I love cinnamon. I started researching into cinnamon after I started adding it into home cooked food and bakes. I discovered that there are 2 types of cinnamon sold in the market – Ceylon and Cassia. The difference in price is very disparate! Ceylon cinnamon can cost a few times more than Cassia!
Cinnamon is produced from drying strips of inner bark of the Cinnamomum tree. You can buy them in the form of cinnamon sticks or quills or powder or extract.
Cassia Cinnamon originated from China and are widely grown in East and South Asia. It is dark brown (reddish) in colour, with thicker stalks and a rougher texture than its Ceylon cousin. It is very affordable and is most commonly consumed due to its price point. Therefore, if you see a bottle of cinnamon in the supermarket and it’s not specified whether it’s ceylon or cassia, it is most likely to be the latter. It has a very strong and spicy flavour.
Ceylon Cinnamon is native to Sri Lanka and South India. It is made from the inner bark of the Cinnamomum verum tree. It is tan brown in colour and its stalks are dense with soft layers and a smoother texture. As it is less common than the Cassia Cinnamon, it is more expensive. It has a delicate and mildly sweet flavour which makes it suitable for desserts.
Why do I use the Ceylon and not Cassia Cinnamon?
Cassia cinnamon contains coumarin which can be harmful in large doses. Cassia contains ~1% coumarin whereas Ceylon contains ~0.004%, which is negligible.
Coumarin is known to cause kidney, liver and lunch damage, therefore it may be harmful in large doses.
Lots of tests have been conducted with the Ceylon Cinnamon which shows that it has been useful in controlling blood sugar, which is important with diabetes patients.
It also blocks a protein named tau from accumulating in the brain. Tau buildup is a characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease.
At the end of the day, it’s all about moderation. Just don’t take anything excessively or good stuff may also have bad outcomes.
I came across this recipe on the internet quite a while back. I saved it, meaning to try it out but forgot all about it until recently. The original recipe was heavy on sugar!! One would develop serious diabetes just looking at the amount of sugar in it. So I reduced the amount of sugar by 50% and found it still too sweet for my liking. I further reduce the sugar amount so that I don’t get hyperactive kids after they consume it…. The flatbread got a thumbs up from the kids. Then again, they love anything with even a tinge of sugar in it, with the exception of honey meatballs (they prefer savoury ones).
Feel free to reduce the amount of sugar even further, to your liking.
Ingredients for Gluten Free Sourdough Cinnamon Sugar Flatbread
1st bake
– 1/2-1tbsp veg oil or butter (for brushing on the sheet or tray)
Congratulations! If you are on this page, it means that your gluten free sourdough starter has started bubbling! Now it’s time to use your discards to make some yummy sourdough bakes!
This is the easiest discard recipe and I use it all the time. Usually I use it to make sourdough crumpets which my girl absolutely loves! They can be eaten on their own or with jam. The family loves the garlic version. (The picture is a garlic crumpet). If you have muffin rings, you can use them to make muffins. I have used them as pizza bases as well.
2. Heat up your pan. Add baking soda into the batter and whisk it in lightly to make sure that it has been thoroughly mixed in.
3. Pour 1/2 tbsp oil onto the hot pan and spread it to coat the pan. Ladle the batter onto the pan. I use the tablespoon (1-2 tbsp). You can make a few crumpets depending on the size of your pan.
4. Cook for a few mins until you see the top is set (you will see some bubbles on top).
5. Flip crumpets to lightly brown on the other side.
6. Cool the cooked crumpets on the rack. Or… if you can’t wait, like my girl, you can eat them when they are hot… If you don’t want to eat them immediately, you can freeze them in a single layer on a silicon mat in the freezer. Store them in a box when they have been frozen. You can toast them straight from the freezer next time.
*For garlic crumpets, you can combine with the garlic butter here. Or just mix minced garlic with butter, spread them on top of the crumpets and toast them in the oven.
Happy baking! All suggestions and questions are welcome. Just write them in the comments.
All sourdough breads start life…. from a sourdough starter. Hehe. Ok, that was lame. Anyway, before you can bake a loaf of sourdough bread, you need the starter. The starter replaces the commercial yeast found in the normal bread. It is full of bacteria that do all the work in the bread for you and it is natural.
