Orange blossom honey, spelt and poppyseed cake - almost healthy !

I love baking (if you are a regular reader this is nothing new  to you !) but how to make cakes more healthy ?

From time to time I experience a guilt trip and remind myself that where ever possible I should be making my baking more healthy, food fads come and go, eat that don't eat this, so that sometimes its difficult to determine as to whether the changes and tweaks you are making to your baking are making it any healthier, but the one thing I do know is that I like to try different things. So this cake was born, using a natural sweetener, spelt flour and poppyseeds.

A month or so ago I was sent some honey for review so I currently have a nice selection in my store cupboard, so I chose to bake with the orange blossom honey on this occasion, so here's what I came up with.

What you need

• 50g poppyseeds ( you can buy in most healthfood shops or collect your own)
• 180g orange blossom honey ( you could use agave nectar or maple syrup also)
• Grated zest of one large orange
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 3 eggs free range please
• 180g spelt flour (sieved to remove the majority of the meal)
• 180g butter - softened

What you do 

• Preheat your oven to 170c
• Oil spray and base line a 20cm loose bottom or springform tin
• In a large bowl or your mixer, cream the butter until fluffy, now add a little of the flour and beat in eggs one at a time
• Beat in all the flour, baking powder, honey, orange zest and poppy seeds
• Scoop into your tin, levelling and bake for approximately 35 - 45 minutes until tested cooked with a skewer.
• Cool in the tin for approximately before transferring to a wire rack to cool fully.
• If you wish you could make an orange drizzle syrup or frost with a cream cheese butter cream.

Ale and spelt bread for #Boothscheers

Mr Lancashire Food is developing quite a talent for bread baking and one of his tastiest bakes so far has been a Ale and spelt bread he baked specially for #Boothscheers Beer and Cider festival, this bread is great served with soup, cheese and particularly smoked fish such as hot smoked salmon or gravalax as the beery hoppy nutty notes particularly complement the oilliness of the fish. Its a relatively straight forward recipe in bread terms and also features my favourite bread grain spelt too.

Ingredients

• 175g spelt flour
• 275g strong white bread flour
• 7g of dried yeast
• 7g of salt fine grain
• 100ml of ale ( We used Stringers Delta V) but any ale would do
• 100ml of water
• 100ml of skimmed milk ( or you could use watered down yogurt) or just more water
• Good squirt of honey - (about 1/2 tbsp) you could use brown sugar
• knob of butter

You'll also need a round proving basket, floured well.

Method

• Place the butter, milk, beer, honey and water in a pan and warm until the butter has melted, leave to cool until just warm to the touch
• Place all the other ingredients in the bowl of your mixer and attach the dough hook , give it a quick run to distribute the yeast and salt .
• Now add the cooled liquid mixture to the bowl with the mixer running on slow until you have added all the liquid, don't worry if it looks like it won't come together as it will.
• Now leave your mixer doing the work on a slow setting for approximately 6 minutes or so until you have a soft elastic dough.
• Scrape out your bowl onto a floured surface and shape into a round , now place in an oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap or a shower cap and leave until doubled in size
• Turn out onto a floured surface and knock back the dough with your fingers, now reshape in a ball and place in your well floured proving bowl, cover and let prove until doubled in size again.

• Preheat the oven to 200c
• Gently turn out onto a silicone baking mat or silicone paper , bake for approx 30 minutes until well risen, golden and so that it sounds hollow when tapped.
• Allow to cool on a wire rack.

Chocolate courgette spelt cake

Regular readers of my blog will note that I  feature more than my fair share of courgette recipes, I like a nice courgette cake recipe, that unassuming vegetable that adds moisture to your cake recipe and cake is a great way of using up a glut when they are in season. This recipe using spelt (one of my favourite flours) and agave nectar to give a more healthy cake, the result is a nutty chocolate cake, not overly sweet.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups spelt flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 4 tbsp cocoa powder
• 2 eggs 
• 3/4 cup agave nectar
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 1/2 cups grate courgette

Method 

• Preheat oven to 180c
• Oil and line a 2lb loaf tin
• Sift all the dry ingrients into a bowl
• Add all the well ingredients and mix well
• Pour your batter into your prepared tin
• Bake for approx 45 mins until well risen and tested as cooked with a skewer
• Cool on a wire rack
• Cake is better after being kept a couple of days wrapped in a tin.

Homemade butter and Spelt Soda Bread

I fondly recall making butter when I was about 7 at school with Mrs Bolan, if I remember rightly it involved a yoghurt pot and lots of jiggling as we passed the carton round the class, at the end we did get butter. This week Tom and Henry Herbert ( The Fabulous Baker Bros) refreshed my memory on how easy it is to make butter at home. 

Double Cream and my trusty Kitchen aid mixer were all it took to produce so delicious butter and buttermilk for use in the Soda bread. You just mix until the butter forms on the spiral whisk and buttermilk is left in the bowl, you then rinse the butter in clean cold water to remove any buttermilk left in the butter.

Soda bread is equally as simple, I just followed the recipe in this Saturday's Times -Weekend from those fabulous baking bros again, the recipe uses spelt flour. 

Ingredients

• 300g spelt flour
• Pinch of salt
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 230ml buttermilk, if you haven't got enough from your buttermaking top up with milk

Preheat your oven to 230c and put your tray into to pre heat

Method

• Mix all your dry ingredients in a bowl and then add the buttermilk
• Mix with your hands until you have a sticky dough
• Turn out onto a floured surface and shape to a round
• Place on your tray and quickly slash deeply into the classic four
• Bake for 15 - 20 mins 

Cinnamon Spelt Cake

Spelt , is a species of the wheat family and has been in use since the Bronze age. The grain is grown in Britain and is reputed to be easier to digest that other strains of wheat, I have been using the flour in some of my baking for a while. Its pretty easy to get hold of in a quality supermarket and most health food stores will stock Spelt in various forms.

This recipe was one of the first I made using Spelt flour and you will find that the flour gives a pleasant nutty yeasty twang to the cake, recipes in most cases need to be adapted slightly to spelt flour. The topping is also a little unusual but go with it as it works to provide a nice crunchy top to the cake.

Ingredients

• 100g softened butter or quality vegetable margarine
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 100g soft brown sugar
• 3 eggs - free range 
• 100g demerara sugar
• 150g spelt flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 50g ground almonds

Method

• Cream the margarine / butter with the soft brown sugar, then beat in 2 of your eggs
• Add the spelt flour,baking powder and 1tsp of cinnamon
• Mix well and then turn into an oiled cake tin, either a loose bottomed or springform works best.
• Mix together your demerara sugar, ground almonds and the remaining tsp of cinnamon and the egg to a grainy paste, spread this over the top of the cake mix in the tin.
• Bake in a pre heated oven @ 180c for approx 30 minutes until well risen and cooked through.
• Cool in the tin