Blackberry cake of extreme yumminess

We've gone all a bit hedgerow happy recently. Alex has been busy making sloe gin and today we added a modest but plump and juicy blackberry harvest to our supplies.

I decided, in part inspired by the great British bake off no doubt, I'd like to make these blackberries into a cake of some description. A sugarless, eggless, flourless cake to be precise. A sugarless, eggless, flourless cake that tasted of coconut and almonds to be even more precise.

No pressure then! Piece of cake - well, hopefully. 

So I searched on the interweb for AGES and found nothing I liked. So, I gave up and decided to make it up myself. 

Anybody who knows baking knows this is not a wise plan. Baking is a very precise, scientific thing requiring just the right ratios of this that and the other. 

Anybody who knows gluten free, vegan, sugar free baking knows the above applies, and some. 

Anybody who knows me and my style of cooking will be expecting the worst here - I don't like measuring and fiddling about. I like chucking things in and seeing what happens. 

So I had found a recipe after all - a recipe for disaster!

HOWEVER what I managed to create was one of the most delishscrumpdyplumptious things ever EVER.

I'd love to tell you the recipe or how I did it, but I didn't write it down!

It went a bit like this:

Combine 1 cup spelt flour, 2tbs flaxseed, 1tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp salt, cinnamon. Then I chucked 'some' ground almonds, coconut flour and dessicated coconut at it too. 

In another bowl mush up a banana, add 1 cup coconut milk, 1 cup ( ish ) apple purée and some pure maple syrup. Melt some coconut oil and add that in along with some vanilla extract and almond essence. Bung in the blackberries. 

Stir the whole lot together and chuck more wet stuff at it if it looks like it needs it. 

Told you my version was very scientific!

I baked it in a loaf tin at 180 for 35mins but it was still a bit wobblesome so I ended up cooking it for another 15 mins odd. Then left it to cool for 10mins before taking it out and stuffing it in mouth as it was SO nice. 

 Gooey, moist, sweet and fruity. Delicious on its own or with Greek yogurt. Yum yum yum and no sugar or lardy nasties in sight. 

I am really rather proud of this but expect I shall never be able to recreate it again! If anyone else manages it do let me know. :). 

Pretty on a plate

Having made up my own nectarine and goats cheese salad the other day, I decided to try and stick more closely to the Hemsley and Hemsley recipe today.

I bought some beautiful flat peaches at the local market, defrosted some peas and got going.

The original recipe has fried yellow courgettes in it but I didn't bother with those, just didn't fancy it.  I also changed the dressing as I couldn't imagine how an olive oil and balsamic dressing would work with the flavours so quickly shook up some olive oil, honey and apple cider vinegar.

It looked SO nice.  I just wanted to sit and look at it. I even got my best plates out in honour of it's prettiness.

So, even though I already posted about my first self concocted version of this salad, I feel compelled to post about this even prettier version with about 8 million photos of its loveliness.

Co-yum!

Since Alex mentioned there was a new yogurt out made just from coconut milk, I was looking forward to trying it.  He found one in Clerkenwell Waitrose the other day so bought two.

WOW!


It is SO delicious.  Creamy, coconutty yuminess.

But, at £1.60 each and 13g of sat fat per 100g (and a pot is 125g), it's not exactly the light option where either the wallet or the waistline are concerned.

One for the odd treat pile I think...

...or maybe I'll just try making me own.  Watch this space ;)

Something for the Weekend

Whilst I normally make myself a smoothie for breakfast during the week, at the weekends I like to make something a bit more special and brunchy for the both of us.

I love an indulgent breakfast, whether it's eggs benedict on a lovely, squashy muffin, or a big fat almond croissant or a stack of pancakes drizzled with maple syrup. Mmmmmm.

What I don't love, though, is how eating those things tends to make me feel.  Mostly greasy, dirty, sluggish and bloated.  With a headache.  Nice.

So, I like to find ways of creating delicious, indulgent breakfasts that taste just as yummy and feel like as much of a treat as their naughtier cousins, but are in fact much, much nicer to my mood and body. Sometimes that's by making things up myself, other times it's following recipes, or a bit of both.

