Easy Egg and Dairy Free Cake

Well our days here have been very busy as we have finally got our house-bus and are in the midst of preparing everything to hit the road.  It is super exciting however it is also a bit mental at times so I have been trying to find ways to  get everything done in the best possible way.  The recipe I’m going to share is one that is around on the internet and is a very basic chocolate cake which we have been using as a stand-by last minute recipe for a while now.  It is a very easy recipe to whip up and is particularly good if you need something for ‘egg-free’  friends or if you need to bake many cakes without breaking the bank buying eggs. 🙂

This recipe is a favourite with my daughter too and she often whips it up when she gets the baking urge.  It also is good for baking as cupcakes as well as a whole cake.  We have even eaten it warm from the oven with berries and cream for a pudding … in fact it is very versatile and fail free which is why I thought I would share. I think the original recipe had a bit more sugar in it which we have reduced down as we were consuming less sugar and so could taste the sweetness in things more.  I have put the original recipe here the best I can remember (before I just wrote out the recipe my daughter uses) and then our adaptions in brackets.

Too good (and warm from the oven) for herself to resist.

Chocolate Cake (Egg and Diary Free)

• 1.5 Cups Flour (both wholemeal and white work)
• 1/2 Cup Sugar (we usually use honey and have also used dextrose which can make it a little crumby)
• 1/8 Cup Cocoa
• 1 Teaspoon Baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 Cup oil (any oil that you like … we use Olive)
• 1 Cup water
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence (also made with other ‘flavours’ )
• 1 Tablespoon vinegar (white vinegar though I’d sure any would be fine)

-Mix the dry ingredients

-Add the wet ingredients

-Mix very well to ensure there are no ‘pockets’  of flour

-Pour into a lined cake tin and bake at 180C for 20-25 minutes

-Ice, sprinkle with icing sugar, decorate with berries or leave plain and ENJOY.

 

Hope this finds you all well and enjoying the changes of season happening around us all.

Arohanui

Y

www.becominghealthy.co.nz

Caffeine Free Chocolate

There is something about chocolate’s creamy consistency and smell which gets me sooner or later.  However when I gave up sugar a few years back (when I was very good about it and avoided it completely that is)  I found that the sweet sugary smell was actually too much for me.  Instead of being attracted I was actually repelled??!!  That is when I came across a few recipes for raw chocolate that didn’t have all the additives or case loads of sugar in it.

The chocolate recipe (which is also DF, refined Sugar free and caffeine free)  I’m going to share has been a work in progress for a while.  You see it has not been that successful and so it gets stashed away for a while until I feel the urge to try for a healthier chocolate again.  Recently though with a birthday coming up, and after consuming some very expensive carob bears, I thought about my chocolate recipe again and the possibility of making it caffeine free by using carob instead of cacao powder.

Not a great photo sorry of the delicious little morsels. 

As I said before it hasn’t always been successful.  My biggest problem was that the ingredients won’t blend fully and then would separate during cooling leaving a layer of cocoa butter.  Anyway with a lot of ‘holding my mouth the right way’ and effort I managed to create some caffeine free chocolate from only 3 ingredients.  In fact I have managed to make it on more than one occasion and had rave reviews even.  So, I thought to myself, time to share …… however the recipe wasn’t that willing.  I couldn’t quite believe that I had got it to work several times and now when I wanted to make and photograph the chocolate for the blog it wouldn’t co-operate!  Arrrgghhhh??!!

I’m not very good at letting things go though so I persevered and finally got it to work again.  The recipe below is what I used and the steps however I am giving you the heads up that the said recipe is a little temperamental …..  Too much stirring upsets it as does adding ingredients in a different order…. well that is my experience so far 🙂 .  It really is too delicious not to share though so here it is.

• 75 gm of cocoa Butter
• 2 Tbs runny honey
• 4 Tbs carob powder

-Get your moulds ready so that you can pour the warm chocolate straight away.

– Melt the Cocoa Butter in a small pot.

-Take off the heat, add the honey and give a small stir

-Slowly add the carob powder stirring in small amounts at a time until it is all added.

-Pour into the moulds and refrigerate.

-Enjoy

Hope this finds you full of appreciation of the good things in life and I’d love to know how you get on!

Arohanui

Y

http://www.becominghealthy.co.nz