Whole dried fruit cake

While I dislike Christmas-style fruit cakes, I very much enjoy cakes and breads that are studded with dried fruit. There are many traditional baking recipes of this type, from the Welsh bara brith to the Irish barmbrack and plenty in between. This cake doesn't follow any of the traditional recipes exactly, but does employ the tried and true method approach of soaking dried fruit in tea ahead of time. It includes some sugar, so is more cake than bread, but doesn't add any fat. There is plenty of flavour and plenty of dried fruit.

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Vegan pear upside down cake

This is a cake that I need to make again. In part this is because the cake was delicious and I would like to eat it again. In part, though, it is because my current photos do not do the cake justice. Poor winter lighting, hastily snapped images, and a camera battery that died at the wrong moment all contributed to sub-par photos. I apologise. However, I am sharing this anyway because the cake really was delicious and poor photos shouldn't get in the way of recipe sharing.

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Sweet potato, raspberry and avocado flapjacks

These are not your typical flapjacks. Most, after all, do not involve avocado. These are also less sweet than a standard flapjack mix and more colourful.

Whilst these are unconventional, they are tasty. The avocado stands in for butter / margarine but doesn't overwhelm in flavour (I couldn't detect it at all) while the sweet potato and raspberries work in harmony to provide subtle sweetness. The only other ingredients are oats, vanilla and (non-dairy) milk. It is a simple and effective mix.

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Double up strawberry apple bars {vegan + no added sugar}

I am rather proud of these bars. They are sweetened entirely by strawberries and apples, but still taste sweet. The fat content comes entirely from coconut and cashew butter, which add flavour as well as texture. All in all, they highlight that whole foods can be sufficient when baking.

I made these last weekend, when the sun was shining and we had an unusually sunny bank holiday Monday. (Unusual because bank holidays in England are characteristically associated with rain.) We did make it down to the coast, to Hastings, where we had a picnic lunch and visited the sea shore. It wasn't so warm that we wanted to swim - and Mini Bite proved scared of the sea anyway! - but we enjoyed our outing. These bars accompanied the picnic.

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Blackberry bake

The hardest part of this recipe was knowing what to call it. I have taken an easy route and used the very generic 'bake'. As an adaptation of my blackberry chia muffins, this is really a cross between a cake and a slice. Because I cut it into triangles, I am also reminded of American style scones (although that may be where the resemblance ends as I have never eaten them). Terminology aside, this is a minimally sweetened but maximally tasty snack or breakfast option.

The adaptations to the original muffins were relatively minor: adding a banana, swapping the white sugar to coconut sugar, halving the sugar amount, and slightly reducing the oil. I also cut out the salt. These swaps were made with a 1-year-old in mind and Mini Bite did love these, although I can now say that if you give this to a child you will have blackberry stains everywhere (their clothes, your clothes, their hands, your hands...). The stains are worth it though, and to be honest, with a 1-year-old you will probably have stains everywhere no matter what you do.

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Hummingbird cake revisited

I posted a recipe for hummingbird cake nearly 2 years ago, and remember thinking that I would be making the cake again before too long. It was well received by Mr Bite and I loved it myself. Indeed, hummingbird cake (featuring banana and pineapple with a cream cheese-style icing) is one of my favourite cakes.

As is wont to happen, time passed and I did not make the cake again until now. In the 21 intervening months, much has changed and this time I made the cake to take to a mother/baby group I've been attending with Mini Bite since she was roughly 2 months old. The group has been a regular feature on our Wednesdays and I have valued the opportunity to sit with other mothers, be brought a cup of tea, and have Mini Bite play with novel toys for an hour or so.

Today was our last group, because next Wednesday will be my first day back at work after maternity leave. Mini Bite is no longer a 2 month old infant and today she spent most of the morning crawling around, or cruising on furniture with the holding-on-walk that will no doubt become a real walk all too soon (she is currently 10-1/2 months).

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Banana, carrot and sultana mini muffins {vegan, no added sugar + non fat}

I was hesitant to put 'fat free' and 'sugar free' in the title of this post, because those labels may conjure up images of bland, flavourless muffins. The texture of fat free baked goods is often different too. However, these muffins are fully flavoured and beautifully textured. The use of lots of bananas and natural sugars simply removes the need for added fat or sugar. (For the sticklers among you, there is some fat in the oat milk and oats.)

I recently had lots of bananas to use up, thanks to my clumsiness when unpacking shopping and a bag of bananas being dropped on the floor. They all went a bit mushy and prematurely brown - good for freezing, smoothies and baking but not so good for eating in their natural state. These muffins used 3 of the bunch so they are good and banana-y!

Whilst I made these as mini muffins, you could, of course, make regular sized ones instead. Just increase the cooking time accordingly (adding 5-10 minutes at an estimation).

