This

Cake

Is

AMAZING.

I try and eat paleo all the time (that’s another post in itself), and it makes me so sad because I love cake. So much. Until now everything I’ve tried to bake that loosely conforms to the “rules” of paleo has tasted either like a bit of a brick or a combination of wallpaper and baking soda. So pretty much I used to just give up and make evil refined sugar cake.

This cake is AMAZING. So satisfying thanks to the dense almond flour, the coconut gives it a real good crumb, the perfect amount of sweetness (once you eat low carb for a while then you will start to find regular baked goods way too sweet) and best of all made with completely natural ingredients with no refined carbohydrates or nasty vegetable fats. And so easy! One bowl – well two really because you have to melt the butter in something but just whack everything in and mix. You don’t even have to worry about over or under mixing. I actually prefer this to my all time favourite, white sugar and white flour packed banana cake recipe. CRA-ZY.

I’ve adapted this recipe from Paleo Gourmet

3 cups almond flour
1/2 cup desicatted coconut
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup butter, melted and cooled
2 tsp raw honey *this amount is up to you. 2 tsp won’t  be enough for some but I recommend starting with it and seeing how you go.
3 large eggs
1 tablespoon real vanilla extract
80g very dark chocolate chopped or chips (we use lindt 85% or 90%)
4 very ripe bananas, mashed
1/4c raisins or sultanas (optional)

 
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees/180 celcius.  Line a 8″ square tin with baking paper.

In a large bowl, mash the bananas. Mix in the eggs, melted butter, honey, chocolate bits, raisins and vanilla. Add the almond flour, coconut, salt, and baking soda. Mix everything really well.

Bake for 20 to 35 minutes, until the cake is golden brown and springs back to the touch.

I’ve calculated the nutritional info as one cake makes 12 servings which are really very generous servings.

Each piece has 9g of protein, 25g of fat and only 7.5g of sugars. If you’re into calorie counting (you shouldn’t be) – 322 calories per serve. And those sugars are coming from fruit and a touch of natural honey, nothing else.

*Disclaimer – I know a lot of people will consider bananas to be not paleo and yes they are high on sugar/starch, and I certainly wouldn’t recommend eating a ton of them but they are a far better alternative than sugar or any sweetener ever in my books.

A lot has changed since I last posted my banana cake recipe, oh my gosh, that was almost FOUR years ago… I had a full time job as a programmer, I was going to the gym heaps, living in an apartment in Auckland with my husband of one year. I baked those banana cupcakes late at night and took them to work the next morning, I can remember that time so well… but it feels like an absolute lifetime ago.

This time I made this cake with the help of my son, standing on his little step beside me he is the best kitchen assistant anyone could ask for. Sure I have to double check what’s in the bowl every time I look away for rouge cars or spoons but he measures ingredients for me, cracks eggs, mixes and is a great taste tester.

I’ve made this many times over the years (oh god this makes me sound really old) and each time we change it up a bit, chocolate chips, spices, wholemeal flour… it’s a fab recipe.

Banana Cake

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees (350 farenheit) and prepare your cake tin or muffin pan.

125g butter
1 cup sugar <- we use brown but you can use whatever is in the cupboard
2 large free range eggs
3 medium bananas <- use some nice ripe ones from the fruit bowl
2 cups flour <- try replacing up to half of this with wholemeal
1/2 cup chocolate chips <- totally optional
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon of mixed spice
1 teaspoon of vanilla

Beat the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time beating well after each one.
Throw the bananas into your mixer and beat well. Or mash them and mix them in.
Add the rest of the dry ingredients and mix until all the flour is just incorporated.

Pour into tin or pans and bake until the middle springs back when pressed, about 12 minutes for muffins and 25 for a cake.

Get cake all over your face and enjoy!

I always have so many amazing ideas about making all these incredible presents for everyone and wowing everyone with my DIY skills, unfortunately every year my DIY efforts are more like DIYfails…

This year I’m as un-organised as ever (if not more so) and frantically knitting away some Christmas stockings, baking like a crazy woman and trying to cross things off my list.

