Cardamom And Lime Polenta Cake

We gave up using processed oil & margarine nearly 3 years ago, although we do still eat out & buy occasional vegan junk food, but it's not very often & when we do - we know about it!

Oil makes us both incredibly tired, so we avoid it as much as possible & don't use it in our cooking at all. 

It was a fantastic revelation to discover we could cook without oil/processed fat & adapting our favourite recipes was easy. As time's gone on, our recipes have become far removed from the originals with more wholesome ingredients & flavour.

This recipe started out as a vegan, gluten free lemon polenta cake, complete with lashings of oil & caster sugar, now it's oil & sugar free too!

 So here is our very easy to make (vegan, gluten free, oil free, sugar free) Cardamom & Lime Polenta Cake...

Mix the following dry ingredients together:

3oz polenta

4 1/2 oz ground almonds

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 oz dessicated coconut

2 heaped teaspoons ground linseeds

8 cardamom pods, remove pods & grind seeds

pinch of salt  

Then whizz up the following wet ingredients (with either a hand blender or food processor)

6 oz chopped dates

6 oz puréed apple

Zest of 2 limes 

Juice of 1lime 

Place in a medium bowl & gradually mix in the dry to the wet ingredients until it becomes like a moist cookie dough. Add a few splashes of plant milk if it's a bit dry.

Place into a shallow, greaseproof paper lined cake tin & cook on a medium heat (180C/350F/Gas 4)  for about 30 minutes. Remove from the oven, leave to cool for at least 10 minutes & then remove the paper.

We mainly have the cake as it is, but for special occasions, or if you fancy something more sugary - the cake could be iced. Use 4 oz natural icing sugar, juice of half a lime, a teaspoon of creamed coconut melted in a dessert spoon of boiling water.

Enjoy!

Kay & Sime

xx