Inspired by the world cup?

 

 

Well I don't know what happened to my aim of at least one blog post a week, I guess the boring stuff just gets in the way sometimes.  I have been doing a lot of packing and unpacking recently as firstly we had a family holiday up in Scotland, then both daughters had residential school trips.  There was a lot of planning and worrying involved with my youngest daughters' 3 day trip to London as she is a carb counting Type 1 Diabetic and Coeliac.  Still she had a fantastic time, her blood sugars were better than usual, and they saw the Queen (twice!).  Each year as the girls get older there seems to be a bit more letting go to cope with and a few more grey hairs to boot! 

Anyway back to the baking and this week I was inspired to make a cake with a bit of a tropical feel with bananas, coconut and mango.  Not sure I can really claim it was inspired by the World Cup in Brazil as I'm not much of a football fan, but it seems appropriate.  This cake went down well despite not being very sweet.  It had a moist texture so could also be eaten without the topping.

Banana, Coconut and Mango Cake (Gluten free and low sugar)

 

 

Ingredients - makes at least 12 portions

• 150g gluten free self raising flour (I used Doves Farm)
• 25g coconut flour (or use extra self raising if you can't get hold of this)
• 1 tsp gluten free baking powder
• 50g ground almonds
• 50g desiccated coconut, lightly toasted 
• 50g Tate & Lyle Light at Heart, a brown sugar and stevia blend
• 2 medium mashed bananas
• 2 eggs
• 200g mango yogurt (I used Yeo Valley) OR vanilla OR plain greek
• 125ml sunflower or rapeseed oil
• 2 tbsp milk

For the topping (optional):

• 200g quark OR ricotta cheese
• 1 tbsp Splenda granulated or other sweetener to taste
• tinned mango to decorate (those with a sharp eye will notice that I used apricots instead!)

1. Preheat oven to 180C / Gas 4.  Grease and base line a 20.5cm /8in round tin with baking parchment.
2. Sieve together the self raising flour, coconut flour, baking powder and ground almonds into a large bowl.  Stir in the desiccated coconut and Tate & Lyle Light at Heart.
3. In a separate bowl or jug lightly whisk together the eggs, yogurt, milk, oil and mashed banana.  Add the wet mixture to the dry ingredients and gently whisk to combine.  You should have a mixture with a soft dropping consistency.
4. Scrape mixture into prepared tin, level and bake for about 35-40mins or until golden brown and a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes then turn out on to a cooling rack to cool completely.
5. To make the topping beat together the quark or ricotta cheese with your sweetener of choice.  Spread over the cooled cake and decorate with mango slices.  Store in the fridge.

Assuming you cut the cake into 12 portions, I estimate there are roughly 20g carbs per portion, but this will change if you substitute any of the ingredients.