That’s my token (yet unfinished – how timely for this post) gingerbread house for this year, next year – use a template! Cut more carefully! I’ve finished a ginger and cherry panforte and need to complete the white chocolate fig version as part of my handmade Christmas efforts. Then, some jarred mincemeat and mince pies…… oh yeah, need to buy presents too!

If you don’t know what these are, go and buy one. And at the same time buy 2 x 500g packs of stoned dates (£1.34 from tesco each) and some pecans (£4.49 for 300g… ouch more than I remember) and then you can make 37 of your own (pretending you make them exactly 35g each) for £7.17 opposed to £26ish.

You can  make these way way cheaper by using cashews instead of pecans – I just way way prefer pecans. There are infinate variations, add other dried fruit, add cocoa, cinamin, spices, whatever you fancy. I think this would be a great project for little ones to help out with, such a fun texture to mash up and relatively mess free. And they are making food!

You will need -

A food processor
Dates (I use 1kg of dates per 300-400g of nuts)
Nuts (pecans are our favourite, cashews work equally well)
Any extra ingredients you want – cocoa powder, chocolate chips, dried fruit etc.
A willing taste tester always helps:

Chop the nuts in your food processor. You don’t want to grind them into dust, just into nice chunky pieces that should look something like this:

Then tip them into a bowl (use a large bowl to save on washing up later, one that you can fit everything into), and put all the dates in the food processor (you might have to do this in batches, depends on how powerful your processor is.
Blend/Pulse the dates until they are really mashed up, they should start sticking together into a ball. Often you will hear a really nasty sound while doing this and it is probably because there is a pit (stone) or two in your bag of dates. Usually best to stop processing and fish it out because it can scratch up your bowl pretty bad. The dates should eventually look something like this:

Next step is to grab handfuls of the dates and knead them into the chopped nuts. It’s a bit trial and error at first but you will quickly figure out the amount of nuts you can incorporate into the dates. I just use my hands and fold/knead lumps in. You don’t want to mix too many nuts in or else it will crumble when you make them into bars. At the same time you don’t want to put too few in or else it will just be a sticky date bar. Mine look something like this when they are finished:

Mmm attractive. Insert gross joke here. Once you have incorproated all the dates into the nuts or vice versa you want to start shaping them into bars. You can really make any size or shape that you want, depending on your needs. I tend to make my bars quite large, as Reuben loves these and would quite happily eat them all day if I let him. That way I can have one in my bag as an emergency meal…

I lay out a piece of clingfilm and roll a log in between my hands, then flatten it onto the clingfilm, and wrap it up:

Then the most important step – squash it really hard with a book:

And that’s it!

I store mine in the fridge, I think they would be fine unrefridgerated but I have no idea of their shelf life… after all they are just dates and nuts. Enjoy!

2 whole oranges
2 whole lemons
Boil & Puree above.

5 large eggs
315g (1 1/2 cups) caster sugar
200g (2 cups) almond meal
75g (1/2 cup) flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 160°C.
Use an electric beater to whisk the eggs and 215g (1 cup) of the sugar in a large bowl until thick and pale. Use a spoon to stir in the orange mixture. Add the almond meal, flour and baking powder, and stir until just combined. Pour into the prepared pan and use the back of a spoon to smooth the surface. Bake in preheated oven for 1 1/4 hours or until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean.

While cake and syrup are hot and still in tin pour syrup over cake and leave to cool in tin.

Syrup
1 Lemon
1 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup water

Place zest of lemon and juice in small saucepan. Add sugar and water and heat while stirring until sugar is dissolved. Heat for a further 3 minutes until thickened slightly.

Time is of the essence for me at the moment. In between feeding, changing and playing with my baby (and changing and changing and changing), there is precious little time to do anything other than get myself showered and dressed – some days I even fail to do that!

I find most cheesecakes very easy to make except for the part where you must have patience and leave it to chill down overnight. This is no exception and the combination of white chocolate and raspberries is heavenly.

