Thursday, June 07, 2012

Easy Gluten-Free, Vegan, Coconut Cake

This morning I woke up to a super-hungry and grumpy little fluff ball (she's feeling better!) and... a white world.


I've heard lately that Christchurch is actually inside a snow globe, and it just takes a little shaking to make it snow.  


It could be true. Who am I to say? It's definitely abnormal for us to have snow this early, or two years in a row. Last winter it snowed not once, but twice, which caused old timers to muse that this had surely not happened in living memory. 













Can it be merely a coinky-dink that since we started having big quakes, we are also getting the white stuff? (file under: things I'll probably always suspect but never know for sure).

Also this morning? The first weigh-in since I got a grip. After a week or so of good, hard training and sensible eating (more or less), I'm down 1kg (58.7kg today). I was surprised. Very surprised, considering that yesterday I made a delectable Gluten-Free, Vegan, Coconut Cake, and consumed.. mmm... quite a lot of it.

I believe that my friend Sara (from Inside and Out) would refer to this as vegan yum-diggity (she's Texan: and probably thinks snow is just a myth).

This is a super easy cake, it takes approximately 5 minutes to throw together and then it can cook while you are eating dinner, or doing your workout.


Easy Peasy, Gluten-Free, Vegan, Coconut Cake


Ingredients

1 cup dessicated coconut (for a more textural cake you could add some shredded coconut)
1 cup sugar (or for a lower-sugar version replace some or all of the sugar with erythritol). I used 1/2 demerara sugar and 1/2 erythritol.
1 cup coconut milk
1 cup rice flour or other gluten-free flour
Half cup almond meal (or leave this out and just use 1.5 cups rice flour)
either: 1 tsp gluten-free baking powder or
½ tsp baking soda and ½ tsp ascorbic acid or citric acid (you need an acid to activate the baking soda, even a tsp lemon juice might do the trick).
Pinch of salt
Tsp of vanilla essence

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 180°
Grease a loaf pan (or use a silicon one like I did) or small cake pan
Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix until there are no dry bits left
Pour the mix into your pan and bake for approximately 1 hour or until a knife inserted into it comes out clean.
This cake is lovely warm, but gains firmness as it cools.



I hope you enjoy this cake! Let me know what you think!











18 comments:

  1. Oh my GOODNESS, this looks and sounds divine. Bookmarking the recipe!

    So, what did you use in those pics for the "snow"? Shaving cream? Leftover coconut? ;) Very clever indeed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Actual snow! I took my plate outside and froze my little fingers off just for the sake of blog pics. Dedicated. ;D

      You could use other types of milk too. It would work with almond milk, hemp milk...

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  2. The weather is just plain crazy all across this corner of the world. We've had flooding rain and unseasonal early snowfalls in the hills (we call them mountains; you Kiwis would call them hills...) - they're madly sandbagging down in Victoria's south-east. And Sydney has been pummelled by horrendous storms. It's probably "your" earthquakes that are responsible for the lot, you know. ;)

    I'm making that cake on the weekend. Also banana cake, since I have approximately 15 over-ripe bananas stashed in the freezer. Waste not, want not.

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    Replies
    1. Me too. I didn't know ex-frozen bananas would work in cakes, but I guess that makes sense. I think it might be another version of this cake tonight seeing as today has turned all mental and overly busy.

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    2. And, I might add, the chance of someone else cooking on a Friday is running at slim to none.. as usual.

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  3. Looks like a yummy cake; so moist. Printing that out for after the comps. ;-0

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    Replies
    1. Yes, very moist! I think that it would be less 'moist and sticky'(haha, getting dirty around here) if you used baking powder and only flour instead of almond meal. BTW, I visited your blog, but you haven't updated...

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    2. Yeah-I'm really not blogging anymore...total burnout...lol

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  4. mmmm looks good, but snow looks COLD! Doesn't make me miss home at ALL - way too cold for me now (I am so soft after living in Queensland where "cold" is anything below 18 degrees!)

    SO trying this cake, perhaps with coconut sugar :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Coconut sugar might work, but there is also the possibility that it might be a bit 'fally aparty'. I think the sugar 'sticks' it together a bit. Could still work though. Put it on your blog when you've done it so I can inspect... :D

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  5. Glad to hear your fluff ball is on the improve.
    snow in Christchurch... heck I thought that was a 'normal' thing!
    Looks darn cold, glad I'm up here where it pretty much NEVER snows.
    Cake looks very nice too.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm suffering, I tell ya. Last year I escaped the worst of it by going to Europe to see my sister. This year.. brrrr.

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  6. That cake could almost make me tackle a baking experience.. almost.

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    Replies
    1. Go on Matt! Give it go. What's the worst that can happen?

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  7. Julianne1:22 am

    Hi Sara! I stumbled on your recipe after a google search this morning, trying to come up with something different for a lazy Sunday afternoon in London. I used an 8-in cake pan so cooked a bit quicker, and it is de-lish! Thanks so much for sharing!!

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    Replies
    1. You're welcome. I love London BTW. We lived in York for a while and it was such an adventure to take the train for a weekend in the big city.

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  8. Anonymous2:33 pm

    So there is no xantham gum in this at all?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nope. Most coconut milks have guar gum added though. If you don't like gums at all then use a nut milk/hemp milk/sheeps milk/cows milk, whatever fits with your preferred eating style. I have made this with almond milk and added a tsp of acacia gum to make it stick. It works ok without though.

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