Tag Archives: coeliac

Simply Moorish

26 Apr

As readers of Gluten Free by the Sea will know I am extremely keen to spread the word about (good) small local gluten free producers.  I was recently lucky enough to be given some gluten free muffin and cupcake samples from Simply Moorish, and I’m pleased to be able to add another such company to the list.  Simply Moorish is run by Helen Jones and is based in Ivybridge on the outskirts of Dartmoor, hence the clever company name.

SimplyMoorish

Simply Moorish produce a range of foods including soups in addition to the sweet treats, and also produce bespoke cakes and wedding cakes as well as products to cater for weddings and functions.  Helen is happy to cater for any dietary requirement, and uses fair trade and local ingredients where possible.  She does produce “normal” cakes so I was keen to establish what cross contamination controls were in place before recommending the products to my readers.  I received this great information from Helen:

  • I ensure that I do not work within the same area of the kitchen as I do when using gluten products. If I do have to make use of additional cooking space I ensure that this space has been thoroughly cleaned down before so.
  • I use an independent selection of kitchen utensils when baking with gluten free products.
  • I store my gluten free base products, adequately labelled, in a store cupboard all of their own so as to avoid cross contamination.
  • When I purchase my flours and additional ingredients I aim to bag them separately when shopping.
  • I only use Doves gluten and wheat free flour for baking and I am confident that this product has consciously been produced.
  • Transporting products. When selling via wholesale I make sure that my products are packaged in sealed cake pods to avoid contamination from other items within the same chillers.
  • When selling items open, I use the same lined wicker based trays to display my products.

These controls are enough to satisfy me, but obviously coeliacs should make up their own mind based on this information.  I have had these products several times no with no ill affect.  Secondly, I always like to know what inspired a producer to start specialising in gluten free food so I asked Helen the question.  I enjoyed her response and I am sure you will too.  Helen said:

“I embraced gluten free baking when I was asked a couple of years ago when I was trading at an outdoor event if my products were suitable for coeliacs. At this time I was solely making cupcakes. The person asking was the mother of a child. His eyes were transfixed on the sweets, sprinkles and glitter on my cakes and you could tell he so wanted one! This got me thinking, why should he be deprived of such an indulgent treat. I weighed up the demand and undertook some tasters and took some gluten free products to my next outdoor event. The comments and feedback were great. Even to this day, people will walk past my stall at market and comment amongst themselves, with a surprising tonne, ‘ooh, gluten free!’ and turn swiftly to get a better look and make a purchase.”

SimplyMoorishMuffinsAs for the products themselves I really enjoyed them.  My sample box included a lemon and poppyseed muffin, blueberry muffin, cranberry muffin, coffee date and walnut cake, a vanilla cupcake and carrot cake.  Everything had great texture and flavour and was very well presented.  My personal favourites were the muffins.  I’d not come across any locally made gluten free muffins before, and the shop bought ones can often taste over processed.  I’ve been back and bought the muffins as well as some delicious and fantastically decorated chocolate cupcakes a few times now.  I can highly recommend these cakes and it’s good to see another local producer coming up with great gluten free products.

You can buy Simply Moorish products at Ivybridge Community Market, which runs at the community hub in Glanville’s Mill.  The market itself was co-founded by Helen with Jo Jopling, and runs the first three Saturday’s of every month.  Gluten free muffins and cupcakes have also recently become available from our friends at Plymouth Greengrocer.  Helen is also on the lookout for more wholesalers for her Simply Moorish products.

For more information on Simply Moorish see their website, Facebook or Twitter.

Kevin, Gluten Free by the Sea

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Green Taverners Fun Day

15 Apr

A rare opportunity to talk about my favourite subjects at the same time; Plymouth Argyle and gluten free food.  This Sunday, 21st April, The Green Taverners will be running another Fun Day.  The Taverners have done some amazing work over the last few years, supporting the club through troubled times, supporting the unpaid staff through administration and putting on some great events for supporters.  This Sunday’s event will be raising money to send the youth team to the Northern Ireland Milk Cup, as well as supporting other community projects.

