HEALTHY CHRISTMAS CAKE

This is stolen from Kate Farrells Facebook page.  Completely and unashamedly:

I made this one on monday, turned out beautiful. Plus its gluten and dairy free for those with allergies and intolerances. 

600 g mixed dried Fruit or a mix of the following (raisins, prunes, figs, apricot, currants, sultanas, dates)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla bean extract or paste
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
zest and juice from 1 orange
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 eggs
200 g (2 cups) ground almonds
50 g walnuts

Preheat your oven to 150 C (fan forced)
Prepare a 20 cm round cake tin with baking paper lining the sides and the base.
Combine dried fruit, spice, vanilla, orange zest + juice, olive oil and eggs.
Add the almonds and walnuts and mix through.
Spoon Christmas Cake batter into your baking tin.
Bake for 1 hour and 30 minutes. Check with a skewer to see if it comes out clean, if not bake for another 30 minutes.
Cover the top if necessary to prevent over-browning.
Cool, then remove from the tin and store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 1 month.

NOTE:
If you wish to soak your Christmas cake in orange liqueur, as soon as you remove the cake from the oven, skewer holes through the cake and drizzle over 1/4 cup orange liqueur so it can penetrate through the holes and infuse into the cake.

This cake can also be served as a pudding served with vanilla bean custard or thick natural yoghurt.

For nut allergies replace the almond meal for 1 CUP wholemeal or spelt flour and omit the walnuts. Add one more tablespoon olive oil.

20 serves per cake 
Nutrition per serve:
Protein: 4.4 g
Total fat: 9.8 g
Saturated: 1 g
Carbs: 18 g
Fiber: 3.3 g
kilojoules: 740
Calories: 177

Thanks to The Healthy Chef (www.healthychef.com)

Pecan Pie and Vanilla Ice-Cream

Happy Thanksgiving folks   I'm going to a potluck Thanksgiving dinner in Balally in Dublin tonight.  And I will be bringing some of these pecan pies (because I have a bottle of Karo) and some homemade ice-cream made with condensed milk (because traditional egg custard based ice-cream is rich with protein which will not be welcomed by the Move 4 Parkinsons choir that will be present).

This is Bakerella's recipe for Pecan Pie (Irish-ised).


Mama’s Pecan Pies
Makes 3 pies or about 33 mini pies

450g pecans
200g Butter
450g package light soft brown sugar
1 heaped tablespoon Self Raising Flour
16 oz. bottle light corn syrup (Karo)
1 tablespoon Vanilla Extract
6 eggs
3 regular size (not deep dish) pie crusts

Melt butter in the microwave for about 2 minutes or until melted and set aside.
Prepare your pecans. Remove any unwanted brown pieces from the pecan crevices and shake out pecan crumbs in a colander.
Place brown sugar in a large bowl. Work out any lumps with the back of a spoon. If the brown sugar is too hard, you can loosen it up in the microwave. Heat it for a few seconds and it will be fine.
Add a heaping serving tablespoon of self-raising flour and stir until the flour disappears into the brown sugar.
Add a bottle of light corn syrup. Then add 1 serving tablespoon of vanilla and stir until thoroughly combined.
Add melted margarine. Fold carefully into the mixture so it doesn’t splatter. Fold until the margarine is thoroughly worked in and disappears.
In a separate bowl, crack open six eggs. Remove the “roosters” and loosely beat the eggs with your spoon.
Fold the eggs into the pie mixture until they disappear.
Add pecans and stir until completely coated.
Remove three pie shells from the freezer at this point and check for cracks. If you do have a crack, thaw and knead the crack together and refreeze.
Pour the mixture evenly into the three shells. You’ll probably have a little bit leftover in the bowl. Tap tops with a spoon to check consistency and make sure there is the same amount in each pie. Redistribute pecans if necessary to make equal.
Bake for 45 minutes to an hour at 175. Cook pies until they swell and then fall. At that point they are done.
Remove and cool for about three hours. Store on the counter or in the refrigerator depending on how you like your pie.


Eggless Vanilla Ice-Cream
1 can of condensed Milk
1.2Ltr Double Cream (I know insane right)
2 tsp Vanilla Extract

1. In a stand whisk ingredients together until thick and quite stiff.
2. Pour into a freeze proof container and cover with cling film (this ice-cream does not need to be churned.

Footnote
I wound up being too late and now have much Ice-cream in the freezer and Pecan Pie in the fridge

Brownies - an Adendum

So a little experimentation (this time last week) following a bit of Pintrest browsing allowed me to put aside one of my snobbery's.  You see I abhor recipes that include the likes of

'add one pack of cake mix to...'

So here I am to admit I may have been just a little too hasty.  The two experiments that I tried were based on American confections (it coming up to thanksgiving and all).

The first was putting Reeses peanut butter cups in brownies and the result was pretty meh - nothing unpleasant but nothing special.

The second was the delightfully decadent Oreo stuffed brownie.  The Oreo remained soft due to the moisture in the brownie - amazing!

Try this with one of the Brownie Recipes below;

Katherine Hepburn Brownies

Brownies

DO THIS NOW your taste buds will thank you for it.

Katharine Hepburn's Brownies

I am open to be corrected on this but so the story goes that Katharine Hepburn was asked to submit a recipe for a charity thingy and she submitted a recipe for brownies.  It quickly became the 'go-to' recipe for brownies at the time.  But due to my brownie 'curse' I haven't ever been able to make them work.  Below is the original (I believe).

Maple Pecan Pie

• 1 prepared unbaked pastry shell, 9-inch
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup pure maple syrup
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 2 tablespoons melted butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cups pecan pieces or halves

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350° and place rack at lowest position. In a large bowl, beat eggs. Add maple syrup, brown sugar, melted butter, and vanilla. Blend well and stir in pecans. Pour into prepared pie shell. Bake at 350° for 35 to 40 minutes, or until golden brown and the filling is set.