I do a lot of gluten and dairy free baking but not a lot of that baking is biscuit based. I suppose the main reason for this is that gluten free biscuits are so expensive! I can but a pack of digestives for 30p whereas a smaller pack of gluten free digestives will cost me about £1.99! Still, I feel bad for Calum and Alasdair that they miss out on the sorts of traybakes that the rest of us enjoy and have recently adapted a couple of our favourites.
The first of these is this mint slice. It was a recipe given to me by my friend Bev. The handwritten copy she gave me has the title 'Green Stuff', but we call it 'Mint Slice'! The traybake has been a favourite of those of us who can eat it for a long time now and so it seemed easy enough to adapt to make it free from.
The resulting bake was a hit with both Calum and Alasdair, and the other boys said that they couldn't tell the difference between this version and the allergy packed version that they are used to.
So I think that makes it a success!
You will need:
7 oz dairy free margarine
2 tbsp golden syrup
2tbsp sugar
16 oz of gluten free digestives and rich tea biscuits - you don't need exactly half and half but roughly that will do. I use the Sainsburys own brand range as they are our favourites.
1tbsp cocoa powder
10 oz icing sugar
A few drops green food colouring (or paste)
1tsp (or a little more depending on the brand used) peppermint essence
10 oz dairy free 'milk' chocolate (we used Moo Free)
- Melt the margarine, syrup and sugar together in a pan.
- Crush the biscuits, either in a food processor or the old fashioned way, put them in a bag and bash them with a wooden spoon.
- Add the crushed biscuits and the cocoa to the melted margarine/syrup/sugar and stir together until everything is mixed well.
- Tip into a Traybake tin that you have lined with greaseproof paper and press down well until it's all tightly packed.
- Leave to cool and set for an hour or so.
- Now to make the green layer. You don't actually have to make it green if you don't want to add the food colouring but we like the minty looking-ness (yes, I know that's not a word) of it.
- Put the icing sugar, mint essence and optional colouring into a bowl and mix to a thick paste with some cold water. Because the strength of mint flavourings varies greatly depending on the brand, it's hard to say here how much you will need. Just keep tasting your icing until you get a strength you like. Start with just a little as you can always add more but not take out! Also, you need this to be fairly thick so that it will hold its shape when you slice it later on. Too runny and it will ooze down the sides. Having said that, if you make it too thick it will be hard to spread it on top of your biscuit layer!
- Once you have a spreadable, thick, minty icing then you can spread it on top of your cooled down and hardened biscuit layer.
- Let this layer set and then melt your chocolate in a bowl over a pan of boiling water. Or in a microwave, but we don't have one! You can choose any dairy free chocolate you like but we've recently discovered Moo Free as our local supermarket has just begun to stock it and I can't believe how much like 'real' chocolate it tastes!
- Spread your melted chocolate over the icing layer and once more let the whole thing set.
- Once your chocolate has hardened then you can cut it into squares and enjoy.
Looks delicious! I L O V E peppermint! I may have to try to make a sugar-free version...as I'm trying to avoid sugar for a while!
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