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.

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.

After a little snowboarding incident on the weekend (check out my sling – and yeah that is a fairy costume hehe)

I’m at home for a few days, and I’m not really supposed to be using my arm at all.. so I embarked on some easy one arm baking these are my new favourite oaty cookies, and you can swap out the dried fruit for any dried fruit of your choice, ditto for the nuts, so they are super adaptable.

180g / 1.5 sticks + 1 tblsp butter
1 1/3 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp mixed spice
2 2/3 cups rolled oats
180g dried apricots, chopped into approx 4 pieces each
1/2 cup sultanas
1/3 cup pecans or any nuts, very finely chopped

Preheat oven to 392°F (200°C).

In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, egg and vanilla until smooth and fluffy. In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, spice and salt together. Stir this into the butter/sugar mixture. Stir in the dried fruit and nuts.

Put the mixing bowl in the fridge for about half an hour or for as long as you can stand (you can skip this step but your cookies may be a little flat and not as chewy).

Place on a COOL (very important) baking sheet with the same space between them as the width of each ball of cookie. Bake them for 10 to 12 minutes until golden at the edges but still a little undercooked-looking on top. Let them sit on the hot baking sheet for five minutes before transferring them to a rack to cool.

If you wanted to make these super super awesome times four, then you could add chunks of white chocolate, about 100grams or as much as you wanted really, cut into fairly large chunks so as to not affect the texture of the mix too much. I only had a tiny amount of white chocolate but its like a jackpot when you get a cookie with chocolate in it!! mmm.

This is based on the famous Sour Cream Coffee Cake by Rose Levy Beranbaum. It has a super rich eggy batter which bakes into a moist soft tight crumbed cake, topped with a layer of sweet apricots and then a golden crumble topping.  It looks time intensive but it comes together very fast.

Click on more to see the recipe…

Streusel
1/3C packed brown sugar (2.5oz/72g)
2 T granulated white sugar (1 oz/26 grams)
1 cup walnuts or pecans (I used pecans) (4 oz/113 g)
1 ½ t cinnamon½ cup flour (2 ¼ oz/65 g)
4 T softened unsalted butter (1/2 stick/2 oz/57 g)
½ tsp vanilla

Batter
4 large egg yolks
2/3 cup sour cream (5.5 oz/160 g)
1 ½ t vanilla
2 cups flour (7 oz/200 g)
1 cup granulated sugar (7 oz/200 g)
½ t baking powder
½ t baking soda
¼ t salt

1 can apricot halves (or real fruit, or any fruit you feel like)

Prepare a 9 inch springform pan by lining the bottom with a circle of parchment paper cut to fit, and then greasing the rest. Preheat the oven to 350 F/180 degrees C.

In a food processor pulse the sugars, nuts and cinnamon until the nuts are coarsely chopped. Remove ¾ cup to use as filling. To the remaining add the flour, butter and vanilla and pulse briefly to form a coarse, crumbly mixture for the topping.

In a bowl, lightly combine the yolks, vanilla and ¼ of the sour cream. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl (or your kitchenaid) combine the dry ingredients and mix on low speed for 30 seconds to combine. Add the butter and remaining sour cream.
Mix on low speed until the dry ingredients have been moistened and then increase to medium speed (high speed if using a hand mixer) and beat for 1 ½ min. Scrape down the sides as needed.

Gradually add the egg mixture in 3 batches, beating for 20 seconds after each addition and scraping the sides each time.

Remove from the mixer and use a spatula to fold the batter a few times, making sure that the very bottom and the sides all incorporate evenly. Reserve about 1/3 of the batter and scrape the rest into the prepared pan. Smooth the surface with a spatula—this is a thick cake batter and will require smoothing.

Sprinkle with the prepared streusel filling and then layer the fruit over that.
Dollop the rest of the batter into blobs over the apples slices and smooth it out with a spatula if you can, mine was too thick so I just left it in blobs which looks cooler anyway. Sprinkle the streusel topping over the top of the cake.

