This is a very popular recipe from Gourmet Traveller that was published many moons ago (I know I’ve been making it for about 15/16 years). Its such an easy recipe to make, I had to re-share. I usually have something sweet in the fridge for the family during the week & this recipe is a nice and easy for midweek baking. I’ve adapted the recipe slightly. Apart from some extra spices, I’ve specified organic panela sugar & raw sugar in this recipe, the original recipe had brown sugar & castor sugar. So why the swap? brown sugar is still a refined product. Brown sugar is white sugar with molasses added back to it, whereas panela otherwise known as rapadura, is cane juice that is evaporated then ground. This minimal process leaves a mineral rich product that is much easier on the body to digest & delivers a slower release of glucose to the bloodstream. Panela has a lovely rich caramel flavour; I personally prefer the taste over brown sugar. You can find it a most health food stores.
Sugar often gets blamed for obesity, diabetes & even cancer. I agree, anything that’s heavily processed can be an issue. However, natural sugars are not a problem for most people. In 1935 22.5% of our consumption was sugar. Obesity was around 3%. Diabetes was 0.37%. Metabolic syndrome was unknown. Since the late 90’s, sugar & carbohydrate consumption has been going down in the western world while the rate of these diseases has been on the rapid incline. Vegetable & seed oil (canola, soy, sunflower, vegetable, grapeseed, rapeseed ) consumption Has gone up from 7% of our calorie since 1935 to 29% in 2016. These oils are in almost all packaged foods including foods marketed as high protein, low carb & low fat. These oils disrupt hormone & metabolic function, contributing to weight gain & disease. The best way to avoid these oils is to read all your labels when shopping & to make as much food as possible from scratch. Another point to make is that conventional sugar is heavily sprayed with pesticides, pesticides also interfere with hormonal function & metabolism contributing to weight gain & disease. So, when using cane sugar always opt for organic.
This recipe specifies whole nutmeg & whole cardamom, The flavour is much more intense than the pre grounded spices, but you can substitute for the powder if that suits.
Ingredients
360 gm almond meal (3 cups)
1 & ½ cups of panela sugar
½ cup of raw organic sugar
120 gm salted butter, melted
2 eggs, lightly beaten
250 gm Greek-style yoghurt
½-1 freshly grated nutmeg
Seeds of 12 cardamon pods, freshly ground with a mortar & pestle
1 tsp ground cinnamon
Zest of half an orange
50gm pistachios, coarsely chopped
Rose petals, dried or fresh, unsprayed or organic (optional)
Preheat oven to 170C/150C fan forced. Line a lightly buttered 22cm springform cake tin with unbleached baking paper. Combine almond meal & sugars, then rub with fingertips until coarse crumbs form. Spoon half the mixture into the cake tin & gently pressing to evenly cover base.
Add eggs, yoghurt, spices and zest to remaining crumble mixture and beat with a wooden spoon until smooth and creamy. Pour over prepared base, smooth top, scatter pistachios around edge and bake until golden (55 minutes.) Top with rose petals in the middle of the cake if using. Place cake in tin in the fridge to cool completely (you can cool at room temperature, but the cake will cut better this way). The cake will keep covered in the fridge, for up to a week. The cake goes well served with yogurt or labneh & fresh raspberries.
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