Tuesday 21 February 2012

Using Tamarind

I got an e-mail from my contact at Healthy Supplies the other day offering to send me out some Tamarind, and to let them know what I think I could use it for and what I thought of it, well never one to turn down a challenge I said yes please, well it arrived today so I set to in the kitchen.

Tamarind is described as

Splitz tamarind paste is a convenient way to add tamarind to your cooking. Tamarind is a fruit and has a sour lemon-like flavour with a tartness similar to cranberry. It adds flavour to curries, chutneys, rasams, sauces, marinades and beverages.
This tamarind paste is made by boiling down the tamarind in water and then filtering it to remove large particles. The tamarind liquid is then heated, to evaporate the water, leaving the concentrated tamarind paste.


Well being a baker more than a cook, I racked my little brains as to what I could use it for - well today is pancake day so I made Tamarind pancakes, using just a bog standard egg, milk, flour and Xylitol mix, to some of which I added the Tamarind. It looks and behaves very much like molasses, didnt affect the cooking ability of the product, but added a very nice fruity flavour, almost like plum to the finished product. I also added a few raisins and dribbled golden syrup on them, and served with blueberries.




We also left some of the mixture plain, and served these rolled up with strawberries in. You would not know these are "healthy sugar"















I put some thought into what else I could make and with me being me thought....cake

So I made a double quantity of basic victoria sponge,
( but this time used the fruit sugar adjusting for recommnded amounts) baked 1/2 of it in 2 sandwich tins, and once cool made a butter icing using 2 oz marge, 8 oz icing sugar and 2 dessert spoons of tamarind, and it is beautiful, sweet and again very fruity.


Lastly I used the other half of the cake mix to make a fruit loaf. I pre-soaked some vine fruits in tea 1 hr before I needed them, and added the soak fruit and 3 dessert spoons of the Tamarind.


This made for a very moist cake, tasted like fruity molasses, and all were appreciated by oh. Just dont tell him they are low sugar!!

I also took samples of all  across the road to S (E's mum - Bobs new friend) for her to sample and feed back on.


So there you have it - a totally different use for an ingredient that is usually used in cooking main courses.


This product was supplied to me free of charge but the findings and ideas are my own, and not influenced by this.



Look my cakes made their newsletter and then their article on Tamarind on their website, why not have a look and see other peoples ideas for the product


8 comments:

  1. The cake was delicious! Had a slightly tangy, citrus taste to it- which I really really like.Both slices were finished last night :~D The fruit loaf was very moist- I thoroughly enjoyed it with a cuppa this morning. But, I thought the taste of the tamirand mix gave the loaf a different flavour than it did to the cake. Didn't seem quite as tangy, maybe? But both were fantastic!

    E liked the e-friendly biscuits too- but is sure there is a coffee flavour in there somewhere? She mentioned that she is slowly becoming used to the idea that foods baked by other people are safe for her to try- given that she has spent 17 years being very wary of the dangers of ignorance to allergies!

    I think its often under-estimated that there is a HUGE impact on the development of relationships amongst children with food allergies being able to trust others. A difficult area to resolve- and very little support from professionals to resolve it, too!

    Thanks again for sharing! :0)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. thanks Sammykins, glad you enjoyed them. There was no tamarind in the cream cake, just the cream. Nice to experiment on people that can appreciate my weird baking!
      Never thought of the impact of my baking for E, got all this to come with Bob!! but yes we the same, when people who have no concept of how serious cross contamination can be then you dont take any risks, which is why when I pop over with stuff I always make you aware of what is in each and then you can make the final decision as to whether they are safe. No no coffee in the biscuits, 45g cocoa and 5g carob as didnt have quite enough cocoa.
      Glad the baking is helping E accept other people can cook safely for her.

      Delete
  2. mmm they look really tasty :)
    Reply

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have tasted one Tamarind and i must say that is really delicious, i tried to cook one but i failed :(

    ReplyDelete
  4. yummyyyyyyy. I like the taste of tamarind.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I have eaten tamarind to many times. I really like it very much. I can eat it at daily basis.

    ReplyDelete

Nice to see you stopping by. Thank you for your comment and I hope you stop by again.