Almond Apricot & Lemon Cake

Whilst fresh, ripe apricots are a metaphor for summer, I couldn’t wait to bring the clocks forward by making this very useful, springtime Almond Apricot & Lemon Cake. All light and lovely - almonds and apricots are a fabulous pairing - I decorated my cake with a top layer of no-sugar almond paste and fresh wild violets from the garden in readiness for an Easter Sunday teatime treat.

The fact is, I’m not brilliant at cake decorating, so homemade almond paste, edible flowers, which smell divine by the way, and a pretty ribbon does the job. The result is a really moist, light, golden cake studded with small pieces of fruit, which isn’t a million miles away from traditional Simnel cake, but looks prettier. 

Gorgeous as this cake is, if you want something less fussy, simply top with a sifting of icing sugar and serve with coffee or, better still, mint tea. You can also try your own homemade Lavender Mint Tea.

The cake is then easily transformed into an ‘after dinner’ dessert by serving with poached apricots, rhubarb, plums or pears. Or you can substitute an orange for the lemon in the recipe and serve with a fresh orange salad and whipped cream. In my imagination, the cake eating possibilities for this simple, delicious cake are endless.

Easy to make, it keeps like a dream.  

Almond Apricot & Lemon Cake (Serves 12)

Ingredients - for the cake

1 organic lemon

100g organic sun dried apricots

6 organic eggs - preferably at room temperature

100g raw organic runny honey (raw acacia honey resists crystallization so retains its runny consistency without heating)

50g Sukrin:1

250g organic ground almonds

Sukrin Icing - for sifting over

Ingredients - for the almond paste, optional

125g organic ground almonds

25g Sukrin Gold

25g Sukrin icing sugar

1 tsp fresh organic lemon juice

1-2 tsp organic maple syrup

1 organic egg yolk

Ingredients - to assemble, optional

3 tbsp organic no sugar apricot jam

Edible flowers

Organic flaked almonds, lightly toasted

Ribbon

Instructions - to make the cake

Wash the lemon, then put it in a small saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil and simmer gently until soft (about 45 minutes). Take off the heat, add the dried apricots to the pan. Leave to cool.

Grease a loose-based 8” cake tin (preferably springform) and line the sides and base with non-stick baking parchment.

Pre-heat the oven to 150℃ / 300℉ / Gas mark 2.

Drain the lemon and apricots. Cut the lemon into quarters and remove any pips. Dry the apricots on kitchen paper then cut each one into several pieces. Put the lemon quarters and apricots into a food processor or blender and whizz together until very finely chopped into almost - but not quite - a smooth puree i.e. it needs to retain some texture.

Using an electric whisk, whisk the eggs, honey and Sukrin:1 together for about 6 to 8 minutes until they are pale and thick and until the mixture holds its shape for a few seconds when it’s flicked across the surface of the rest of the mix.

Whisk in the lemon and apricot puree. Then, using a large metal spoon or rubber spatula, gently fold in the ground almonds.

Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 1¼ hours, or until a cocktail stick inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. N.B. To prevent the cake from getting too brown, cover the top of the cake lightly with a circle of non-stick baking parchment after the first 45 minutes baking time. 

After you take the cake from the oven, leave it to cool completely in the tin, then turn out carefully and remove the paper. 

Dust the cake with Sukrin Icing just prior to serving.

Instructions - to make the almond paste, optional

Put the ground almonds, Sukrin Gold and Sukrin Icing into a food processor and pulse to combine.

Add the egg yolk, lemon juice and 1 teaspoon of maple syrup and process until a soft, dry paste forms (takes about 1 minute). If it doesn’t come together into a malleable paste (test by squeezing a little of the mixture between two fingers to see if it holds together), add another teaspoon of maple syrup and whizz again. It’s a fine balance. The longer you process the almonds the more oil is released, which helps bind the mixture together. However, it you over-process it, the paste becomes too oily and sticky to handle.  

Form the almond paste into a ball then place between two sheets of cling film or baking parchment. Flatten slightly with the palm of your hand, then roll out evenly into an 8 inch (20 cm) circle. N.B. You can either draw a circle on the back of the bottom sheet of baking parchment to guide you or use a cake tin liner placed under the bottom sheet of cling film.

Instructions - to assemble the cake

Invert the cake onto a serving plate so that the bottom side of the cake becomes the top i.e. you have a completely flat surface to work on. 

Heat the jam slightly in a small saucepan and brush it over the top of the cake.

