Vegan banana cake

Towards the end of last year I was diagnosed with a range of food intolerances. Some, like a wheat intolerance, I already knew I had but others were quite a surprise. Kidney beans, egg white, almonds and corn also showed up as well as cow's milk, cashews, pear and melon. This has been quite difficult, especially as I often used to use almond meal in place of flour, not to mention eating polenta practically on a weekly basis. So I have been working on my diet and also trying to change the way I bake in order to fit in with my new food regime.

One thing I often made was Stephanie Alexander's simple banana cake. Very easy and very yummy but containing things like eggs, flour and butter. The other day I had some very soft bananas and thought I would give the recipe a go, but swapping the ingredients I couldn't have for those I could. Besides, I need to start doing something with the 5 kg of spelt flour I bought recently. Here is my interpretation of Stephanie's recipe.

Ingredients:
100 g coconut oil (approx)
1 and a half cups of sugar
Natural egg replacer to the equivalent of 2 eggs
1 cup ripe mashed banana - I used 5 bananas
Few drops of pure vanilla
250 g spelt flour
1 teaspoon bicarb
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon allspice
1/2 cup goats milk mixed with 1 teaspoon of lemon juice

Putting it together:
Line base of a loaf tin with baking paper.
Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.
Mix oil and sugar with barmix until light and fluffy.
Beat in egg replacer, banana and vanilla.
Add dry ingredients and goats milk and lemon juice.
Spoon into tin and bake for 1 hour.

Enjoy!

Baking ... mini passover cakes

I have also been baking a lot lately as well - I think to make up for the fact that I don't cook dinner much as that is usually the time I am putting Chet to bed. Luckily for me the K-man has stepped up to the plate in that regard and has become a dab hand and putting together an evening meal.

I seem to often have a few oranges kicking about the fruit-bowl so was very pleased to come across a version of this recipe in Marion Halligan's wonderful rumination on cooking and gardening The Taste of Memory. I was also pleased to be able to take these mini passover cakes to a 1st birthday party recently - the mother of the birthday boy (who is Jewish) was very pleased to have something there reflecting his heritage.

Ingredients
2 oranges
4 eggs
100 grams almond meal
125 grams castor sugar
half heaped teaspoon baking powder

Process
Wash oranges and boil for 2 hours - make sure that they don't boil dry. This can be done the night before. Sometimes I might add a lime or lemon but the end result is a little more bitter.

Pre-set oven to 180 degrees
Line muffin tin with baking paper or patty cake cases. I find this makes around 12 muffin size mini-passover cakes. You could of course use a normal cake tin if you felt like it.

Purée the boiled oranges, skin and all. I use a stick blender but you could use a food processor.

Beat the eggs, rain the sugar in slowly, beat for quite a while, then rain in the almond flour and baking powder. Add puréed oranges and stir with spatula until just mixed.

Spoon mixture into prepared muffin tin.

Cook for 40 minutes or until browned and cooked through. Everything in my oven seems to take a lot longer so I sometimes end up cooking them for nearly an hour.

They are quite sticky so I usually serve them in their baking paper cases - I like to think it adds a rustic look to the cakes.