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.

Egg-stra special !

It's been a busy week with my lovely in-laws coming up to visit us for a few days.  Having visitors gave me a good excuse to try out a recipe I spotted in a library book recently.  The book was called 'Blood Sugar - The Family' by Michael Moore, a chef and also diabetic.  There were a number of interesting looking recipes but the 'Not so naughty chocolate cake' caught my eye especially as it claims to be low fat, low GI, high protein and low sugar!  I was curious to know whether it also tasted good.  My in-laws do not normally eat reduced sugar, gluten free cakes so I thought this would be a good test. 

Not so Naughty Chocolate Cake

 

I cannot claim this recipe as my own so I should point you in the direction of the following link www.mindfood.com/recipe/not-so-naughty-chocolate-cake/.  I only made a few minor alterations to the recipe, substituting gluten free ingredients where necessary i.e. flour, cocoa and chocolate.  I used frozen raspberries inside my layers and some gluten free mini chocolate eggs to decorate.  My daughter described my cake as looking 'rustic'.  I think I know what she means as I had a bit of trouble slicing my sponge into three layers.  Next time I'll do that bit before I start on the wine!  Still I think it looks okay and more importantly it did taste good! 

Orange and chocolate, a match made in heaven

There seems to have been extra things to worry about this week, as 'big school' and the 'big wide world' loom for my daughter.  I'm sure she'll cope fine, but I may be grey haired by Christmas!  Anyway in order to take my mind off such things I have been experimenting again with mixed results.

I tried out a couple of recipes with my oranges before finding something we all really liked.  The first one got an "okay" which translates to "nothing to write home about", whereas this one got the official thumbs up and requests for more.  The topping was an experiment as I've seen other soft cheese used to decorate cakes and ricotta seems to work very well too.  Don't forget to store the cake in the fridge in a sealed plastic box.

 

Chocolate and orange loaf  (Gluten free and lower sugar, though not sugar free)

 

Ingredients:  (makes around 8 slices)

• 50g spreadable butter
• 80g gluten free self raising flour
• 1 tsp gluten free baking powder
• 20g Truvia sweetener
• 50g ground almonds
• 3 medium eggs, separated
• zest of 1 small orange
• juice of 1 small orange - around 4 tbsp
• 25g gluten free dark chocolate, grated
• 25g gluten free dark chocolate chips   

To decorate:  (optional)

• 100g ricotta cheese
• 25g dark chocolate, melted
• 1 dessert spoonful agave nectar (or to taste)
• Gluten free sprinkles or decorations of your choice

1. Preheat the oven to 220C / Gas 7 (Don't be alarmed by this oven temperature, you turn it down once the cake is in - seems to work).  Lightly grease and line a 1lb (450g) loaf tin.
2. Sieve the flour and baking powder into a large bowl, then add the butter, sweetener, ground almonds, egg yolks, grated orange zest and juice.  Beat together for 1-2 minutes until smooth (I used an electric hand mixer for this).
3. Fold in the grated chocolate and the chocolate chips.
4. In a separate bowl whisk the egg whites until they form soft peaks.  Fold half into the rest of the cake mixture, taking care not to beat out the air you have whisked in.  Then fold in the second half in the same way.
5. Pour the mixture into the prepared loaf tin and level the surface.
6. Place in the preheated oven but then immediately reduce the temperature to 170C / Gas 3.  Bake for about half an hour or until a cake testing skewer comes out clean.  Leave to cool for around 10 minutes in the tin, before turning out to cool completely on a wire rack.
7. For the decoration place the chocolate in a small bowl and microwave for a few seconds until melted (this can also be done over a pan of hot water).  Leave to cool slightly then beat into the ricotta cheese until smooth.  Add the agave nectar to taste - I found just one dessert spoonful was enough.  Spread over the top of your cake and sprinkle over decorations of your choice.

My very rough estimate of carbohydrates per slice was 16g but this will depend on the ingredients used.  I used a very dark chocolate with only 33g of carbohydrate per 100g.

Oranges and lemons, starting with the lemons.

Post pancake day I seemed to be left with a couple of odd lemons to use up so I decided to make some post pancake day pancakes.  I have seen a few recipes for pancakes involving ricotta cheese and was curious to try them.  Whilst making these I did wonder whether it would be worth all the extra effort, but we all agreed it was, as the lemony ricotta in the middle of each pancake was delicious (reminded me of cheesecake) and the whisked egg whites made the pancakes puff up. Definitely making these again!

Lemon ricotta pancakes (Gluten free and low sugar version)

Ingredients - makes around 12 pancakes

• 250ml ricotta cheese
• juice and zest of 1 lemon
• 2 tbsp agave nectar
• 2 tbsp ground almonds
• 120g gluten free self raising flour
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 2 whole eggs
• 375ml milk
• 2 egg whites

1. In a small bowl, mix together the ricotta, lemon zest, agave nectar and ground almonds.
2. In another bowl sieve together the flours and bicarbonate of soda, then whisk in the whole eggs and milk to form a smooth batter with the consistency of thick cream.  
3. In a third bowl whisk the egg whites until they reach the firm peaks stage, then fold carefully into the batter so as not to lose the air you have whisked in.
4. Heat a non-stick frying pan, wiping it with a little oil between pancakes.  Add two dessert spoonfuls of batter to the hot pan spreading slightly with the back of the spoon to make a pancake around 10cm / 4 inches across.   Then working quickly add a dessert spoonful of ricotta mix to the centre of the pancake, flatten slightly, then add another spoonful of batter over the top of the ricotta to cover,
5. Cook for around 2 minutes until the underside of the pancake is a pale brown colour then flip over and cook for another 2 minutes on the other side.
6. Keep the pancakes wrapped in a teatowel to keep warm, whilst you use up the rest of the batter and ricotta mix.
7. Serve as they are or with a squeeze of lemon and a very light dusting of icing sugar.

My rough estimate of carbohydrates is 12g per pancake, assuming you get around 12 pancakes from your mix.