Last week I was invited down to Canderel HQ in Battersea for a bloggers tea party with a twist – everything would be sugar free and we’d actually be making the dishes ourselves, under the guidance of Emma Lewis, a professional chef and ex editor of BBC Good Food.
Canderel’s testing kitchen is a baking emporium in a delightful stone terraced house with the kind of quintessentially English garden terrace that could have come straight from the pages of ELLE Deco.
A small group of food bloggers including Kavey Eats, He Cooks, I Eat and Le Dolci were invited and after chatting over some cocktails and juice in the garden, we put on our aprons and got to work.
We started with a walnut loaf, which was pretty easy to make (admittedly our ingredients were already measured out) and had hints of orange zest and sweetness from the Canderel.
Next up was chocolate brownies and as a long-time hater of beetroot, my heart sank when I had to chuck into the blender the three angry-looking purple balls. We tried to overpower the offending vegetables by scraping the chocolate bowl for all it’s worth.
The highlight of the afternoon tea was the Strawberry Trifle made with Cantucci biscuits, a mixture of ricotta and low-fat custard and strawberries dusted with Canderel – all layered up in martini glasses and garnished with mint.
Finally, Emma demonstrated how to make a quick and easy chicken tagine that would be ready in 15-20 minutes – perfect, fuss-free cooking for after a long day at work. She fried the onions and Moroccan spice Ras Al Hanut, added a can of chickpeas and canned tomatoes, followed by diced chicken breast. The tagine was served with barley cous cous, flavoured with squeezed lemon juice, olive oil and coriander.
Once all the dishes were ready, everything was brought out on exquisite china plates and we tucked right in. The Chicken Tagine was really scrumptious and I could have easily wolfed down another plateful. There was no distinct taste of sweetner, as it blended in well, and the Canderel would replace the honey, dried apricots or prunes that are usually found in cous cous.
The walnut loaf was soft and dense and the orange zest worked really well with the nuts. With the sweetner, one or two slices is enough, otherwise it may become a little bit sickly. It seemed to be in between a savoury bread and a cake, so perhaps it can be best described as a ‘tea bread’. It was served with a zingy apricot compote that Emma prepared before the evening.
The Strawberry Trifle was absolute heaven and the Cantucci biscuits were an interesting alternative to the usual sponge fingers. Yes, there was no jelly involved, but the creamy, thick texture of the ricotta and low-fat custard more than made up for it.
I still need a bit more convincing with the Chocolate Brownies – they had a very earth, strong taste due to the beetroot and cocoa and while the texture was good, they needed some extra sweetness. To me, they are a bit too much of a calorie sacrifice, especially when the Strawberry Trifle still tasted so decadent.
So the mission of the evening was to change my mind about Canderel and banish those childhood memories of drinking my dad’s tea by mistake and wincing at the eye-watering taste. Before coming to the event, I also had a few chuckles about the episode of Friends where Monica has to rustle up some tasty recipes for Mocklate, the chocolate substitute (note: Canderel is actually safe for human consumption, unlike Mocklate).
I have to say that I was impressed with the recipes and their calorie busting substitutes and in most dishes, the Canderel couldn’t be detected and blended in perfectly. I was given a box of Canderel sachets with vanilla to try out and I’ve already used them three times this week on sliced strawberries.
There are plenty more recipes on www.canderel.co.uk and I am planning on baking some of the breakfast muffins this week. With my holiday to Valencia just a few days away, and the impending threat of the swimsuit, I’ll add in wheat-free flour to the mix and see just how well the Canderel holds up…I’ll report back with the results soon.