Carrot and banana cake with a lemon, vanilla and honey cheesecake frosting

gluten/grain free- the cake can be dairy free, the icing below is not dairy free

Ingredients

4 eggs- room temperature

125g butter- for dairy free use coconut oil or light olive oil

1 tsp vanilla extract or paste

¼ cup of honey- you could use maple or rice malt syrup

2 carrots, grated

2 ripe bananas, mashed/blended

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

½ cup of coconut flour- if you do have any use 1 ½ -2 cups of gf flour and minus 1 egg. Should be a really thick batter that you need to spoon into a tin.

1 tsp ground cinnamon

Method

Preheat oven to 170c fan-forced or 180c normal

Grease/line with baking paper a 20 x 20cm cake tin or loaf tin

In a large bowl cream butter and honey until light and fluffy, add in 1 egg at time, whisking between each one- don’t worry if it looks curdled, will still work the same.

If using coconut oil or olive oil- Whisk eggs until light and fluffy and then add in your oil and honey and continue per the recipe.

Add your vanilla, baking soda and baking powder, cinnamon, carrot, banana and coconut flour (or gf if using)Mix well and then spoon into your tin and even the top out.

Bake for 35-40 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. You can do as muffins/mini muffins- just adjust your time. Mini muffins will take 8-10 minutes and bigger ones will take 12-15 minutes, keep an eye on them.

When cold you can ice with an optional icing- or use your own dairy free icing.

Lemon, vanilla and honey cheesecake frosting

250g full fat cream cheese, softened

2 tbsp butter, softened

1 ½ tbsp. fresh lemon juice

1 tsp vanilla paste or extract

2 tbsp honey

Beat together until light and fluffy.

Lemon and honey self-saucing pudding

You can use all almond flour or all gf flour if you want, just check your consistency, it should be a thick cake batter. If you don’t like desiccated coconut you can just replace with flour. You can also leave out the sour cream/coconut cream too, just add a little milk/milk alternative to get the right consistency

Ingredients

125g butter, softened

3 eggs, room temperature

1 tsp vanilla extract

¼ cup of honey

½ cup of blanched almond flour

¼ cup gf flour

½ cup of desiccated coconut

¼ sour cream , you can use thick coconut cream

Zest and juice of 2 lemons

Method

Boil your jug and preheat the oven to 160 c

Cream the honey and butter together until light and fluffy, then add the eggs one at a time, then beat well. Add in your vanilla, zest, flours, sour cream, beat until thoroughly combined.  Put into an ovenproof dish. Combine the juice from your 2 lemons with 2 tbsp honey, 2 tsp tapioca/gf flour, then top up with boiling water to make 250ml. Mix well. Using the back of a large spoon pour the lemon mix over your batter. Bake for 45 minutes. You can serve with cream/double cream/ice cream etc…

Smoked salmon and cream cheese on cucumber crackers

A  whole lebanese cucumber, ends trimmed, then lay it down and slice the edge of the cucumber so the edge is straight, repeat so you end up with a rectangle with no round edges. Then slice to form “crackers”

Lay down and lay on a slice of cream cheese, smoked salmon. You can garnish with some diced tomato or sprouts, If you are dairy free use avocado in place of cheese. You can use brie or camembert as well.

You can use dill, capers, sliced hardboiled egg slices, chicken, tuna/mayo, prawns, beef, grated carrot, diced capsicum. You can do cucumber rounds as a nibble or 2 slices as a sandwich. Great for kids lunch boxes.

Broccoli and kale soup with garlic and coconut

Serves 4

 

Ingredients

2 heads of broccoli, cut into florets, keep the stalks too

1 bunch kale, washed and roughly chopped

As much garlic as you like, I used about 10 peeled cloves, leave whole

1 brown onion, roughly chopped

1 litre of vegetable or chicken stock

½ cup of coconut milk or cream

Method

Cook the onion and garlic in some olive oil for 2 minutes then add everything except the kale and coconut. Bring to the boil, turn down and simmer for 7 minutes, then add the kale and simmer for a further 3 minutes until the vegetable are tender. Blend up with a stick blender until smooth, add the coconut milk and season well with salt and pepper.