Raspberry vegan & gluten free bites
These colourful little bite-size beauties are vegan, raw and gluten-free, giving you just the energy boost you need for those moments of menopause exhaustion and fatigue. They’re also rammed with phytonutrients, antioxidants, healthy vitamins and dietary fibre. If you can’t cope with the raspberry seeds, then substitute with frozen strawberries.
No cooking involved either, the only thing you need to be prepared for is soaking your cashews.
Serves: 6-8
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 40 minutes
Ingredients
250g ground almonds
175g fine polenta
1 ½ tsp baking powder
2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp aniseed
1 tsp nigella seeds
300g butter
200g sugar
3 eggs
icing sugar for dusting
handful of broken pistachios, to sprinkle
To make sugar syrup:
80g sugar
juice of 1 lemon
80ml water
Method
Preheat the oven to 160C fan. Line a 23cm springform cake tin with enough non-stick baking paper to cover the base and sides.
Mix the first seven ingredients together in a bowl.
Beat the butter and sugar together until it is pale and fluffy. A food processor makes this a lot quicker and easier. Add the eggs, one at a time, incorporating well. If it starts to curdle or looks too runny, simply add a spoonful of the dry ingredients.
Fold in the dry ingredients, then pour the mixture into the tin, level with a spatula and bake for around 40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
While the cake is in the oven, make the syrup. Add the sugar, lemon juice and water to a pan and simmer until the sugar dissolves. The longer you simmer it for, the thicker the syrup will become. 10 minutes should be about right.
Take the cake out of the oven and insert a skewer around the edges, then, while still warm, pour the syrup all over so that it seeps into the cake itself. Leave to cool, then remove from the tin, sprinkle with icing sugar and pistachios, and serve.