Date and carrot cake - no processed sugar, dairy and gluten free

An afternoon with my stitchy friends called for a cake that had no processed sugar. This super-quick cake is delicious, and gets all its sweetness from the dates and carrot.  You could cut the amount of oil if you planned to eat the whole thing the day you made it- if you want to keep it longer the oil will keep this moist for several days.


Recipe
Set oven to 175C
I used two small paper loaf cases - if using metal tins grease or line with baking paper

Ingredients

• 150g dates
• 1 egg
• 100 ml vegetable oil
• 175g grated carrot - 1 large (I used a food processor, ready-grated or hand grater would be fine)
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 150g self raising flour (mine is 40% urid lentil, 40% tapioca, 20% rice, with 1.5tsp baking powder to 100g)
• water if needed to slacken batter

Method
Blitz the dates with the egg and oil in a blender to get a slurry.
Tip into a bowl and add the other ingredients, stirring well to ensure you don't have lumps of dry flour hiding in amongst the grated carrot.  You want the batter to be a bit sloppy, so add some water if it is hard to get off the spoon.

Put batter in two loaf cases and bake in the pre-heated oven for 25-35 minutes, checking to be sure that a knife comes out quite clean to show it is cooked.  I didn't get mine quite even, and the smaller one took 25 minutes, the larger 30.  If you put all the batter in one tin add extra time, but drop the temperature if the top begins to get too brown.

Tikka cod with lentil curry and mixed rice

This tasty meal is high in protein and easy to make.  Frozen cod fillets coated in tikka paste and lentil and vegetable curry made with Korma paste make this a simple meal to make and full of flavour. Start cooking the curry before you cook the fish as curry is very flexible on how long it can be cooked but the fish needs to be eaten as soon as it is ready.

For two people:

Coat two frozen or fresh cod fillets with  about 1 tbsp of tikka paste. I used Pataks.  Cook according to the fish instructions.  My frozen fish needed thirty minutes in a 180C oven.  Fresh fish could be grilled for a charred finish.  I have given up trying to grill food as the smoke alarm in my new flat goes off everytime I use the grill and the whole block of flats gets alerted!

Curry
1 tbsp oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup orange lentils
1 tbsp Korma curry paste
2 cups water, more as needed
1 tbsp tomato paste

1 large carrot, sliced
2 tbsp peas
1 tomato, cut into large chunks


Cook chopped onion in oil until soft.  Keep the heat low so that the onions don't brown unless you prefer the flavour of the browned onion.
Add the lentils and stir over medium heat until the lentils are coated in the oil.  Add the Korma paste and stir. Add the water, tomato paste and carrots. Stir and cook until lentils and carrots are soft.
Add more water if needed.
Three minutes before serving add the frozen peas and cook.
One minute before serving add the tomatoes.  They should just heat through but not fall apart.

Rice
Use whatever rice you like.  I used a mixed rice with French Red Camargue, Italian long grain and Canadian Wild Rice because that was all I had.  Plain rice would have been more appropriate to go with the complex flavours of the curry and fish.  If I had served the fish with steamed vegetables rather than the curry the mixed rice would have been excellent as the different flavours and textures would have been more noticeable.

Serve the fish with curry and rice.

Whole Meal muffins

I have been trying out recipes using flour mixes that do not contain tapioca or corn.  These muffins were made with urid lentil flour, buckwheat flour and brown rice flour.  The first two I ground myself, the third I bought as flour.  I also included quinoa.  This was cooked whole and added to the mixture rather than using the flour.  I find quinoa, whilst excellent in terms of being a complete protein, can give foods a slightly acrid taste.  To avoid this the quinoa should be rinsed before use.  If I really need flour I then dry the quinoa in a low oven before grinding.  In this case the nature of the muffin meant that leaving it whole would be fine.  I have found in the past that if I use uncooked whole quinoa in muffins the texture tends to be coarse, with the quinoa staying too hard.  In a  slow fermented batter this would not be a problem.

I added banana, grated carrot, dried fruit, pumpkin and linseeds to the batter as well as egg and a little oil. These muffins are high in protein and would make a good emergency meal if travelling - hence another reason to call them 'Whole Meal muffins'.  You get your protein, fruit and vegetables in one neat package, with no added refined sugar and very little fat.  I use a little oil as it helps the muffin to keep moist if not eaten immediately.