Bake for 55-60 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.
Let the cake cool in its pan on a rack for 10 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Well my husband came home slightly intoxicated tonight. First question: Do we have any more pie? Me: haha no you ate it all last night. Hubby: (standing in front of fridge) I’m going to make sticky date pudding!! Me: (staring in disbelief) um, okay? Do you want me to make you something? Hubby: (guilty look) Yes please baby!!

Haha OK that is a slightly shortened version but he is really cute. And a huge fan of toothsome desserts with fruit. So we didn’t have very many dates, and I hugely improvised this recipe with amazing success

Pudding:
100g dried dates (pitted)
150g sultanas – you can vary the quantities of the sultanas/dates as long as they add up to 250g.
1 tsp baking soda
250ml/1 cup water

125g butter at room temp
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 3/4 cups flour

Coconut Caramel Sauce:
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1 cup coconut cream

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Place dates, raisin and baking soda into a bowl. Pour over boiling water. Using an electric mixer, beat butter, sugar and vanilla until pale and creamy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Fold through date mixture and flour until just combined.

Spoon mixture into casserole dish or cake pan. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Pierce holes in top with a skewer and then pour some of the syrup over the top.

To make the sauce: place sugar and water in a heavy based saucepan. Heat over medium heat until dissolved, stirring often with a wooden spoon. Once all the sugar is dissolved, stop stirring and heat until mixture turns golden brown. This will take about 8 minutes, but I looked away and mine burnt slightly.

Once it is brown, pour in coconut cream. It will bubble and sizzle like crazy but stir it anyway for about 3 minutes until all incorporated and thickened. Remove from heat and store leftovers in a jar in the fridge.

Pâte Sucrée is delicious and so easy to make yourself, you will never buy it ready made again.

The only thing you need to respect is to not overwork the dough.

This recipe is not as traditional as I did not have the full measure of almonds, so I added the finely sliced zest of one lemon to make up some of the difference, and the taste comes through very strongly.

300g salted butter, at room temperature
190g icing sugar
30g ground almonds
seeds from 1 vanilla bean
2 eggs
500g plain flour
finely chopped zest 1 lemon

Assemble all ingredients before starting.

Beat butter until soft and creamy in KA or by hand.

Add icing sugar, ground almonds, lemon zest and vanilla seeds. Beat until combined.

Add eggs one at a time, beating between each one until fully incorporated.

Remove from mixer if using and add all of the flour. Gently combine until dough is just crumbly but just holds together, do not overwork or it will be tough and chewy instead of flaky and crispy.

Divide into 3 balls, flatten gently and wrap tightly in gladwrap. Chill for 2 hours before using.

The dough can now be stored in the fridge for 2 days, or in the freezer for a month (Defrost fully in fridge before using).

I have refridgerated most of this, but I had to make a special treat for hubby.. a quick messy freeform strawberry pie which by all accounts was delicious!

most people underestimate the importance of protein in their diet. Protein is a vital part of a healthy diet and has way too many benefits for me to bother typing out, but a large benefit of making protein part of every meal is that protein requires more energy to digest and makes you feel “full” for longer.

1 medium banana
10 feijoas
30g whey protein isolate (or your protein of choice)
ice

peel the banana and add it to your blender. add the flesh of the feijoas, and blend until smooth. add the protein powder, ice and a spash of water. blend until ice is crushed and smoothie is thick.

So surprising how some things just taste so good together. Cheese and chutney, marmite and chips, tomato sauce and everything.. haha.. Feijoas and Bananas are another awesome combo. And real vanilla bean.. although you can substitute 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract if you want. Nice way to celebrate the first day of a new job… I feel like a proper grown up. Onto my second real job.. it’s all good.

10-20 feijoas, halved and scooped
1-2 ripe bananas sliced small
seeds of 1 vanilla bean
2 tablespoons of brown sugar
1 tablespoon of butter

1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup coconut
1/2 cup oats
50g butter at room temperature

Mix fruit and vanilla seeds in an ovenproof dish. Sprinkle brown sugar over and dot butter on top.

Mix all dry ingredients in a deep bowl. Cut the butter into rough pieces and rub it into the dry ingredients with the tips of your figures until well mixed in.

Crumble this mixture over the fruit in an even layer. Bake for about 20 minutes at 180C until you can see the caramel mixture bubbling just under the crumble. Let cool slightly before serving.