Today we settled for pancakes and chose a grain free pancake recipe using coconut flour which you can find here.  I had some coconut flour in the cupboard from an experimental banana bread I made a while back so I dug it out.

I fully intended to follow the recipe properly as pancakes can be a bit funny, but Alex mentioned getting some flaxseed into the mix so I did.  Only the packet sort of slipped in my hand and I ended up chucking rather a lot more flax in than I intended which meant the mixture then looked a bit dry.  Having seen a load of recipes for greek yogurt pancakes earlier this morning I decided to counteract that dryness by chucking in a few spoonfuls of greek yogurt too.  So now nowhere near the original recipe. Oh well.

Anyway, they did take quite a long time to cook and didn't hold their shape that well.  That could be the coconut flour as it is a tricky one, or it could be my flax addition.

Texture wise they weren't as light as they could have been or others that we've tried...but again that could be because we totally fiddled with the recipe!

However, once we'd chucked on some berries, greek yogurt and pure maple syrup, it was just the yummy, indulgent, filling breakfast we wanted without any of the manky side effects or guilt of its less healthy alternative.  (Still prefer the banana and almond meal version I made once before, if only I could find the recipe...)

Go-to Gravel

Well what a busy week.

Have swum in lakes and rivers, cached like a mad thing (25 in one day at one point!), kayaked in the pouring rain, walked in the countryside and spent an entire, sweltering day sorting out the garden.  Today's mammoth kayaking jaunt saw us in the thing for nearly 4 hours, against the wind and the current and up a cut that looked anything but navigable.  But we survived and saw 2 kingfishers in return, even if it did mean not eating lunch until about 5pm.

So, not massively surprising that my back, which had mentioned to me earlier in the week that I ought to just be careful, decided to pay me back and seized up with a vengeance.

Which meant that when Alex came home, quite rightly in search of dinner, there wasn't any.

"It's ok, I'll just get a takeaway" he offered.  "No", I said, best wifely martyr face on, "I'm sure I can rustle something or other together."

My favourite (shop bought) dressing

Determined not to be beaten by any of aforementioned setbacks, I shuffled about the kitchen grabbing a selection of random things and assembled them on a plate.  I say random, I did at least attempt to make sure there was a vegetable contingent and a protein contingent (got to love keeping a stash of tinned beans of various descriptions for such moments). Luckily my husband is not of the variety that insists on there being meat on the plate before it is deemed meal worthy.

Turns out I accidentally made a decent enough salad in less time than it would have taken to say "chicken fried rice" (which I guarantee he would have said, had I not made him dinner).  Thanks to a packet of ready made gravel, without which it would have been a bit light and empty and husband would have been hungry again a few minutes later.

Gravel is what my mum and brother label any kind of weird (to them) and wonderful (to me) grain/pulse/wheat type concoction they find in my fridge. I think today's mix included quinoa, blugar wheat, lentils and soy flakes (which sounds vile but is nice).  Apparently my brother was once heard declaring

"There's no point looking for stuff to eat in Emma's fridge, all she has in there is gravel."

Well, gravel saved the day today and will continue to remain a staple in my basked and my fridge so there.

A date with dates

WOW!

There are no words to describe how absolutely delicious the smoothie I just made was.

I was lying in bed perusing my pinterest board trying to decide what to have for breakfast.  Give the smoothies a rest and just have berries and greek yogurt?  Try the fruit salad with avocado that a good friend recommended to me yesterday on the back of my avocado post? Some variety of clever gluten/egg/etc free pancake?  Something to do with the coyo (yogurt made with coconut milk) that Alex bought me home yesterday (SO excited to try that), a wholemeal bagel with peanut butter (may have overindulged a tad last night, not sure the berries are quite going to cut it!)...

Then I remembered a whole heap of recipes I've seen using dates recently and that I had bought some the day before to experiment with a few, so I ended up settling on this recipe for a banana, date and almond shake on DeliciouslyElla.

Woah Wah Wee Wah!

Translated as gosh, that really was incredibly yummy.

You can follow the link above for the actual recipe.