Creating a sourdough starter isn’t easy. Starting one that is gluten free is even more difficult. If you are leading a gluten free lifestyle, you will know that gluten free flours cost a lot more than the normal wheat flour out there, especially during the covid 19 lockdown period. They are even harder to find than gold! (exaggeration…)
I went through a lot of trial and error and trawled through lots of literature (online or in print, there are a lot of information on normal sourdough but very little on gluten free ones! So frustrating!) before I finally have a successful gluten free sourdough starter (which I named Scooby Dough) that doubles every time it is fed. By then, I have already used up sacks of various gluten free flours, literally, to create it.
Create a gluten free flour mix
I created a gluten free flour mix because I wanted my starter to be easily adaptable to any sourdough recipe and also imbued with various kinds of bacteria present in the different flours. You don’t have to do this. You can have a pure brown rice starter or a buckwheat starter or just a mix of 2 flours. The gluten free flours you can use are as follows : brown rice flour, buckwheat flour, sorghum flour, teff flour, millet flour. The most common starters are made of 50/50 brown rice/buckwheat. If you are allergic to any of these flours, just leave them out when creating the starter.
Setting up the gluten free sourdough starter
You will need :
– a sterilised clean glass jar or bowl with a cover
– weighing scale
– gluten free flour mix
– room temperature water (I have a filtration system at home, so I am using filtered water)
Day 1
In the morning, weigh out 20g gf flour mix, 20g water. Mix them thoroughly in a small bowl. The texture should be yoghurt like. Carefully, transfer the mix into the sterilised glass jar. Cover it loosely without screwing the cap. Leave it in a cool corner without direct sunlight.
In the evening, weigh out 20g gf flour mix, 20g water. Add them to the mix in the jar and mix them thoroughly. The proportion is always 1:1:1 – starter : flour : water. Put a rubber band around the level of your mix, so that you can tell if the starter has increased in volume and the amount of increase.
Day 2
Morning : Weigh out 20g starter, 40g flour, 40g water. Put the rest of the starter into a glass jar or container and keep it in the fridge. For the first few days, the bacteria has not been activated so it is not advisable to make anything with them yet. Wash the glass jar so that there aren’t any remnants in the jar which may cause mould to form. Mix everything in a bowl and transfer into the clean jar.
Evening :Weigh out 40g flour, 40g water and add them into the mix in the jar. Mix thoroughly.
Repeat the steps until your starter starts to bubble. This usually takes about 7-14 days. Once your starter starts to bubble, you can start using the discards in your fridge to make sourdough discard bakes.
Continue with the steps until your starter doubles in volume after 1 feeding. That means it is now ready for baking. Congratulations! You can give your pet starter a name (it is alive after all!) and start baking with it.
Q: What if it still doesn’t rise after 7-14 days?
A: Normally, it should. If it doesn’t, try replacing water with a fermented liquid such as yeast water, kombucha, ginger bug, whey. Another way is to add 5g of sugar every feed.
Meet my pet starter, Scooby Dough!
Here is a picture of my pet starter Scooby Dough! Look at all his beautiful bubbles! If you find it too tedious and expensive (gluten free flours aren’t cheap) to create your own starter, you can buy an offspring of Scooby Dough here! You can use it to bake immediately. It is a very versatile starter and you can also change it to a starter of your own liking because it has been infused with a variety of gluten free flours.
Hibernating Sourdough Starter in Fridge
If you find that you don’t bake every day and the sourdough starter can be a very hungry pet, just pop it into your fridge after your last bake. It will go into hibernation mode. Just be sure to take it out once a week and feed it once. Let it double in volume then put it back in the fridge.
Plan ahead for your bakes. Take the starter out of the fridge 1 day in advance and feed it once in the morning to reactivate it. If it doesn’t double after that feed, you will need to feed it again in the evening. Once it doubles, it’s ready for a bake.
I have never been good in the kitchen, be it baking or cooking. My home economics teachers can attest to that. It was extremely difficult when my little one was diagnosed with multiple food allergies, including wheat. I discovered that wheat was anywhere and everywhere. And the food industry in Singapore was poorly equipped to deal with such an allergy. So I didn’t have much of a choice but to cook them myself.
It has been a pretty amazing journey since. I don’t profess to be a master chef but the food have been decent enough for my little kiddos.