The event will run from noon till 5pm, and will feature Quasar combat, a bouncy castle, rides, fun bus, sumo wrestling, face painting, assault course and emergency vehicles.  There will also be an opportunity to meet the Argyle players, live music and there will also be football including an Argyle Legends game.  The bar will also be open in The Green Taverners suite, and there will be food outlets and stalls.  Entrance fee is £5 adult, £3 child or £10 for a family ticket (2 adults, 2 children).  Everything is included in the entrance price apart products from the bar, stalls and food outlets.

The gluten free aspect comes from our friends at Plymouth Greengrocer who will be running one of the stalls.  They will have lots of their gluten free goodies to both sample and buy.  Further info below from them to whet your appetite:

“On Sunday 21st April we will be attending The Green Taverners Fun Day at Plymouth Argyle, Home Park.

We are delighted to let everyone try our gluten free products, as well as our Devon Steak Pasty, we will have for the first time a very delicious Cornish Pasty made for us by The Madhatters in Cornwall.

Our marquee will be full of gluten free sweet and savoury delights to sample and buy, including fudge, cup cakes, muffins, tray bakes, you will also be able to buy freshly baked gluten free Devon Scones, served with Janner Jam and Clotted Cream from Devonshire Farmhouse, delicious!

You can also taste our new gluten free Pork and Beetroot with Horseradish Chutney Pie made with chutney from JB Preserves, Ivybridge.

As always we support local producers and we will be sampling and selling produce from Janner Jam, A Piece of Cake Bakery, Edes Pickles, Burts Crisps, Simply Moorish, Baked to Taste and The Madhatters.

We will be giving away vouchers to visitors at our stand giving them 10% off their next purchase of gluten free foods in our marquee at Chaplins Superstore, Plymouth or on-line on our website.

It’s going to be an exciting day, live music, fairground, meet the players, charity football match, come along and join us, the weather is looking good for next weekend.”

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Let’s hope Julie is right about the good weather.  Sounds like it’s going to be a fantastic event, and I hope to see some of you there.

Kevin, Gluten Free by the Sea

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Plymouth Coeliac Group

9 Apr

This Saturday (13th April) is the AGM for the Plymouth Voluntary Support Group for Coeliac UK.  The meeting will take place at The Woolwell Centre, Darklake Lane, Woolwell, PL6 7TR.  The meeting will start at 2pm.  Easy and free parking is available, and there is a £1 voluntary entrance fee.  There will be a talk by Coeliac UK Dietitian Kathryn Miller, and friend of Gluten Free by the Sea Lisa Hackett will also be present selling her delicious Let Them Eat Cake gluten and dairy free treats.

This is a particularly important meeting, as this is a pivotal time for the Plymouth Group.  Group Organiser Alice Williams and Database Administrator Vivien Johnson are stepping down after years of great service to the group.  Treasurer Harry Booth will also be stepping down.  I’d like to personally thank them for their service.  What this means is for the group to continue in its current form we must find at least three volunteers to fill the roles.  The group organiser role could potentially be split between more than one person.

I have volunteered to take over from Vivien as the Database Administrator, and I hope that we can find at least two other volunteers to fill the Organiser and Treasurer roles.  I would really like to see the group survive, and I hope that someone will be able to step up to work alongside me to make this happen.  This is an opportunity to inject new blood and push the group in a new direction after the great work done by Alice and Vivien in recent years.  If you are interested, see contact details for Alice below, or contact me directly.

For further information, please see communication from Alice below.

Kevin, Gluten Free by the Sea

CoeliacUK_logo

Dear Member,

It’s time for the April meeting and with it the AGM. I hope that you will be able to come. Do bring family or a friend for company. We are meeting at The Woolwell Centre, Darklake Lane, Woolwell, Plymouth, PL6 7TR. We will be in the smaller hall. There is free parking and it is best to park up to the right of the building as the side door will be open for us.