Like any baked cheesecake this must be made the day before you want to eat it.

ease:  4/5
mess factor:  3.5/5 – few bowls to clean up
cooking time:  1 hour
total:  11 hours

taste: 4.5/5

Ingredients
1 x 250g packet of biscuits
100g ground almonds or hazelnuts
150g melted butter

750g cream cheese (3 x 250g packs)
140g (2/3c) caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla bean paste or extract
3 eggs
200g good white chocolate chopped into chunks
200g frozen raspberries

Grease a 20cm springform pan. Place biscuits, ground nuts and butter in the bowl of a food processor and process until finely crushed and well combined. Transfer mixture to prepared pan. Use a straight-sided glass to spread and press mixture firmly over base and side of pan (Try to get it all the way up the sides – I was using the wrong size pan). Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 30 mins.

Preheat oven to 160°C. Use an electric beater or mixer to beat together cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Use a spatula to gently fold in chocolate and raspberries.

Pour mixture into the biscuit base. Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour until just set in the centre (Gently shake the pan, the middle should still wobble a little). Turn oven off. Leave cheesecake in the oven, with the door open a crack, for 2 hours or until cooled completely (this *should*prevent cake from cracking). Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge overnight to chill.

This was a cake for my friend Melissa who turned 12 years old last week.

Inside the cake was what I normally bake when I am not sure of someone’s preference, layers of chocolate and vanilla cake with a chocolate buttercream.

I have only been in London a few weeks and already I have hunted down two French patisseries for the sole purpose of buying macarons. Last week when we were in Canary Wharf for interviews I stumbled upon Paul and bought a giant macaron. Unfortunately no one was sure what flavour it was, and even after sharing it and eating it neither of us had figured it out. The texture however was devine and it was far richer than the Ladurée ones, but obviously very bland. I think the huge one from Paul was 2 pounds something, and roughly equates to 3 or so of the little Ladurée ones which were 9 pounds 80p for 6 + a pretty box. Ouchie.

After discovering last night that there are two Ladurée shops in London – First stop today was Harrods. Which of course is packed full, mainly with tourists, and looks to have quite a cool food court with people chowing into these amazing looking gelati/sundaes.  But I wasn’t there for any of that and in fact we made it through the ground floor in possibly record time to end up in Ladurée.

Hubby helped me pick out 6 little macarons – here is my verdict. (L-R in pic above)

Orange Blossom – hubby chose this flavour and although I wouldn’t have done so myself I quite like it. The green ganache slightly put me off but it does taste very floral.

Salted butter caramel – Third place? Almost sticky ganache, with a scorched caramel flavour.

Vanilla – rich with vanilla seeds, although tastes slightly pasty almost. On second thoughts the aftertaste is of an amazingly rich vanilla icecream.

Chocolate -Thick and rich with a nice deep ganache. I give second place to this guy. I think this may actually have been bitter chocolate, they didn’t have both available and this is light and not so sweet.. I wonder.

Rose – amazing rose flavour, super fluffy ganache almost like whipped cream, consistency too thin for my liking but still devine, strongly rose scented and tasting like turkish delight.

Pistachio – My favourite, densest and delicious, with a nice texture. Mmmm.

All in all amazing! If you want to make me happy – buy me macarons. Pistachio ones if you are too scared to choose

Is it sad that my goal is to try all the flavours? Haha. The berry ones, and of course lots more pistachio ones And to be fair, I must of course compare with all the ones from Paul and then Pierre Herme when in Paris!!

One of the reasons I didn’t mind so much moving to London was that Paris was apparently so close by. Now I am yet to discover that nor see any cheap way of getting there, but I made an amazing discovery, there are not one, but two Ladurée stores in London. Ladurée and Pierre Herme may or may not have been two of my biggest driving factors to go to Paris…

image from http://www.laudree.fr

I’m really annoyed I missed seeing bodyworlds it closed just before we arrived here. There is an exhibition on at the welcome collection called “Exquisite Bodies” which is sort of not really similar, well, its wax models anyway and has the added bonus of being free.

Bottom Cake flourless chocolate and orange with dark ganache frosting
Top Cake carrot and macadamia cake with cream cheese frosting

The decoration was rushed and gross, I find it way too hard to decorate a cake iced with cream cheese so it came out a bit of a disaster.