To me, baking bread is like the ultimate nirvana, not to mention sourdough. But now, I can even bake gluten free sourdough which is even harder than the regular sourdough because of the lack of gluten in it. So, if I (a complete baking idiot) can do it, I believe anyone out there can.
Here is a list of my gluten free sourdough projects.
I have been intrigued with fermented food ever since I came across it on my quest to cure 宝贝’s eczema. I have even brought love for fermented food further by founding Craft & Culture with Winnie, so that we can reach out to more people out there who loves it but have no time or passion to make them.
Here are some of the books that got me started on fermentation.
Sandor Katz is the Father of Fermentation. His books details the science behind fermentation and various kinds of fermented food. It’s not a pretty book though because it is wordy and doesn’t have many pictures to follow. But it is very detailed and is a wealth of information.
You may have noticed that I have been adding a lot of microgreens to my food recently. That’s because I have a mini microgreen farm, right in my dining room! And the hub nags all the time (yada yada!) that the microgreens must be used up within the same day or at most the next day to retain maximum nutritious value…. and ya, you get the picture…
So, all my friends started asking me how to set it up, how to grow it etc etc. I got tired of repeating my answers so, I am writing a post on it and answer everyone once and for all! If you still have questions, feel free to write them in the comment section and I will try my best to answer. 🤓
How it all started… the hub picked up a book on microgreens (not sure where, maybe from the library) and became utterly fascinated with the entire thingy. Apparently, microgreens yield 10x the amount of nutrients so a small amount is enough? Eh.. I didn’t read the book, I’m just taking his word for it, but it doesn’t address the fibre intake (IMHO). So he bought a little mini kit and started one tray of alfalfa for fun. This setup (including seeds and one tray….) cost about S$20…. I was like, “Waaa! Your microgreens very expensive leh!!!” But, the kids loved the alfalfa and so he was quite sold on the idea of it. 🙄 I found a setup on good ole Taobao for him. The entire things with rack, trays, grow lights etc etc only cost…. a fraction of what we would have to pay to get the same system in Singapore… 😑
It is a very simple setup made up of a rack and trays and grow lights. In fact, if you are very free during this CB period, you can DIY it.
I have received some emails on bulk buying. If there are enough of you who want to buy, I will check with the seller on this.
This is how our Microgreen setup looks like.
Simple right?
Now, what do you need to get started. Here are the tools of the trade.
The planting tray consists of 3 sections.
The green part where you fill it with water so that only the roots touch the water (and not the seed itself).
The white tray with holes where the seeds sit on. It’s better to get trays with smaller holes so that the smaller seeds don’t fall through the holes. Our early ones had big holes so they can only be used for the bigger seads like maple peas etc.
A transparent lid
Other essentials :
The seeds, of course!! You can see my seed stash on the bottom shelf of my rack. :p
A spraying bottle with fine nozzle.
Tweezer
Scissors (I have a smaller one that is better for harvesting the tiny crops like broccoli and alfalfa.)
The different attributes of the seeds
Every seed has a different soaking time, growing temperature, harvest height and number of harvests. The vendor which I buy the seeds from have these information on the packet. Or else, you can easily find these information on Google.
I will be using Radish as an example. Radish can be grown very easily. The microgreens have a bite to them, similar to the taste of the radish. The kiddos are not a fan of this one though. Radish seeds need to be soaked for 6-10 hours. The optimal growth temperature is 10-30 deg C which makes it suitable for it to be grown in our climate. They need to be harvested when they reach 6-8cm in height. The seeds are only good for 1 harvest.
4 Steps to growing Microgreens
Step 1: Soak the seeds. Check the soaking time on the packaging.
Soaking sunflower seeds
Step 2 : Spread them out evenly on the tray. Make sure you use the tray with the right holes. If you find that the holes are too big for your seeds, you can buy mesh from the nurseries and lay them over the holes so that the seeds don’t fall through. Cover the seeds with the plastic lid to keep the moisture in until the roots appear. Once the roots appear and reaches the water, remove the lid.
I couldn’t find any picture with freshly laid out seeds. These seeds are maybe 1-2 days old on the tray. Turn on the grow lights from 9pm-7am.