The Woolwell Centre is off the A386 in the north of Plymouth. Turn off at the Woolwell roundabout for Tesco. Take the 3rd exit off the next roundabout and travel along Woolwell Road for half a mile. Reach another roundabout and take the first exit along Pick Pie Drive and within a short distance you’ll find Darklake Lane on your left. It’s a small narrow lane and after 200 yards and a sharp right corner, you’ll find the centre’s car park.

To start the meeting off Kathryn Miller, one of the dietitians with Coeliac UK, will up-date and talk to us about recent research, good practice/training for caterers and also answer and discuss any dietary questions.

Then we can get going with the AGM with a short report of the last year, the finances and the election of the committee members.

Once the business is over there will be tea/coffee/juice and biscuits provided for you.There will be a raffle with a maximum of 10 prizes but please note. . . . WE ARE NOT HAVING OUR USUAL BRING AND SHARE TEA.

Please bring your spare gluten-free prescription goods which are still in date for new members to try out.Let Them Eat Cake (run by Lisa Hackett) will be attending with her delicious variety of sweet and savoury vegetable based food for sale.

Further details: As you know I am standing down as group organiser at the AGM and I’m hoping that there will be someone out there who will take this on perhaps sharing the jobs with another. As a committee we haven’t necessarily filled all the posts that we could have had, due to a lack of members coming forward to offer their help. The good news is that Kevin Gollop will replace Vivien Johnson who has run the data-base for many years. He has also kindly offered to take on the Restaurant etc. list and to keep our page on the Coeliac UK website updated. You may already have looked at his blog http://gfreebythesea.me which was mentioned in the recent Spring Crossed Grain p.51. Harry Booth our Treasurer would also like to step down.

For the group to carry on it is vital that we find at least 2 more replacements. If not then the group is suspended and gets administered by Coeliac UK. After about 6 mths they contact all the Plymouth group area members to see if there is enough interest to restart the group and that means enough members prepared to volunteer their time to enable that to happen. It would be sad to see the past efforts of the group go to waste. So to save Coeliac UK the extra administrative work. . . .WHY NOT VOLUNTEER YOURSELF? It needn’t be for very long but it could enable the group to continue in the meantime.

  • Dates coming up are – Awareness Week 13 – 19th May – possible Information Stall at Sainsbury’s Marsh Mills Next new members on Sat in late June also at Sainsbury’s Marsh Mills Sat. Sept. 7th Food Fair run by Torbay Group 10am-4pm at English Riviera Centre Torquay
  • Finances after the last meeting continue to be good despite having to pay for the hall. The Woolwell Centre will be half the price by the way but when the committee met recently it was felt that we should return to the Postgraduate Medical Centre in the autumn to try out what it is like now that there is no parking available nearby. Unfortunately they were booked up for this meeting in April. So there is £416 (approx.) in the bank, and £147 was raised at the last meeting with outgoings of £235. Since then Vivien and I have reduced the numbers being contacted by the group so our postage and printing costs will be much less ie.down from 270 to 70. If you do not have access to a computer and emails, perhaps you have family, friends or a neighbour who would be happy to receive them and pass them on to you. As a group we are not able to pass on as much information to those members who can only use the postal route.

So I hope to see you on the 13th and on a lighter note, shall sit by my phone waiting for that all important call to say that you can help the group continue by volunteering some of your time! Thanks to the support of the other committee members and their dedicated imput, I have enjoyed my 4 years as group organiser. It’s been very worthwhile getting the new members meetings going and also the famous Restaurant list which has grown from 43 entries to what it is today thanks to all you members who pass on information to me.

Alice Williams, Court House, The Crescent, Crapstone, PL20 7PS 01822 859269 coeliac.plymouth@gmail.com

Group Organiser, Plymouth Voluntary Support Group for Coeliac UK

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