Quinoa in a cake

Quinoa is a great addition when you're making a tea cake. Not only are you adding a bit of extra nutrients but your also adding texture. I like to keep my quinoa a bit under cooked and crunchy when I'm adding it to a cake as this ensures you get a nice surprise when you take a bite.

Quinoa, coconut mini cakes with roasted banana and citrus caramel

Makes approx. 4

                                     140g castor sugar                                  
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
2 bananas
2tsp honey
25g quinoa
65g water
2 eggs
50g melted butter
40g plain flour
12g almond meal
12g finely shredded coconut
half tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.Cut one and a half bananas on an angle into several pieces, mash the last quarter in a separate bowl and put to the side. Place the cut up banana in a tray lined with grease proof paper, add 55g of sugar, the honey and half a teaspoon of the vanilla bean and mix around. Place in oven and cook for approx 10 minutes, check if the sugar has caramelised and if not continue cooking till sugar turns a lovely golden colour. Take out and set aside to cool.

Place quinoa, water and the rest of the vanilla bean in a pot. Bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer till the water evaporates. Have a taste test at different intervals so you can make sure your quinoa is still a bit crunchy and hasn't overcooked.Allow to cool.

Whisk eggs and remaining sugar till light coloured and fluffy. Add the melted butter, then sift the flour and baking powder on top, then add the almond meal and coconut and fold through the mix. Lastly add your mashed banana and quinoa  and mix till just combined.

Line your moulds ( If you don't have mini loaf tins, muffin tins will also work) place a few bits of the roasted banana at the bottom of each mould then fill with the mix. Bake for approximately 15 -20 minutes or until cakes are golden and springy when touched. Wait till cool to turn out of moulds.

To make the citrus caramel, put half a cup of sugar just covered by water on the stove and wait till sugar is quite golden. Then add a quarter of any citrus juice a little bit of zest and a quarter of water to the caramel. It will splutter up so be careful and stand back when putting the liquid in. You then need to reduce this by half or too a nice syrupy consistency.  Spoon this over your cakes and you're done !!!

Strawberry blonde

The weekend was so cold and rainy I decided it would be an excellent idea to bake something delicious. I used this blondie recipe from Smitten Kitchen. It's super easy to make and you can have fun experimenting with different ingredient additions, your options are pretty much endless.

 I added about 150 grams of white choc buttons to the mixture. I then cut a punnet of fresh strawberries in half,squeezed over some lime juice, and baked them for 15 minutes at 170 degrees. Doing this should take away a bit of the juice from the strawberries, so when you bake your blondie it cooks properly and the juice doesn't throw out the proportions of your ingredients. I then placed the strawberries ( being careful to avoid any liquid the has come out of them) a few extra bits of white chocolate and some grated lime zest on top of my blondie. Now it's baking time !! My blondie did take about 10 minutes longer than the time stated in the recipe, as the strawberries still had a bit of juice left in them, but the safest bet is to set the timer for 20 minutes and then check every 5 minutes.

Ta-daaa an amazing slice that goes perfectly with a cup of tea and is full of fresh flavours to give you a little ray of sunshine on a winters day.