Germinating wheatgrass
Step 3: Changing of the water. Change the water in the tray every 1-2 days. It depends on the depth of your bottom tray. The roots of the seedlings must touch the water but the water level must be below the seeds or they will rot. Using the tweezers, turn the seeds with the roots growing upwards, so that the roots are growing down into the water. Remove the rotting seeds or they will start to grow mouldy and the mould will spread to the healthy seedlings and they will start to rot too. There will also be an unpleasant smell (the rotting food smell). Yep, we went through all that during our noob phase. The kids were complaining of an awful smell and we traced it to the microgreens…
Step 4 : Continue doing Step 3 until the crops reach the harvesting height and then it’s harvest time! Yay! For crops that yield more than 1 harvest, snip them off above the seed leaves aka the first 2 tiny leaves that sprout out of the seeds. They will continue growing for the next harvest.
The best thing about microgreens is that they are kept in a clean environment. The best time to eat them is immediately after harvesting! If you aren’t planning to eat them yet, keep them in an air tight container in the fridge. Be sure to eat them within 1-2 days for maximum nutrition and freshness.
maple pea shoots (dou miao)
Ways to eat the microgreens
As salads – Retain their natural sweetness.
Blended with smoothies or yoghurts. We blend them into our milk kefir breakfast every morning.
Stir fry them. Especially the thicker ones like maple pea shoots.
Toppings on all the dishes so that they look as though they are prepared in a Michelin restaurant.
Personal experiences with the seeds
Basically, all vegetable and most fruit seeds can be used as microgreen seeds. If you are feeling adventurous and would like to use the less common seeds, do check them out first so that you don’t poison yourself.
However, there are some seeds that germinate more easily and are easier to grow than others. We are still experimenting and trying them out. I welcome you to write in the comments so that we can share our experiences and make growing microgreens a fun affair!! What I deem as difficult may vary with other people’s experiences because it also depends on the freshness of the seeds. Fresh seeds have higher germination rates. I have categorised them into easy, intermediate and advanced. I haven’t tried the rest yet. Welcoming comments on them!
Easy
Radish, broccoli, maple pea, wheatgrass, carrot, alfalfa
Intermediate
Sunflower – The seeds grow at a different rate. So it’s difficult to get a nice crop. Ok, maybe I’m OCD, I like seeing them at the same height… But, I like the nutty flavour of the microgreens. That’s why we are still growing it.
Advanced
Pak Choy – low germination rate (it may be due to the quality of my seeds. Will try to get some from other vendors to verify this.)
Kang Kong – low germination rate
Green Pea – rots easily
Growing stats of the seeds
Soaking Time (ST), Harvest Height (HH), Number of Harvests (NoH). Pardon my translation. If you know the english/chinese names of the seeds, do let me know!
Broccoli 西兰花- ST 5-6h, HH 5-6cm, NoH 1
Green Peas 方绿豌豆 – ST 12-14h, HH 8-10cm, NoH 2
Radish 白萝卜- ST 6-10h, HH 6-8cm, NoH, 1
Kang Kong 空心菜 – ST 20-24h, HH 7-9cm, NoH 1
Wheatgrass 小麦草 – ST 8-12h, HH 8-10cm, NoH 2
Pak Choy 小白菜 – ST 4-6h, HH 5-7cm, NoH 1
Maple Pea 豆苗 – ST 10-12h, HH 7-10cm, NoH 3
Carrot 红萝卜 – ST 8-10h, HH 6-8cm, NoH1
Broad Bean 蚕豆 – ST 16-18h, HH 14-16cm, NoH 2
Vanilla 香草 – ST 4-6h, HH 4-6cm, NoH 1
Alfalfa 苜蓿 – ST 4-6h, HH 4-5cm, NoH 1
Broccoli microgreens. Because they are very small, they sit on a mesh to prevent them from falling through the holes.
The trial Home Based Learning (HBL) which took place on a Wednesday just before the Circuit Break (CB) period went terribly. There were tantrums, crying, shouting from children and parent (yes, only 1 parent, because the other parent locked himself away in his study room, oblivious to the chaos.). When MOE announced school closures, I was horrified…If I were to put myself through that every single day, there would probably be a murder before the week even ended.
I work better when I have a schedule and clarity of what is going to happen next. I decided that having schedules for every one (including myself) could preserve our (my…) sanity. There was an article which was aggressively forwarded on all social media to not impose a schedule on the children. I beg to differ on that.
