A Vegan Gluten Free Plum Cake (something that all your guests can eat!!)

As much as I would rather share a savoury recipe with you this week I feel it is high time I share a sweet treat with you. As many of you know I don’t really have a sweet tooth so when I found out I was going to a vegan picnic I thought woo hoo I can develop a new recipe to share with you all and not have to even taste it. I tried it out at the picnic and everyone loved it. Served it with sunflower cream which was exceptionally good. Hope you enjoy this cake. Right now plums are still in season but you can use any fruit really, you could put blueberries through it, or put peaches on top or pears or apples. Although I have the best ever apple cake recipe in my cook book so maybe save your apples for that recipe.

Plum cake

8 plums some cut in half some in slices
1 cup gluten free flour
1 cup quinoa flour
2 ½ tsp gluten free baking powder
½ cup apple sauce (see below how to make)
½ cup coconut oil melted
¾ cup coconut yoghurt
1 cup rapadura sugar
2 tbsp chia seeds
½ cup coconut milk or cream

To make the apple sauce peel 3 small apples then cut up small and place in a saucepan with a drop of water so they don’t stick to the pan. Boil down until the apples are mushy then mash them with a folk. Measure out a cup of apple sauce.
Place the flours and baking powder in one bowl and whisk through to remove any lumps.
Place the chia seeds with the coconut milk in a bowl and mix through let sit until the chia seeds have soaked up the coconut milk.
With a whisk beat the coconut oil and rapadura sugar together until it fluffs up a bit (it won’t really fluff up but it will be well combined).
Mix the apple sauce, chia seeds and coconut yoghurt together and add the sugar mix to this. Fold this mixture gently into the flours.
Place in a paper lined cake tin.
Press half cut plums around the outside of the cake and then create a pattern with the rest of the plums.
Pop cake in the 200 C oven for 20 minutes. Turn it around and check on it in a further 20 minutes or until fully cooked.
Serve with sunflower pouring cream. I used my sunflower cream recipe but thinned it more and added a spot more maple to make it into a pouring cream.

Ways to Make Transitioning to a Vegan Diet Easier

One of the tips I like to tell people who are transitioning onto a vegan diet is that you may very well experience discomfort in your body. When giving up meat and dairy your body is likely to detox. So many people think it is their new diet that is causing the discomfort in their body when in fact it is the detox. To assist in this detox it is great to eat as much organic produce as you can as this can make things move through quicker. I also recently read that sweet potato and coriander are great foods for removing toxins in the body so adding those to your diet could possibly make the detox from meat and dairy an easier journey. It took me five weeks for my body to detox from dairy but it felt good as I knew I was illuminating toxins at the same time.

Three Day Vegan Foundation Course

The vegan foundation course is not only full of wonderful recipes to create but also lots of information is shared and tips on how to not only make life easier as you transition from a vegan diet but also how to make life easier in the kitchen. Today I share with you some great photos from the last three day foundation course. There are still two places left in the March course and six in the April course.

Dates for the rest of the year are as follows

August 9^th to 11^th
September 20^th to 22^nd
November 8^th to 10^th
November 29^th to December 1^st