Tag Archives: Almonds

March 4, 2013

A Guest Post by The Healthy Epicurean – Almond Chocolate Cake

Hello! I’m Fiona, The Healthy Epicurean. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me today writing as a Guest Blogger, because Louisa and I are doing a ‘cake swap’. I hope that my cake lives up to the deliciously high standards you’ve come to expect from Chez Foti. I blog from our traditional Landaise farmhouse in the middle of the forest in Southwestern France, surrounded by numerous mad animals. I aspire to a wonderful vegetable garden like Louisa, but for the moment haven’t got further than tomatoes. I talk about it quite a lot though 😉 The recipes on my blog are healthy, in that they use ‘real’ and nutritious ingredients such as butter, unrefined flours and cane sugar. I try too to use seasonal fruit and vegetables as much as possible. I tend to rant on a fairly regular basis about endocrine-wrecking ‘plastic’ ingredients like margarine, highly-refined or ready-made food and sweetners, etc.

I can’t eat wheat so this cake is wheat and gluten-free, as are all of my recipes. The fact that it uses powdered almonds instead of flour means that, for a chocolate cake, its glycemic index is low and it contains valuable nutrients – almonds are packed full of protein, vitamins, minerals and healthy fats. It also has a fairly low sugar content. What’s not to like?

Ingredients

5 eggs

130g cane sugar

140g powdered almonds

60g butter

60g coconut oil

125g dark chocolate (preferably 90% coco)

pinch of bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp baking powder

Preheat the oven to 150°C. Melt the chocolate with the butter and coconut oil. Once melted, add to the sugar, egg yolks, almonds, bicarbonate of soda and baking powder. Whisk the egg whites until stiff. Fold the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and pour into a 20cm cake tin. Bake for 45 minutes.

Louisa – Thanking you very kindly Fiona, so can’t wait to try this fabulously healthy choccie cake, ’tis now on my baking to do list!. Please bob over to Fiona’s gorgeous site – The Healthy Epicurean to see my cakey offering of a similarly gluten and wheat-free Clementine & Almond Cake, and to browse through her deliciously tempting and inspired healthy recipes. Not to mention the awesome photos and drawings!

5 Comments | tags: Almonds, cake, Chocolate, Coconut Oil, Gluten-Free, Guest Blog, Guest Post, The Healthy Epicurean | posted in Cakes & Biscuits, Dinner Party, Puddings & Desserts

January 18, 2013

Clementine and Almond Cake

By Eat Your Veg

I know, I know, I know it’s not really the time for cakes in health-conscious diet-ridden January. But it’s REALLY cold here, as it is in the UK. And now that the christmas cake’s finally been gnawed away (it was huge!) I’ve been in need of a little cakey sustenance to ward off the cold. And on the whole this is about as healthy as a cake can be. No butter, no icing, no drizzle, not even any flour. Just cooked (whole!) clementines (or tangerines or satsumas), ground almonds, eggs and sugar. Oh and a little Amaretto to perk things up a little. And it’s a truly wonderful all-rounder of the cakey world, equally delicious as a tea time treat (yes I’m entering it!) with a cuppa, an elevensie with a coffee or even a dinner party pud dolled up with a spoon of mascarpone or creme fraiche.

Originally a Nigella recipe that I’ve slightly adapted over time, but interesting the exact same recipe’s been sighted in a Bill Granger book too. And I mean EXACT. So who’s copying who Nige and Bill?!

As this month’s Tea Time Treat’s theme is the citrus fruit I’m entering Bill’s/Nigella’s recipe to the challenge. TTT’s is jointly hosted by Lavender and Lovage and What Kate Baked.

I’m also putting it forward to the One Ingredient Challenge, hosted by Laura at How to Cook Good Food (this month’s host to the Orange Challenge) and Nazima at Franglais Kitchen.

Clementine & Almond Cake

375g of clementines, tangerines or satsumas (they all work!)

5 large free range eggs

225g of golden caster sugar

250g of ground almonds

a heaped teaspoon of baking powder, sieved

a tablespoon of Amaretto

a little icing sugar for dusting

Special Equipment: a 21cm spring-sided baking tin lined with greaseproof paper

Place the clementines in a saucepan and cover the fruit with cold water. Bring to the boil, cover and leave to simmer away for 2 hours. Top up the water level as it drops. After 2 hours remove from the water and allow to cool for a few minutes. Whiz to a pulp in a processor.

Pre-heat your oven to 190ºC.

Now on with this cinch of a cake. Whisk up the eggs in a large bowl, using a balloon whisk. Then whisk in the sugar followed by the ground almonds and baking powder. Finally stir in the clementine pulp.

Pour the cake mixture into your lined cake tin and bake in the pre-heated oven for around 40 minutes. It should be golden on top, firm to touch and an inserted skewer will come out clean. Leave to cool in the tin on a cooling rack.

Once cool carefully remove from the tin and lightly dust with sieved icing sugar. Serve as is or with a naughty spoon of creme fraiche or mascarpone.

Here’s some other Chez Foti cakey treats you might like to try: Chocolate Pumpkin Cake, Courgette Cake with Homemade Lemon Curd, Super-Fruity Banana Mini Muffins

23 Comments | tags: Almonds, Amaretto, cake, Clementines, Eggs, One Ingredient Challenge, Tea Time Treats | posted in Cakes & Biscuits, Dinner Party, Party Food, Puddings & Desserts

January 6, 2013

Happy New Year, and a Parsley Pesto to you!

By Eat Your Veg

Well christmas was mayhem at Chez Foti. Lots of friends and family guests, way too much food and good wine, late nights, plenty of doggie walks in the glorious (and surprisingly mild) sunshine and a couple of days of sledging in the Pyrenees. A fabulous time. And now the house is quiet, well as quiet as it gets with a two and a four year old and two chaotic doggies. Here’s hoping you all had a fab festive time and wishing everyone the very best for 2013.

I have to admit to very little on the cooking front since New Years Day. After weeks of pre-christmas freezer-filling baking and cooking it’s been a welcome break to gorge on the leftovers and eat simple pasta suppers. But I have been making plenty of my own pesto, which is ridiculously quick and simple to make. I’ve been using parsley instead of basil, and almonds instead of pine kernels, with fabulous results. My basil finished weeks ago in the garden but the Parsley’s still in happy abundance. And you really can’t beat a bowl of pasta served plainly and simply with lashings of homemade pesto. Though if you want to veg things up a little, as I always do, it’s wonderful with a handful or two of steamed french beans or courgette strips running through the pasta too.

Being of largely herby composition I’m entering my pesto to Lavender and Lovage’s Herbs on Saturday challenge, this month hosted by Vanesther at Bangers and Mash Chat.

Parsley & Almond Pesto

Enough for 4 servings:

40g of parsley, thick stalks removed, washed

a clove of garlic, finely chopped

40g of Parmesan or Grana Padano cheese

60g of whole almonds

75ml of good quality extra virgin olive oil

a squeeze of lemon juice

salt & pepper

Simply place all the ingredients, bar the lemon, salt and pepper in a food processor and whiz until you have a your desired pesto texture. I like mine fairly rustic with a few lumps and bumps. Or place all the ingredients in a bowl and blitz with a stick blender. Both work equally well. Taste and season with a little lemon juice, salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Et voila, you have super-quick super-tasty homemade pesto. Serve with pasta and/or veggies of your choice.

Bonne annnée everyone!