So, on the day of the school closure announcement, I set the kids on a task – create their own schedules for a typical school day during CB. They needed to factor in time for HBL, time for extra work or enrichment class practice, exercise, meals, hobbies and of course PLAY! We used the Canva software to create it. Canva is so idiot-proof that my daughter was able to create an invitation card for her birthday party when she was 6.
Doing up their schedules on canva. Had to lend one of them my laptop so that they wouldn’t kill each other. Looking very serious…
They felt empowered and had a lot of fun doing up their schedules, choosing their own backgrounds, graphics etc. I had to tweak the timings a little. I simply couldn’t allow them to have meals as and when they please. What am I?! A Cafe arh?! Sheesh. And the HBL timings had to be staggered so they wouldn’t fight over the one laptop they shared.
宝贝’s schedule. She even included notes and reminders.
小小宝贝’s schedule. No frills. He only chose the template and didn’t know how to add the extra stuff like the doggy pics that his sister had.
They stuck their schedules at their study spaces, at eye level, literally smack in their faces.
Right in their faces… :p
So far, it has worked pretty well. Sometimes they finish their work earlier. They get more playtime, so that’s an incentive for them. But for slipshod work, they get playtime deducted. No more whining, pushing of boundaries, complaining la dee dah. Along the way, we have also worked in time for doing household chores and cooking. Meanwhile, 姐姐 is now the appointed IT officer for her brother whenever he runs into technical issues. Delegation, delegation…
So ya, scheduling has done wonders during this CB period and I have retained my sanity. With luck, they may even turn into junior masterchefs and spiffy cleaners before the CB ends… Keeping my fingers crossed. Looking forward to my days of kiao ka-ing when my minions can cook and clean the house!
I must really thank Juan (Check out her instagram @juanspantry for more recipes) for this wonderful gluten free Raspberry Almond cake recipe. Anyone who is on a gluten free diet will totally understand how difficult it is to find a tasty and yet gluten free cake! What’s more, it’s super easy to bake! This is especially important to me because I am such a dunce in the kitchen!
Ingredients for Raspberry Almond Cake (Gluten Free)
2 1/2 cups frozen raspberries, thawed
6 eggs
1 cup sugar
2 cups almond meal (or ground almonds)
Method for Raspberry Almond Cake (Gluten Free)
Preheat oven to 160 deg C. Grease a 16cm or 22 cn round springform cake tin. Line base and side with baking paper.
Place 2 cups of raspberries in a bowl and mash them with a fork.
Using a mixer, beat eggs and sugar on high speed for 8-10 mins or until thick and glossy. Gently fold in raspberries and almond meals. ALTERNATE the two until everything is combined.
Pour the mix into a prepared tin. Bake for 60 mins or until it is golden and firm. Cool it in the tin for 10 minutes.
Transfer to a wire rack for cooling. Decorate the top with the remaining raspberries. Serve.
Check out the centre of the cake. It’s moist and pink. The crust is a little crisped. Thumbs up from my kids. I am, henceforth, given the permission to bake this cake again. :p
I have been dying to make fresh basil pesto sauce every since I got my first rooted cutting from one of the nice members on the FB Urban Farming group.
I have been trying to propagate them through cuttings ever since I received it. Right now, I have 3 little basil plants and they need a trim. Their leaves are getting messy. Snip Snip snip!
I love the rich taste of this fresh basil pesto sauce. It is especially easy to do and all you need is just throw everything into a food processor. How much more idiot proof can it get??
Ingredients for Fresh Basil Pesto Sauce:
2 cups fresh basil leaves
1/3 cup nuts (usually pine nuts or walnuts are used, I used macademia because I only have those right now and can’t go out to buy others as it’s the covid19 circuit break now)
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1/3 cup of freshly grated Parmesean cheese (If you don’t have this at home, you can use Romano or Parmesean-Reggiano)
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Method:
Put the basil leaves and nuts into a food processor and pulse them until they are fine.
Add garlic and cheese to the mixture. Pulse.
Add olive oil. Pulse until mixture becomes a paste.
Stir in salt and ground black pepper to the paste. To taste.
Fresh Basil Leaves from my plants in the yard. How much more organic can it get!? :)
Texture of pesto mixture before adding salt and black pepper
You can add it to your pasta. Just lightly toss them on a warm pan. It also tastes very good on toasted bread and crackers. Or if you think your food is too bland and needs an extra oomph!
