Cafe Maplethorpe Blog :: PEI Restaurant

It is early November and it has been raining for days here on Prince Edward Island. Unseasonably warm as well. Despite the weather, the Christmas craft fairs are starting to pop up all over and the stores couldn’t get rid of the Halloween junk fast enough to make way for the Christmas decorations. Here at the restaurant we are regularly booking Christmas parties and so, ready or not, we begin our holiday baking.

One of the most popular desserts at Maplethorpe is our Sticky Date Pudding.

We serve it year ’round, but it seems like a great Christmas stand-in for fruit cake or the fabled “Christmas Pudding” Mrs. Bob Cratchit so fussed over in Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol.  Our Sticky Date Pudding is glorious and also gluten-free, but yours can be made with plain white or whole wheat flour if you prefer.

Ingredients:

500 g dates (or 2 cups packed)

2 cups water

2 tablespoons butter, room temperature

3 eggs

1/4 cup molasses

1/2 cup brown sugar, packed

1 and 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

3/4 cup flour (gluten-free blend, white, whole wheat, etc.)

Method:

The dates and water go into a sauce pan. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the dates have absorbed all the water. Be careful not to scorch or burn it. I usually get a good boil going for a few minutes then turn off the heat and let the dates absorb the water. This takes a bit longer than boiling and stirring until the water is completely absorbed, but there is less chance of burning and I don’t have to stand at the stove for 20 minutes.

Whichever method you choose, let the mixture cool completely before proceeding.

I really like the Golden Boy dates from Costco. They come in a two-pack of 1-kg blocks and a half block is perfect for 1 recipe–just cut the block in half and break it up before putting it in the sauce pan.

Once the plumped dates are cool, put them in the bowl of a mixer and add all the other ingredients. Just dump everything in. Easy, eh? (Don’t tell anyone!) Mix with the paddle attachment for not more than 2 minutes-it will be well mixed by then. The batter will be very wet and maybe a bit lumpy from a few large chunks of dates.

Now you have to decide how you want to bake them.

silicon mold for baking

We use a silicon mold (affectionately called ‘the C Cup’) and this recipe makes exactly 12. You could use 6-ounce ramekins and the recipe will yield about 6. Or you can put it in a 2-quart casserole dish-or a pudding mold, if you have one-and cut slices or wedges out of the pan. Whatever you choose, grease it or spray with cooking spray before transferring the batter.

Bake at 325* (F), 25 minutes for the 12-serving mold, 35 minutes for 6 oz. ramekins and slightly longer for a larger pan. The pudding is ready when it is is firm to the touch but you are still able to make a dent with a finger poke. Cool completely before removing from the pan.

Serve Like a Pastry Chef

We serve our Sticky Date Pudding warmed slightly (40 seconds in the microwave) atop a disc of vanilla ice cream with caramel sauce and a bit of whipped cream on top. You’ll get rave reviews! But of course if you don’t want to bother, just come down to Cafe Maplethorpe and let us serve you a warm pudding and a cup of tea. Or call and order a 6-pack of already cooked individual Sticky Date Puddings to reheat and serve in your home. Happy Holidays!

Cafe Maplethorpe's Sticky Date Pudding

I was a member of Weight Watchers many, many years ago. Back then the program was much less flexible than it is today and there were many foods that we were told just not to eat. Any. Ever.

Forbidden Foods

For each of the banned foods, however, someone had come up with a clever substitute. For example, peanuts were forbidden, but we were given a recipe using canned button mushroom caps. You were to bake them in the oven until they became shriveled and dry, looking amazingly like a peanut! Then you sprinkle salt on the ‘mock peanuts’ and enjoy! I remember this so clearly these many, many years later because the taste was so bad that the adverse sensory experience is seared in my brain for all time, like a tiny internal tattoo.

I am sharing one of my best recipes for ‘gluten-free sandwich bread.’ As anyone who eats gluten-free bread knows well, it just isn’t like “real” bread. Gluten is the star of “real” bread, and this just doesn’t have any. It is really mock sandwich bread, sort-of like the mock peanuts of my early dieting years. BUT! It isn’t too bad. The flax seed is nutritious and gives the bread a nice look, but isn’t essential if you don’t have any. Hardly anyone has buttermilk any more, but adding some lemon juice to white milk works fine.

