Sorry for the gap in posts! Life has been very life-y. I changed jobs, visited family and one of my wisdom teeth has turned out to be the source of all evil- currently quite uneven faced. So…. though I am seriously sugar free at the moment in order to give my immune system some chance of winning the battle against invading forces, here is the as promised the almond cake! Gluten free of course. The base recipe is similar to my last few cake ones, I guess I am really liking the texture the coconut oil gives to the cake. Springy and moist with good structure.

Almond cake- wish I had vegan vanilla ice-cream with it

Almond Cake- gluten free & vegan of course!

• A full cup or 200g of apple blueberry puree (or apple puree and add a some mashed blueberries)
• 4 scant dessertspoons of org cold pressed coconut oil
• Just under half a cup of rapadura / sucucant/ turbinado sugar
• Half a teaspoon of apple cyder vinegar
• Half a teaspoon of almond extract – 1tsp if you like it intense
• A third of a cup of buckwheat flour
• Two thirds of a cup of ground almonds
• Half a cup of fine maize meal
• A pinch/ eighth of a teaspoon of Himalayan pink salt/ fine sea salt
• A generous tsp of vanilla powder/ a pod/ extract
• 1 teaspoon of cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon of aluminium free baking powder
• 1 teaspoon of aluminium free bread / baking soda

Method:

Preheat your oven to 170C. Prepare a 20cm/ 7.5 inch cake tin

Put your fruit puree and coconut oil in a perspex / heat proof bowl and put it in the preheating oven for a few minutes to melt.

Meanwhile prepare all your dry ingredients. Sieve your baking powder and soda incase of lumps.

Take the oil and fruit puree out of the oven and mix in the sugar, stir until it dissolves. Next add in the apple cyder vinegar and almond extract.

wet and dry

Put your dry ingredients into the wet. Mix gently, just until there are no lumps.

Pour into you tin, make sure it is evenly spread. Place in the centre of the oven- or slightly to the right for me as the left is hotter.

Bake for 25mins (fan) or 30 min. Done when it is coming away from the sides and if you put a skewer in it and it comes out dry.

If you want to make cupcakes take 5mins off the baking time! O and put a dab of oil in your cupcake liners to stop them sticking to the paper.

Lemon Icing

• 2 big teaspoons of org cold pressed coconut oil
• The zest of an organic unwaxed lemon
• Half a cup of vegan icing sugar
• Five teaspoons of fresh lemon juice

Method:

Mash the coconut oil until soft. Add the lemon zest.

Press out any lumps in the icing sugar and add to the coconut oil. Mash press and mush them together. The sugar and oil take a bit of work, gradually begin adding the lemon juice and it will turn into icing.

Lemon icing

I put it on the cake when it was still a little tepid- so it melted a bit. Normally I would advise leaving it cool completely- but actually the fact it melted a little into the cake was nice!!

I will also be putting up a fermented cauliflower recipe next- which I will be partaking in -lots – for the good bacteria, enzymes and yeasts! I will defeat you yet tooth!

Xs Aissa