Provincial Lavender and Honey Cake

Below is a honey and lavender bundt I prepared for my children. They are dairy and gluten intolerant, so I have made accordingly – it would possibly taste better with softened butter to replace the oil, cows' milk, and a light country wheat flour to replace my gluten free mix. It's a recipe following my post on cooking with lavender, and its multitude of culinary uses.

Don't you love a little Provincial inspiration?

Ingredients 

• 4 cups (Schar Patisserie) gluten free flour 
• 8 tsp gluten free baking powder 
• ¾ cup rice milk 
• ¾ cup canola (rapeseed) oil 
• 1 tsp salt 
• ½ tsp vanilla 
• 1 cup honey 
• 3 eggs 
• 2 tsp lavender buds (or 3-4 full flowers) 

Coconut and Jaggery cake

In my constant search for less processed foods, I recently discovered jaggery. Over here in Dubai, it is fortunately very easy to find, and is cheap - ranging from less than the equivalent of $1 per 500g packet up to about $10, depending on quality.

Like sugar, jaggery usually comes from sugar cane (it also comes from sago, coconut and date palms), but it is a softer, crumbly substance made from the unprocessed and unrefined cane juice (simply boiled until it becomes a paste), then poured into moulds to set. It does not undergo any bleaching or refining of any kind, and so retains its natural colour, fiber, mineral salts and flavour. It is known to release energy slower than processed sugar, making it better for people with blood sugar issues. 

But the price, process and the health benefits are not the only reason I love it. It tastes amazing. The mineral salts can be detected, and the molasses tint gives it a flavour almost like salted caramel. It is just so much more complex than sugar. It melts easily, can be cut off in shards for nibbling, and can be crushed in a blender.

Crumplestiltskin Cake

Last week I threw a birthday party for my now-5-year-old son. Goldilocks is a gorgeous thing who is on a strict gluten and casein free diet, so as you can imagine, the food took quite a bit of thought and consideration. No wheat, no cream, no butter, no milk. So, I threw out my other imposed restriction - no processed sugar' and had a free-for all.

The Pièce de résistance was the cake. Goldilocks can eat eggs, and so I wanted to add his all-time favourite and now banned sweet treat, meringue. The name "Crumplestiltskin" was given by my other son, as he helped me attach the crumbled meringue around the cake. I think it's a little more like an iceberg, but Lion insisted to all the guests that the name was definitely one out of a fairytale - almost. I completely cheated and used store-bought meringues and a gluten free self raising flour mix. But, you know how it goes - when you are baking for a party, any shortcut is taken.