These were a little denser than I would have like. In future I would add some juice or water to make a sloppier batter, which would aid rising, and add another teaspoon of baking powder.

If you want a sweeter muffin just add a little sugar or syrup of your choice.  To check this you can cook a tiny bit of the batter in a frying pan to see what it will be like.

Makes 12 large muffins
Set oven at 175C

Ingredients
150g flour - 1/3 urid, 1/3 buckwheat, 1/3 brown rice
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp mixed spice
2 eggs
2 ripe bananas mashed (2 small - 165g)
1 large carrot, grated (100g)
20g linseeds
30g pumpkin seeds
80g cranberries
80g blueberries (or other dried fruit)
50g sunflower oil

Topping
20g pumpkin seeds
10g agave or other sweet syrup

Method
Whisk dry ingredients together

Mix all the remaining ingredients except the optional topping together

Mix wet and dry ingredients together and put in muffin cases.

Put a few sticky pumpkin seeds on top of each muffin.  This gives a crisp burst of sweetness on each muffin.

Bake at 175C for 25 minutes

Freeze when cool and use as needed. I find 20secs in a microwave is adequate to defrost them, or pack in your lunch box frozen where they will keep everything else chilled as they defrost.

Vegan gluten free carrot muffin

Carrot muffins are one of my favourite snack foods and great to keep in the freezer. I put one in a tub for a day out when I don’t know if there will be anything safe to eat. My usual recipe is gluten and dairy free but does contain eggs, so this is an attempt to find a good vegan recipe.

I made two batches of muffins, one with pre-gelatinised tapioca starch and one with the same amount of water and tapioca added to the rest of the ingredients. The second batter was very sloppy so I probably should not have added so much water, just mixed in water until the texture was right, but I haven’t retested this yet.

The muffins were quite different.

The one made with water was wetter, the muffin stuck to the paper case, and the individual ingredients were very visible. The pieces of carrot will still very clear. The taste was light, the texture moist, but this moistness gave a gelatinous feel. The muffin did hold together and was fine to eat. Considering there was no gluten or egg it had a lot more coherence than I had expected, presumably because the carrot strands gave structure.

The one made with the pre-gelatinised tapioca starch (gel) was quite different. If you haven’t seen the earlier instructions on this all I did was mix 10g tapioca flour with 60g cold water and heat, stirring continuously, until it looked like thick wallpaper paste – a clear very sticky gel. Be warned, you need to clean the pan and spoon with paper towel before putting in the dishwasher or you will find blobs of the stuff left in the dishwasher at the end. It really does stick together. Technical papers I have been reading suggest the temperature you cook this to makes a difference as to how it performs but I didn’t do anything other than cook until clear and thick.

I had to work harder to mix the batter, so I started with the gel and worked first the sugar, then flour, then margarine, then carrot and raisins into the mix. As I was making a tiny amount I did this with a wooden spoon; it may well be that in a food mixer it would be easy.

This carrot muffin was lovely. I gave a blind taste test to my resident Mr Taster, who has a fine palate, an analytical mind and a good descriptive capability (he writes novels while I bake). His words were ‘If I came across one in Starbucks I would make a note to have it again. It has a deep, complex mature flavour; an extremely good taste experience.”

In the photo the ‘gel’ muffin is on the left with the reddish colour.

Ingredients (makes four muffins about 70g batter each)

60g sugar

60g sunflower margarine (usually use oil but tried Pure margarine)

50g grated carrot

30g raisins

gel – 10g tapioca 60ml water

25g urid lentil flour

15g tapioca

15g polenta

1tsp baking powder

1tsp cinnamon

0.3tsp baking soda

Place about 70g of batter in each muffin case and bake at 17degrees C for approx 25 minutes until skewer comes out clean.

When cool, ice with a glace icing made with icing sugar and lemon juice.

I’ll run some best-before tests – my usual carrot muffins are still great after seven days. That, of course, needs time. I’ll report back.

I note that lots of sites suggest flax seed as an egg substitute. I’ll try that when I get some, as they have a nutritional advantage over tapioca starch. Will report later.

This recipe will give less protein than the usual one made with egg but is a great way to have a gf, dairy and egg free portable treat.