When you're told you have a dairy allergy and are advised, into the bargain, to strike eggs permanently off your shopping list, puddings go straight to the past tense. Cream? Forget it. Pavlova? Forget it. Chocolate eclairs? Gulp. Sure, you could eat soya ice cream - but hey. Life is just too short for soya ice cream.
And so it was with mild surprise, swiftly followed by a sort of greedy glee, that this dairy allergy sufferer greeted the arrival in the kitchen of a cookbook called More From The Sensitive Gourmet, by Antoinette Savill. A cookery writer of long standing, Savill has developed a food allergy or two herself and has, as a result, made it her business to banish wheat, lactose and gluten from her recipes. The Sensitive Gourmet saw her doing wickedly clever things with tofu, coconut milk and lemon grass, and in this follow-up volume she has turned her attention to desserts.
Not just any old desserts, either. Rosewater Angel Cake with Berries; Rhubarb and Pistachio Crumble; Sherry Cake and Baked Figs; Blinis with Spiced Cherries - Antoinette Savill's desserts are pure pudding poetry. Which to attempt first, that was the problem. Coconut and Lime Cake, perhaps? "This light summery cake tastes fresh and zingy, just what I love on a hot summer's day with a glass of iced tea," declares Antoinette at the top of the page. Hmm. Earl Grey Tea Loaf, then? "Ideal for picnics." In November?
Something autumn-y was called for. Something gold-coloured, something featuring apples or pears, something warm, sticky and comforting. Not Honey and Rosewater Roll, that's for sure. Not Orange Mousse With Almonds. And certainly not Lemon Curd Ice-cream. I skipped to the Hot Puddings, and the delights of Warm Butterscotch Pear Cake, and Little Toffee Apple Puddings.
A list of the requisite ingredients was followed smartly by a trip to the supermarket, where I encountered snag number one: your average supermarket does not stock rice flour or maize flour, let alone unrefined brown Mauritian sugar. Snag number two was that both recipes called for the use of "a large free-range egg", a dismaying sight for somebody who has solemnly sworn never to eat eggs Florentine again, ever. What to do? Clearly, some minor adaptations were called for. Plain flour and ordinary old brown sugar would just have to do - nobody in our house has a wheat or gluten allergy, anyhow - and, after all, what's two eggs between four large, hungry people?
Back in the kitchen, it occurred to me that a) I have never baked a cake in my life and b) my kitchen is utterly devoid of most of the utensils necessary to do so. No scales. None of those dinky little measuring spoons. No waxed paper. No sieve - not, for goodness' sake, even a clear plastic jug with millilitres and things marked on the side. Luckily, all this only occurred to me when I was already elbow-deep in sponge mix, having taken the instruction "cup" with unabashed literalness and the distinction between, say, "2/3 cup" and "3/4 cup" with a very large pinch of salt.
The uncooked sponge mix - naturally, since it featured ginger, cloves, honey, lemon juice and an extremely generous dash of cider - tasted terrific. And even though it went into the oven encased in bargain-basement tinfoil instead of the swathe of handwaxed antique Indonesian parchment recommended (just kidding) by the recipe, it looked reasonably authentic.
Back at the toffee puddings, however, the instruction "remove the caramel from the heat as soon as it starts to get dark or it will taste bitter. Immediately pour in the cider and beware of spluttering caramel" was turning into a tricky proposition. For an unconscionably long time the "caramel" looked suspiciously like water with sugar in it. When it finally thickened, the addition of cider turned it, instantly, into medium-brown quick-drying cement.
No sooner had the oven door closed than I was beset by doubts. Was it wise for somebody who had never baked a cake before to make her baking debut with a cake which featured a layer of mashed-up pears in the middle and a crunchy almond icing on top? Would the hours of fiddling about with fruit translate into an inedible mush? Would the starving people on the sofa (dinner, needless to say, had been swallowed up in the excitement) ever forgive me if the promised goodies failed to materialise?
It is to the eternal credit of Antoinette Savill that, despite my cavalier approach to weights and measures, my lack of respect for meticulously-planned lists of ingredients ("Allspice? What's allspice? Here's mixed spice - that'll do") and my almost total lack of innate culinary instincts, what eventually emerged from the oven was crisp, springy and utterly, utterly yummy. Six toffee apple puddings disappeared in as many minutes. People fought - well, argued, anyhow - over the last slice of cake. There were cries of "more, please, soon".
So we had a go at the blinis and a blackcurrant rice pudding, and the results were much the same: it took ages, but it was worth it. And the moral is . . .? Well, if you're allergic to eggs, let's face it, you'll never be able to eat sponges, pastries and the like without, at the very least, a twinge of guilt. But if your food allergy is to gluten, wheat and/or dairy products, and if you know where to buy rice flour, maize flour, dairy-free cocoa powder and gluten-free baking powder, this cookbook may just change your life.
More From The Sensitive Gourmet is published by Thorsons at £12.99 in UK