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Chocolate and tahini baked oat bars

When I shared some favourite porridge / oat combinations last year, it was my chocolate tahini porridge that got the most enthusiasm. With good reason, too, as it makes for a wonderful way to start the day.

Whilst I always enjoy traditional porridge (oatmeal to Americans), I also enjoy oats in other formats. English flapjack is one example. These chocolate and tahini bars are another. Inspired by my chocolate tahini porridge, they are semi-sweet, gorgeously chocolatey, studded with tahini tones, and utterly delicious. They would provide a perfect make ahead breakfast or an easy snack on the go. I've been enjoying them at pretty much any time of day.


If you have tried baked oat dishes then you will be familiar with the texture of these. They are chewy rather than firm, with a soft but dense texture that holds together well without being crispy. You could easily use a nut butter instead of tahini but I recommend tahini if you have it, because the flavour pairs so well with the other ingredients and really contributes to the overall finished product.

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Apple pudding slice

To my amazement, our apple tree is already producing apples. I'm sure it wasn't meant to for another 2 years (we planted it at the end of last year), but the current fruit is a precursor to the apples it will produce in time. We have a 'Scrumptious' tree and it should produce red, sweet-crisp apples of a moderate size. These initial fruit are green, tart and small - not so good for eating plain, but perfect for baking with.

I have lots of apple baking recipes already but still like to experiment with new ones. I made this slice after a day out and about with my parents, and wanted something that would come together in a single bowl with no electric beating necessary. Consequently, this is an easy recipe to make.

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Carrot and apple cake with a lemon drizzle icing

I am rather in love with this cake. Apple pieces are showcased to perfection against a backdrop of carrot cake, and the zestiness of the lemon drizzle allows a sweet but fresh finish. As you would expect with carrot and apple in the mix, the cake is moist (but not too moist) and it is sturdy enough to be sliced and taken on a walk (I know this because I did so).

I adapted this from a supermarket (Tesco) recipe and my changes included dropping the eggs (I didn't substitute anything else in, figuring the grated carrot would be sufficient, which it was), halving the butter / non-dairy spread component, and reducing the sugar by 25%. You won't miss what I took out because the carrot and apple give moisture and sweetness themselves.

 

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Honeycomb and chocolate chip biscuits {Happy Christmas}

Honeycomb has been on my 'to make' list for a long time. On the weekend, I ventured into making it and then went one step further with these honeycomb and chocolate chip biscuits (cookies). They are easy to make, easy to eat, and a fun twist on standard chocolate chip combinations.

A word of warning, though, on baking with honeycomb: it has a tendency to explode out of your biscuits if you put too much in. I used nearly a cup of crushed honeycomb pieces and found some oozed out of the biscuits to form a burnt caramel layer on the baking tray. I have reduced the quantity in the recipe to half a cup, and advise keeping a close eye on the biscuits from the 8 minute mark!

 

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Yoghurt and goji berry baked oat bars

Sometimes I imagine a dish, make it, and it matches my imagination exactly. Other times, I imagine a dish, make it, and it is nothing like what I expected to make. These oat bars are somewhere in between. When hot, they were too soft and crumbly and I was disappointed not to have achieved the texture I wanted. When allowed to chill in the fridge, they firmed up beautifully and came into their own. A lesson in patience - and trusting ingredients even if initial impressions aren't quite right!

The bars feature oats, puffed cereal, yoghurt, goji berries, coconut oil, rice syrup and vanilla. You can taste each of the flavours and they come together harmoniously. It is the coconut oil that allows for the firm texture when chilled. I used soya almond yoghurt, but coconut yoghurt might be a nice way of continuing the coconut theme.

I can only describe the chilled texture as a cross between baked oat bars and raw no-bake slices. If that sounds odd, it wasn't. I found it very pleasing and a nice way to enjoy a bit of both styles of slice.

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Fruity flapjacks

On doing some flapjack research for this post, I was surprised to note that flapjacks are a type of hotcake / pancake in America. I find the twists and turns of language delightful sometimes. Who first thought to christen the British oat bars I know as 'flapjacks' (was there a flapping Jack?), and who thought to take the same name and apply it to American pancakes?

To be clear, my flapjacks are the baked oat bar variety, similar to American granola bars. This form of flapjack is ubiquitous in Britain and is available in just about every cafe. I did have flapjacks occasionally in Australia but they are basically a staple food here.

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Vegan hummingbird cake

Hummingbird cake is one of my favourite cakes, so I am surprised not to have baked it (or at least not posted about it) in the 4.5 years of this blog. I clearly have some catching up to do!

