At home on a summery Saturday evening.  Husband proposed a deal.  A cake for a cocktail.  Done I said ….

There are many stories about how the heart came to represent love, and of course Valentine’s Day. One suggests it came from an illustrated verse, written in the 13th century, that depicts a poetic lover handing his beating heart to his beloved. The image shows his thumb making an indentation in the top of the heart, thus creating the symbol we all know today ….

Making pastry can be a tricky undertaking at the best of times. Cooks talk about having ‘pastry hands’.  Indeed, hot hands, air temperature and even humidity can have a role in success or failure.

At the Coeliac’s Revenge we’re pretty good with pastry and really love making and eating it. So when tasked with producing an excellent gluten-free pastry we were up for the challenge ….

Oven crisis is always a consideration when planning a Christmas feast and as roast potatoes are always a must, we’ve decided to remove them from the oven ….

Roast kumera with ginger juice and olive oil makes a very tasty combination. For a bit of razamatazz, we’ve hasselbacked our kumera and added garlic and golden shallots to the roasting pan for an attractive Christmas vegetable accompaniment ….

This is an easy but delicious entrée for Christmas that can be prepared ahead of time. It was inspired by a dish from Ester, a truly wonderful Sydney restaurant, where, to intensify the flavour, the beetroot is cooked, then dehydrated, then roasted again. The result is sensational, but to minimise the fuss we’ve simply roasted the beetroot ….

Make a big batch of Sauce Gribiche for Christmas and you’ll be surprised how versatile it is. Made with hard boiled eggs whisked with vinegar and olive oil and combined with gerkins, capers, mustard and herbs, it’ll be a fabulous addition to your Christmas larder ….

Here’s a very simple but delicious take on Duck a L’Orange for Christmas. Easy for large numbers, our roast duck breasts are a perfect balance sitting atop a crisp salad of shaved fennel, crunchy toasted walnuts, peppery rocket and warm orange slices ….

Turkey means Christmas to many but it can be a battle to prepare and cook well so we’ve taken the fight out of the bird ….

Christmas means summer to us here in Australia, and in perfect accord with the hot holiday weather is the abundance of fresh summer fruit that accompanies it: mangoes, pineapples and papaya, cherries and raspberries, grapes and guavas, peaches and nectarines, and many more exotic fruits too ….

Jan, our resident coeliac, has said that one of the sensations she has missed most is crunch. Our gluten-free lavosh have crunch. Lots of crunch. They crunch bigly. ….

Bite into one of these understated little morsels and you’ll be surprised by their unexpected interior.

Happily, they combine the sweet richness of creamed almonds with the deep, savoury, chocolate flavour and crunchy texture of cocoa nibs to produce a beautifully balanced petit four ….

Trekking in Peru, everything was amazing. The people, the views, the ancient culture, the altitude, the mysterious stonework everywhere, the pisco sours, even the barbecued guinea pig. Then there was the Tres Leches Cake – that was amazing too ….