Green tropical pudding

I would apologise for posting near consecutive tropical recipes, but it was 21'C (70'F) in London today. It will be 25'C tomorrow. I think that deserves tropical, given average spring temperatures are more like 14'C.

This recipe uses the mangoes that remained from my recent bulk buy purchase, and in many ways it is a pudding version of the cake I posted last week. I liked the cake more, but this is easier to make - and you can eat it for breakfast. Like the cake, it has a simple, whole food ingredient list. The green colour comes (unsurprisingly) from avocado and that also lends a creamy texture. Banana, pineapple and coconut round out the ingredient list.

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Mr Bite's birthday, and a veganised chocolate mud cake

Last week was distinguished by Mr Bite's birthday. To celebrate, we had his usual dense chocolate mud cake. This year, though, his usual cake underwent a few adaptations to make it vegan. This wasn't Mr Bite's request (although he kindly let me experiment), but stemmed from the lack of family members to help us eat birthday cake and my recent discovery of vegan soy cream. I thought the cream would work in the ganache icing, and the other non-vegan ingredients were easily tackled using standard ingredient swaps. 

I relied on Mr Bite's comments to compare this version to the non-vegan ones of recent years. He said that it tasted the same, but also that this one was fudgier - denser and less fluffy. This may stem from my use of egg replacer instead of eggs, or my UK oven being different to my Australian one. It may also have something to do with me halving the ingredients to make a smaller cake. Regardless, it was still pronounced good, and having enjoyed some slices myself, I can say it is definitely fudgy and mud cake-like.

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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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Ireland travels - Newgrange, Trim, and the Wicklow Mountains

Our Ireland holiday is starting to recede into memory, so I am keen to share some more recaps while the details are relatively fresh. Today's post takes in three separate places, two of which (Newgrange and Trim) could be done together on one day, as we did, and all of which could be done as day trips from Dublin. From Dublin, Newgrange is a 50 minute drive north, Trim a 50 minute drive north-west, and the Wicklow mountains a 70 minute drive south.

Newgrange passage tomb from afar

Newgrange is part of the Brú na Bóinne world heritage site, which contains three prehistoric passage tombs. Newgrange is one of them, and the only passage tomb you can enter inside. The construction of the tombs is thought to have commenced around 3300BC and they are older than the Egyptian pyramids as well as England's Stonehenge. They also contain the largest collection of megalithic art in Western Europe. 

Entrance to the Newgrange tomb

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In my kitchen - The Easter edition (April 2015)

I am linking this in to Celia's monthly In My Kitchen event at Fig Jam and Lime Cordial.

Happy Easter weekend! Whether you celebrate the religious aspects or not, I hope you're that enjoying the long weekend if you have one, or just the weekend if you don't.

There are certainly signs of Easter in my kitchen. The UK has an amazing array of dairy free Easter chocolate, and I'm harbouring a 'bunnycomb' (honeycomb) egg and a bag of small 70% cocoa eggs.

 

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Apple pie yoghurt breakfast parfaits {London marathon fundraising}

You may not know this about me, but I am an apple sauce fiend. It doesn't matter if it is commercial apple sauce, homemade apple puree, or even apple baby food, I love it. I could eat whole tubs. I was thus quite pleased with myself when I hit on this idea for apple pie yoghurt parfaits. The parfaits use apple sauce, but in respectable quantities; and unlike eating sauce from a jar, they are elegant and beautiful.

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