As per usual, I didn't really bother with the whole recipe, measuring thing.  I had a brief glance at the ingredients then just sort of went from there.  I had actually run out of almond milk so I substituted with coconut milk...not the stuff in a tin, you can buy it in cartons like almond milk, soya etc as a dairy alternative.  Alpro have just started doing one available in supermarkets but there are several other brands such as Koko.  I bought some maca powder yesterday having never tried it before so seeing the recipe suggested adding some for added energy, and feeling in need of any help I can get in that area thanks to a busy week, not sleeping so well and mild over indulgence last night, I went for it.

When I first made it using the ingredients suggested, I found it quite runny (I may have used too much milk given I couldn't be bothered to get the measuring cup out to do it accurately!), so I added half a trusty avocado which not only added a few more super nutrients, but also made it super thick and creamy.

Good enough for an early morning, unwashed, no make-up selfie!

I have to tell you, it was so so delicious.  If, like me and my brother, you used to (pah, who am I kidding? Still do!) like licking the bowl/spoon when mum made cakes, then you will LOVE this.  I'm not joking, it tasted exactly like that gorgeous indulgent cake mix taste.  It didn't last very long in my glass!

The only thing is, I'm not as convinced health wise about this one.  I know the ingredients are all very good for you and are full of lots of lovely healthful benefits but I'm a little bit funny about any kind of dried fruit because of the high sugar content, so coupled with the sugar from the banana and the fat from both the nut butter and avocado (which admittedly I added myself), it certainly doesn't pack as much of a healthful punch as the green smoothies I normally drink.  To be honest I don't really mind the fat bit, but I'm not so keen on eating so much sugar first thing in the morning.

So, I think this one will be for occasional guilt free indulgence as opposed to an every day staple.

I already know that next time I have a craving for some kind of oreo milkshake or some such other naughty concoction, I will be getting out the blender and making this instead...I might even experiment with adding some cacao next for a chocolatey kick...

Hello sunshine

While I enjoy making up my own meals, I also collect hundreds of recipes I intend to try out one day.  This mango and cashew smoothie from DeliciouslyElla is one such recipe.  I love a smoothie for breakfast and love messing about trying new combos, but sometimes it's nice to try something tried and tested from somebody else.  Plus I absolutely LOVE mango, it is sooooooo nice. And so sunshiney yellow.

I was really looking forward to this one and had my first go yesterday.  I even bought some of the famed chia seeds I've been wanting to start trying and using (those aren't compulsory for the recipe so don't let that put you off).  I got everything in my blender ready, then realised I didn't have any limes.

As a result, the smoothie was lovely and creamy and did taste nice, but I thought it lacked something so decided to try it again this morning having now purchased said limes.

Second time round (now also with a smidge more cashews) it was definitely much better.  The recipe makes quite a big portion so very filling too!

For somebody who's been drinking green smoothies for a while, it didn't blow my socks off.  It was very nice, but no nicer than others I've had really.

BUT, for anybody who's yet to enter the green smoothie world, it's absolutely excellent.  Nothing about it tastes even vaguely green yet it has a whole big handful of spinach in it.  It tastes sweet, creamy and yummy like a milkshake or just a really nice fruit smoothie but is so so good for you.  The consistency is really lovely too thanks to the exact right mix of almond milk vs fruit, the banana and cashews ,and the chia seed gloop it up a bit nicely.

So, if eating spinach or anything else green for breakfast scares the hell out of you, or drinking vegetables sounds totally revolting to you, do try this smoothie and you'll be converted instantly.  Apart from the chia seeds all the ingredients can be found in any supermarket, big or small.  The only thing is, when buying almond milk, pick the one that says 'unsweetened' or else you're getting a whole load of added sugar for no reason.  Alpro do one which is stocked in every supermarket I've been in (some of the smaller ones might not carry the unsweetened variant but my Tesco Metro does).  If you fancy trying the chia seeds too, I got mine seeds at Holland and Barret but any health food shops or online whole food places will do them

If you're feeling brave, mess about trying different combos.  Bananas are a great base as they're so sweet and creamy, avocados have the same effect but aren't quite as sweet, spinach is a good green to add, or kale but I find it doesn't blend down as well and has a stronger taste.  In fact I think I'll try a kale and quinoa smoothie recipe I've spotted next...