Bitter Sweet Tahini Cookies
Adapted from Deliciously Ella Quick and Easy
50g ground almonds
1 teaspoon of baking powder
3 tablespoons of gluten free flour
65g tahini
3 tablespoons maple syrup
2 tablespoons water
Pinch salt
Preheat oven to 180 degrees centigrade. Place grease proof paper onto a baking sheet.
Put all ingredients into a bowl and mix until smooth. Chill in fridge for 10 minutes. Make dough into a ball then split onto half then divide each half into three. Roll each portion into a ball and press down into a cookie shape on the baking sheet.
Bake for 5 minutes then turn round in the oven then bake for a further 5 minutes or until golden. Cool to serve.
Choco almond hunks
200g almonds
3 tablespoons of date syrup
2 tablespoons melted coconut oil
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
120g desiccated coconut
30g sunflower seeds
200g dark chocolate (70%)
Rub coconut oil into a small baking dish.
Put almonds in food processor and grind for 5 minutes (stop for a while after a few minutes if the processor gets hot). When the nuts become soft like a butter or are ground smooth add the date syrup, coconut oil, vanilla, and a pinch of salt. Blitz to combine. Add the coconut and sunflower seeds and blitz again.
Boil a kettle and add a small drizzle of water if the mixture is not sticky enough to hold together. Push into baking tray so it is about 2cm thick and put in the freezer for a few minutes.
Break the chocolate into a bowl and put over a saucepan of hot water to slowly melt. Take the almond mixture and score into hunks. Serve hunks out onto a baking sheet and press together into squares if necessary. Put back into fridge or freezer. Make sure the chocolate is melted smooth then wait until it is cool and not too runny. Take the hunks one by one and holding one side with forks or fingers dip into the melted chocolate and lay back onto baking sheet. Drizzle remaining chocolate over the top and add a pink of salt crystals to the chocolate hunks if you wish. Put into the fridge to cool.
Coconut, mango and cardamom cream pudding/ breakfast
Serves 2
4 pieces dried mango
4 dried apricots
seeds from 2 cardamom pods
1 cup desiccated coconut (250ml American cup measure)
1.5 cups water (250ml American cup measure)
1 teaspoon of rapadura or sugranat sugar (optional)
ground cinnamon to garnish
Soak all ingredients together for 1-2 hours. Then just blend until smooth and creamy. Serve with a garnish of cinnamon. Voila!
Apricot and Banana Bread
285g Doves Farm plain gluten free flour
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
110g coconut oil or butter, plus extra for greasing
90g Sucranat (raw cane sugar)
100g apricots sliced in thinly
2 eggs
4 ripe bananas mashed
85ml oat milk
1.5 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
Preheat the oven to 180c/ gas mark 4. Sift the flour, bicarb, and salt into a large mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, cream the butter or coconut oil and sugar together until light and fluffy. Mash the bananas and add the to the chopped apricots then to the flour mixture with the eggs, oat milk, lemon juice and vanilla extract. Mix everything together well.
Grease a 20cmx12.5cm/8in/5in loaf tin or similar (mine was wider) and pour the cake mixture into the tin. Transfer to the oven and bake for about an hour or 70 minutes or until well-rise and golden brown on the top. Remove from the oven and cool in the tin for a few minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely before serving.
For the cake:
2x400g of butter beans (or 500g of home soaked, cooked and drained beans)
240g honey
The seeds from 1 vanilla pod or 1.5 teaspoons of vanilla extract
4 free range organic eggs
100g ground almonds
2 teaspoons of baking powder
100g melted coconut oil
A pinch of salt
For the lemon icing (optional):
200g silken tofu
2 tablespoons coconut oil
The juice and zest of 1 unwaxed lemon
2 tablespoons of set honey
1 teaspoon orange blossom water
Preheat the oven to 190 degrees centigrade/ 170 if fan/ gas mark 5. Get all your ingredients together, and grease and line a 20cm springform cake tin. Drain the beans.
In a food processor blitz the drained beans, honey and vanilla seeds until smooth, then add the eggs one by one, pulsing as you go. Tip the whole lot into a mixing bowl and gently fold in the ground almonds, baking powder, melted coconut oil and a pinch of salt. The batter may be a little looser than you’d expect from a cake batter, but don’t worry.
Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 45-60 minutes depending on your oven. The cake is ready when it is golden brown on top, firm to the touch and a skewer comes out clean.
For the icing if using, put all the ingredients into a blender and blend until very smooth and shiny, scraping down the sides from time to time if you need to. This will take about 3-4 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and pop into the fridge to set while the cake is cooking and cooling.
Once the cake has had its time, take it out of the oven, leave it to cool for 5 minutes in the tin, then cool completely on a rack.
Once cool, top with the icing and either grate over lemon zest or top with candied lemon. To make candied lemon peel, peel the zest off a lemon, drop it into boiling water for a couple of minutes, then transfer to a pan and add a couple of tablespoons of maple syrup. Place over a high heat for a couple of minutes, until the peel becomes translucent. Transfer to a greased- lined plate and don’t touch until cool.