Birthday time!

Hello, I’m all excitable…today is my birthday!

I’m still allowed to get excited on my birthday…even if I am 29, that’s not grown up right?

Who wants to be grown up anyway? ‘Grown up’ often seems to imply being sensible, owning lots of credit cards, not being spontaneous, not giggling uncontrollably and not licking the plate clean when no-one’s watching…that kinda thing.

So I’m certainly not grown up. Well certainly not for a lot of the time.

So back to my birthday! It’s been a random kind of day. A fairly normal start (my Friday Pilates class), with a spot of helping a friend move house in the middle and lots of birthday relating baking goings on in between. So all is good! Tomorrow is where it’s at as I’ll be having a get together with family and going out for a meal to a tapas bar. Last weekend I also went out for a meal with friends to a thai restaurant…so it’s all about food really!  

This is how today shaped up on the food front:

Raspberry and almond breakfast cookie (with green smoothie just peeking in the corner) before my Pilates class, followed by a ridiculously indulgent- it ended up being quite a bit larger than I’d anticipated- chocolate cream cake for a brunchy snack (I was very full after that ooops!), followed by pesto cabbage and chickpea soup for a late lunch before meeting my friend, and then for dinner a carrot craving resulted in these carrot burgers with lemon tahini sauce….

Recipes to come…patience, patience.  But to start, I’ll share my chocolate cream cake as that’s the most birthdayish recipe after all and I like my little candle. Is it a bit silly to make your own birthday cake? Well I wanted a candle to blow out…you can’t be ‘grown up’ if you still blow out candles right?

This chocolate raspberry cream cake is super rich and  indulgent. The sponge itself isn’t so much as I cut the oil since I was going for a cashew cream in the middle and so was more than happy to go for an oil-less textured sponge (I couldn’t tell the difference from my usual chocolate mug cake recipe anyway). The jam I used was sugar free (fruit sugar only) and the cream is simply a thick plain cashew cream…but put all that together and you have a pretty crazy cake! Perfect for a special occasion.

Recipe: Chocolate raspberry cream cake

Serves 1 (or two!)

Ingredients- sponge

3 tbs wholewheat spelt flour (or GF combo)

1 tbs agave and a few grains of stevia (or increase agave slightly)

Tiny pinch salt

1 tbs cocoa powder (or cacao or carob)

½ tsp baking powder

2tbs soy yoghurt or apple puree

Approx. 3 tbs soy milk

Ingredients- filling

Cashew cream (approx. 2 tbs)

Sugar-free fruit conserve

A few fresh berries- optional

Method

To make the sponge, mix the dry ingredients together and then add the wet and mix to form a smooth thick batter. Spoon two equal sized dollops on a large greased/lined microwavable plate and microwave for 1 minute. Alternatively bake the sponge in the oven on a baking sheet for approx. 10 minutes (note I have not tested this method.)

Meanwhile make up the cashew cream (or use an alternative cream/yoghurt) and also get the fruit conserve/berries ready to go.

Once cooked, the sponge should form two small flat cakes. Place one, flat side up, on your serving plate and layer up with cream, jam, fruit before placing the top sponge layer on top. Add extra cream/fruit to the top as desired…add a candle if you like!

It all just splodged out the sides as soon as I sank my spoon into it! Yummy.

For tips and info on recipe measurement conversions, ingredients, substitutions and the methods behind how I do things.... check out my 'baking tips' tab at the top of the page.