to 180°C.
• Grease and flour a 20cm round cake tin.
• Sift the flour and No Egg into the fruit mixture and beat well.
• Pour the mixture into the cake pan.
• Bake for 1 hour or until skewer inserted into centre of cake comes out clean.
• Leave in the tin for 5 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack to cool.

Note

• If you don't eat it within a couple of days then best reheat to eat as the candied peel makes this a little more likely to toughen before it goes stale. Best reheat method is 1 minute in the microwave.

Allergy free lemon tea cake recipe

Ingredients

• Olive oil spray
• ½ cup Nuttlex
• ¾ cup sugar
• Zest of 1 lemon
• 2 large tsp Orgran No Egg whisked with 80mls water until thick
• 1½ cups Orgran all purpose flour
• 1½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ cup goat’s milk
• Juice of 1 lemon
• ¼ cup confectioners sugar

Without the lemon topping.

Method

• Preheat oven to 180°C.
• Spray a medium bread tin with olive oil and set aside.
• In a bowl, cream the Nuttlex and sugar using a beater.
• Add the lemon zest and No Egg mixture and beat well.
• In a separate large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.
• Add this to the Nuttlex mixture along with the goat’s milk, and mix until the dry ingredients are just moistened.
• Pour the batter into the bread tin and bake for 40-45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
• Rotate the cake tin at least once to ensure even cooking.
• Remove the cake from the oven.
• In a small measuring cup, whisk together the lemon juice and confectioners sugar until smooth and pour over the warm cake.
• Allow the cake to cool in the pan.

My new THE cup for tea

Ministry of Silly Walks. Here's to this cup lasting me at least 15 years like the last one did.

Douglas Adams and his books

The birthday of the brilliant Douglas Adams falls on the 11th of March in the other hemisphere, so I write this today. Those who know him better have many a kind word to say about the man. I didn't know him at all. I was just an avid reader of his works through my younger years.

So instead of saying many a kind word I will say this: He never wrote a dud so read them all. 

Hitch-Hikers Guide to the GalaxyThe Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, 1979.
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, 1980.
Life, the Universe and Everything, 1982.
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, 1984.
Mostly Harmless, 1992.
And Another Thing..., 2009. Finished with the help of Eoin Colfer.

Hitch-Hiker Scripts
Hitchhikers Companion Original Galaxy Radio Scripts, 1985.
The Original Hitchhiker Radio Scripts, 1987.

Hitch-Hikers Guide - Radio Scripts, 1985.
The Hitchhiker Radio Scripts 2, 2005.

Dirk Gently
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, 1987.
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, 1988.
The Salmon of Doubt: And Other Writings, 1995.

Novels

Starship Titanic, 1997. Collaboration with Terry Jones.

Non fiction

The Meaning of Liff, 1983. Collaboration with John Lloyd.
Last Chance to See, 1990. Collaboration with Mark Carwardine.

The Deeper Meaning of Liff: A Dictionary of Things That There Aren't Any Words for Yet, 1990. Collaboration with John Lloyd.

Douglas Adams's Guide to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 1999.
Douglas Adams at the BBC, 2003.

Anthologies edited

The Utterly Utterly Merry Comic Relief Christmas Book, 1986. Collaboration with Peter Fincham.

Series contributed to

Doctor Who, Pirate Planet Script, 1994.

Doctor Who, Eighth Doctor, Shada, 2003.

Short stories

The Total Perspective Vortex, 1980.

Young Zaphod Plays It Safe, 1986.