The usual disclaimers for gluten-free bread are necessary:

• For sandwich-size bread use a small (length) bread pan and mound the dough up fairly high–it is going to rise, but not much.
• If you have an old-style automatic bread maker that makes tall, round loaves, try that.
• Let the loaf cool completely before slicing.
• Slice it thin, and it helps to toast it.
• Freeze what you aren’t going to use in a day or two.
• Keep experimenting until you find the taste and consistency that you can enjoy for life.

And unless you have a life-threatening allergy, eat a peanut when you feel like it.  Canned mushrooms are for pizza.

Maplethorpe Gluten-Free Sandwich Bread

Ingredients:

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup warm water

1 and 1/2 tablespoon active dry yeast

2 cups brown rice flour

1/3 cup potato starch

1/3 cup potato flour

1/3 cup tapioca flour

3 and 1/2 teaspoons xanthan gum

1/4 cup coarse ground flax seed

1 cup buttermilk (or 3/4 cup milk mixed with 1/4 cup lemon juice)

1/4 cup (2 ounces) butter, softened

1 teaspoon vinegar

1 and 1/2 teaspoons salt

3 eggs

Method:

Grease one bread loaf pan and preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

1. Mix warm water, yeast and sugar in a measuring cup. Let proof for 5 minutes.

2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix rice flour, potato flour and starch, flax, xanthan gum, tapioca flour and salt.

3. Pour yeast water into flour mix along with eggs, butter, rice vinegar and buttermilk. Using a dough hook, start mixing on lowest speed.

4. When wet and dry ingredients are mostly combined, stop mixer and scrape sides and bottom to make sure all dry ingredients are mixed with wet. Return to mixing on medium speed for 3 minutes.

5. Form dough into loaf with your hands and place in pan. (Wet hands make this easier.)

6. Place the loaf pan with dough into a large plastic bag and secure with a twist-tie or knot. ( This will help keep the dough moist during the fairly long rising time.) Put in a warm place for 2 and 1/2 to 3 hours. The loaf will increase its original volume by about 1/3.

7. Bake for 45 minutes. Cool completely.

Sliced Sandwich Bread

One of the most frequent requests we get at the restaurant is for gluten-free bread and rolls that actually taste and feel like “real” bread. There are over 2 million people in North America that suffer from Celiac Disease and the only treatment is a gluten-free diet. (That means no wheat, rye or barley added to any food product.) In addition to those with the disease, many avoid gluten due to various other health considerations. Today I was a guest chef on CBC’s “Maritime Noon” call-in show and one of the first questions we received was on this very topic.

We are constantly experimenting with gluten-free breads, rolls and desserts to serve at the Cafe and our goal is to make these special products look and taste so yummy that everyone will want them!

Because I didn’t bring specific recipes with me to the studio for the call-in, I offered to post a couple of recipes here on the blog–recipes that actually work, that we make and serve.

Gluten-Free Muffins

These are nice for use as a dinner roll, but can also be the base of a sweet muffin with the addition of fruit or nuts. (Think about adding blueberries and almonds, cinnamon and pecan pieces, lemon and poppy seed…)

Preheat over to 350 degrees. Grease 6 spots in a standard muffin tin or use paper muffin cups. (If you add fruit and nuts, the recipe will make more than 6.)

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons butter, softened

1/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 cup gluten-free flour mixture*

2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 cup milk

Method:

1. Put the soft butter and sugar in a stand mixer and beat with paddle until light and fluffy.

2. Add eggs and beat on low speed to mix.

3. In a separate bowl, add all dry ingredients. I used a combination of soy, rice and tapioca flour. Feel free to use what you have on hand or experiment with the taste and color of the muffins using various gluten-free flours.

4. Alternately add dry ingredients and milk to the egg mixture while the mixer is running on the lowest speed. Stop mixing as soon as all ingredients are incorporated.

5. Fill prepared muffin cups to 2/3 full. Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes.

These muffins will stay fresh for a few days and freeze well if wrapped individually in plastic film.