Almond Orange Chocolate Cake

7 March 2014

This is one of the easiest cake recipes ever! It’s delicious and super healthy – how often do you find that in a cake?

It’s gluten-free and fat- free – but you would never know.

The recipe is from a friend of mine who is allergic to gluten and she is a master in creating the very best of recipes. This one is originally an orange cake, and it’s so good that I have made it a million times, but one day I thought, hmm chocolate…….in this? I mean, dark bitter chocolate, oranges and almonds……it could only be good and it was.

Orange Chocolate Almond Cake

Almond Orange Chocolate Cake

4 organic oranges

6 organic free range eggs

150g raw sugar

250g raw almonds

150g good dark chocolate

1 large teaspoon baking powder

1 vanilla pod

sea salt

Boiled Oranges

You boil the oranges in water for 2 hours, allow them to cool. Melt the chocolate and allow it to cool slightly. In the blender, blend the almonds into flour, then add the sugar, roughly chop the oranges and take out the pips, then put it, including the peel (no pips) into the blender along with the rest of the ingredients – blend into a dough.

Good Chocolate

Raw Almonds

Vanilla pod

Put the dough into a very well greased cake tin and cook in the oven for about 35 min at 360F

Still too hot to cut

Serve the cake with some stewed berries or some orange sauce.

Served with stewed berries

Let’s face it, a nice creamy chocolate cake does a lot for a lot of people; It does for me. Audrey Hepburn

I agree 🙂

Hope you have a fabulous weekend wherever you are!

Almond Cake with Tangy Citrus and Raspberry

1 March 2013

36 Comments

The weekend is just around the corner, but before I head out in the world, I just want to share this extremely delicious cake with you. It is guaranteed the worlds easiest cake to make and is incredibly moist with intense flavors.

My friend who is allergic to gluten made this for me a while ago and I have been craving another bite of it ever since! Luckily she gave me the recipe and permission to share it with you.

I remember my mom making an orange cake with orange glaze and zest on top when I was little which was absolutely divine, and I decided to enhance the flavors even more by adding this to the cake – sweet memories!

Almond Cake

Almond Cake

4-5 organic clementines, sweet lime, lemons or oranges – I used 3 Meyer lemons and 2 oranges

6 eggs

150 g raw sugar

250g of freshly ground almonds

1 large teaspoon of baking powder

1/2 vanilla pod

a pinch of salt

Oranges and Meyer lemons

Boil the fruit 1 -2 hours till they are completely soft. Let them cool, cut into quarters and remove the pips.

Finely grind the almonds in the blender. Add the citrus (including the skin), the sugar, the eggs, half the vanilla and scrape out the beans, a pinch of salt, baking powder – blend it all till it’s smooth. Pour into a greased spring form and bake in a 375F preheated oven for about 35 min till it feels firm in the center, cover with foil if you can tell it is getting too brown towards the end.

Ready for the orange glaze

Orange glaze

1/3 cup freshly squeezed orange

70 g raw sugar

Freshly grated orange zest

In a small saucepan, cook the fresh juice and the sugar slowly till it reduces into an intense and flavorful glaze, add the freshly grated zest.

Pour over the cake and serve on its own or with a raspberry sauce.

–Last summer I went out and picked raspberries – the biggest and most beautiful raspberries I have ever seen and I filled my freezer with them–

The sauce is made with some frozen berries and some raw sugar, just gently simmered on the stove.

Enjoy

Gluten-free, butter-free and you would never even know!

Happy weekend!

Healthy Energy Truffles

21 January 2013

28 Comments

This recipe is from a very dear and special friend of mine. She suffers from gluten allergy and therefore she is always looking for new and creative ways for eating healthy and gluten-free.

She gave me her recipe here for these “Healthy Energy Truffles” and I just love it. They are easy to make and can be put in the freezer and taken out to enjoy whenever and whereever you need a good healthy snack.

Perfect snack

They are full of goodness – seeds, raisins, cranberries, honey and chocolate chips.

Healthy Energy Truffles

1/2 cup toasted sunflower seeds

1/2 cup toasted pumpkin seeds

1 cup toasted sesame seeds

1 cup quinoa flakes

1 cup chocolate chips

1 cup raisins

1/2 cup of cocoa powder – or 100g dark good quality chocolate

1 cup dried cranberries

2 cups of peanut butter (1 jar @ 500g)

1/2 cup of honey

1 cup of toasted sesame or coconut seeds to roll the truffles in. I used toasted sesame seeds and a bit of pumpkin seeds.

Everything is mixed well together and made into balls the size of a golf ball and finished of by rolling them in toasted sesame/ pumpkin or coconut. Keep what you need in the fridge and freeze the rest.

Served with a nice cup of tea

Easy Crackers

12 September 2012

18 Comments

These crackers are so tasty and they can be whipped up in minutes. It is a Danish recipe from a friend and the original recipe calls for wheat flour. But another of my friends, who is allergic to gluten, uses buckwheat, rice flour and chickpea flour. The thing is that you can use any flour you like for this recipe and they will be crispy and good

note however that some types of flour may need some assistance in sticking together. For example, in this recipe, I used chickpea flour, and I needed to add 1/4 extra flour to get the right consistency.

Easy Crackers

(1 dl = 0.42 cups)

1 dl chickpea flour

1/4 dl wheat flour

1 dl sunflower seeds

1 dl sesame seeds

1 dl flax seeds

1/4 dl olive oil

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 dl water

Mix it all the ingredients together – and put the dough on a piece of baking paper. Put another piece of baking paper on top (so the roller won’t stick) and then roll it as thin as you can get (or to the thickness that you prefer). When it is evenly rolled out remove the top piece of baking paper and put the rolled out cracker dough (still on the bottom piece of baking paper) onto a baking tray. Cut it into squares and bake in 350F hot oven for 12-14 min – till they are slightly golden.

Take them out and leave them to cool. Enjoy the crispy crackers with honey and a cup of tea………………

Or for lunch with hummus like this…………….

Or perhaps with cheese like this…………… and a glass of wine

Or just on their own!

Keep them in an air tight container.

Anne Sture Tucker

Balanced Living

Tag Archives: gluten free

Almond Orange Chocolate Cake

Almond Cake with Tangy Citrus and Raspberry

Healthy Energy Truffles

Healthy Energy Truffles

Easy Crackers