Apparently hummingbird cake is particularly popular in the Southern United States. My memories of it are Australian and come from my mother, who made a delicious banana-pineapple cake when we were growing up. For those of you who aren't familiar with the hummingbird concept, it is a moist banana-pineapple cake that can also include cinnamon and pecans. It is often served with a cream cheese frosting and perhaps for that reason, I think of it as a cousin to carrot cake. (Alternatively, I may link hummingbird and carrot cake because they are probably my two favourite cake varieties.)

 

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Apple and nectarine crumble

Our fridge/freezer decided to die this week. It's been inconsistently cooling for a few weeks now (since our Australian freezer debacle, we always have thermometers in the fridge and freezer) but this week it just stopped. Kaput. I'm not sure if I'm more upset by the £215 replacement cost or the fact we have to throw out so much food and buy replacements of that!

Luckily, I made this crumble before the fridge died. The crumble doesn't really need refrigeration, but you may want to serve it with custard and/or ice cream and they do benefit from chilling.

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Chocolate chip caramel muffins {vegan}

With a bank holiday weekend, it was inevitable that somewhere in the 3 days I'd find time for baking. I was less certain, though, of what I would be baking. In the end, inspiration came where it so often does: on a run. I was taken with the idea of using pureed cashews and dates to provide a caramel base to muffins, whilst also reducing the need for processed fat and sugar. Once that idea was established, it was an easy leap to chocolate chips (admittedly bringing back some processed fat and sugar!) and the foundations for these muffins were laid.

 

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Tropical mango cake with an orange-coconut sugar glaze - vegan and refined sugar free {London marathon fundraising}

In a re-run of the air mile apricots that I turned into apricot-almond cake, I have used my Peruvian mangoes to make a tropical mango cake. It was so good that it may be my favourite baked product of 2015. This doesn't help curb my impromptu imported fruit purchases, but it is a delicious outcome!

I love this cake for lots of reasons, but one of the big ones is the minimal ingredient list. The cake itself is sweetened entirely from the mango and banana, with no added sugar at all. By pureeing the fruit, the cake is also very moist without oil or butter: the only source of fat within the cake is desiccated coconut. This means that if you serve it without icing, this could easily be a breakfast-worthy fruit bread. It also uses spelt flour, which I am a big fan of.

If you do add the orange and coconut sugar glaze - and I recommend that you do! - this turns into something altogether more dessert-like, whilst still featuring basic whole food ingredients. The glaze has nothing more than coconut oil, coconut sugar and orange juice. I sprinkled some extra desiccated coconut over the top, but that is optional.

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Apricot-almond cake

One of the unexpected points of difference, living in London compared to Australia, is that summer fruit is available all year round. It is quite bizarre, especially as often it is still quite cheap. I could buy two mangoes for £1, a punnet of apricots for £2, and a punnet of strawberries for about the same. We often had American cherries available around the core cherry season in Perth, but exorbitant prices meant it wasn't hard to resist them.

Most of the time I am still resisting the out-of-season summer fruit here. I like the anticipation and excitement of having summer produce come back into season, and eating it all year round wouldn't be the same. Plus, I'm not keen on supporting an industry that flies my fruit up from South Africa, or Turkey, or somewhere else decidedly not near Britain - and if the prices are that low, most likely someone is struggling to make a living.

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Made over orange, cranberry and chocolate chip biscuits

I'm pleased to say that in the space of a week, I have gone from disorganised to organised with Christmas food. I've sorted our Christmas meals for the Lake District, made my annual spiced Christmas cookies, and made a healthier, orange flavoured version of my popular cranberry and dark chocolate cookies.

Spiced Christmas cookies

Yesterday, we also had an early Christmas dinner with my UK family, making another day trip to my grandparent's home in Sussex. There were nine of us in total and it was great to be able to join in on celebrations with family here. We went out for the meal and I enjoyed a nut roast that may have been the best I've had (although I'll concede I haven't had all that many). The setting in a Tudor building was great too - quite different to Australian Christmas!

Christmas dinner, plant style -
nut roast with a sweet potato and coriander sauce, and vegetable trimmings

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Raspberry and yoghurt loaf, for a birthday

Those of you involved in research may empathise when I say that I spent all of today (or at least a good 8 hours of it) working on a grant application. The good news is that it is now largely done, or at least done as a complete draft. The other good news is that my life has had plenty of distractions from out-of-hours work. It was my birthday last week, and birthdays do make for nice distractions.

Mr Bite excelled at making this one particularly nice. I got sparkly flowers, above, a voucher to unleash myself at Whole Foods or Planet Organic (dangerous!), a dinner promise for 222 Veggie Vegan (exciting!), a new memory card (essential, with the number of photos I take), an amazingly enormous guide to touring Britain, and ticket to the ballet, The Nutcracker. 

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