Remove the top sheet of parchment or cling film from the rolled out circle of almond paste, then with the help of the paper or cling film still underneath, lift the almond paste onto the top of the cake. Press down lightly with your hands, then peel away the remaining paper/cling film.

Crimp the edge of the almond paste with your fingers or alternatively create a pattern around the top edge of the cake by light indenting with the prongs of a fork or wooden skewer. Decorate with organic edible flowers, toasted flaked almonds and a matching ribbon (see photo).

Just prior to serving, sift a little Sukrin Icing over the top of the cake.  

Carbohydrate 13g Protein 9g - per serving of plain cake

Carbohydrate 16g Protein 11g - per serving of cake with almond paste

Low-Carb Breakfast Buns

I couldn’t resist the challenge of coming up with something new for National Breakfast Week! Unbelievably, these delicious, light-textured, incredibly moreish, vegan, Low-Carb Breakfast Buns are dairy-free, gluten-free, grain-free, egg-free and refined sugar-free. No slight-of-hand ‘natural’ sweeteners are added to the mix either…even if you don’t have my fave zero-carb Sukrin Gold to hand (although I think you should!), just one single tablespoon of pure organic maple syrup will sweeten the whole job lot nicely!

These really healthy Breakfast Buns are so fast and easy to make that my man thinks I should add another category to Primal Plate…”Not so much Primal Pronto, more like Instant!” 

If you suffer from a nut allergy, you can substitute whole organic pumpkin seeds for the chopped walnuts. The buns still retain the same satisfying ‘crunch’ and with or without nuts both versions are equally as good.  

So good in fact that you don’t need to reserve them for breakfast. I’d be happy having mine at teatime too! Lovely served warm from the oven with a drizzle of maple syrup, you can almost feel these resistant-starch packed beauties doing you good! Definitely something worth getting out of bed for!

Low-Carb Breakfast Buns (Makes 12)

Ingredients

150g organic tiger nut flour 

25g Sukrin reduced-fat organic almond flour 

25g organic cold-milled golden flaxseed

2 tsp gluten free baking powder

40g organic walnuts, finely chopped (if you are allergic to nuts, use whole pumpkin seeds instead)

40g organic sunflower seeds

90g organic coconut oil, melted (or 6 tbsp organic cold-pressed tiger nut oil )

1 tbsp Sukrin Gold (or 1 tbsp organic pure maple syrup)

1 tbsp pure vanilla extract (I use Ndali)

225ml unsweetened almond milk, preferably homemade (or 225ml full-fat, raw, organic cow’s milk)

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 200℃ / 400℉ / Gas mark 6

Line a 12-hole bun tin with 12 paper bun cases

Weigh all the dry ingredients directly into a medium sized bowl and, using a fork, mix together well.

Add the maple syrup (if not used Sukrin Gold) and the oil and combine.

Pour in the milk and continue to mix with a fork until the mixture comes together into a thick batter-like consistency.

Spoon into the bun cases (you’ll need a smidgeon over 50g of batter per case) and bake in the pre-heated oven for 15-20 minutes, or until a cocktail stick inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Serve warm from the oven with a little maple syrup drizzled over, if liked. 

Carbohydrate 9g Protein 4g - per breakfast bun (made with maple syrup & cow’s milk)

Carbohydrate 7g Protein 3g - per breakfast bun (made with Sukrin Gold & almond milk)

Almond Milk

Almond milk and other milk alternatives are becoming increasingly popular as people turn their backs on dairy in search of a healthier and more sustainable lifestyle. I personally enjoy cow’s milk and other dairy products but this is conditional upon the milk, butter and cheese being organic, grass-fed, full-fat, vegetarian (no animal rennet in my cheese please!) and preferably raw (unpasteurised).

Mass produced dairy products involve the use of antibiotics, bovine growth and milk producing hormones, feeding cows an unnatural diet of soy and other grains that have been grown with fertilisers and pesticides, and continuous milking, even throughout pregnancy. Treating dairy cows as mere ‘milking-machines’ rather than as intelligent animals, forces the animal to overproduce milk and robs mothers of their baby calves - the male calves (considered a waste product of the dairy industry) are shot, and the females are reared only to suffer the same fate as their mother. From a human health perspective, the cheap milk that’s produced is not only nutritionally inferior, it is also contaminated with the hormones, antibiotics and other toxic chemicals that have been forced upon these suffering animals throughout their short lives.

Unfortunately, most industrially-produced alternatives to dairy milk are not as healthful as you might imagine. Firstly, there is never a good reason to drink soy milk. But also shop-bought almond, rice and oat milks are frequently packed with chemicals - flavourings, thickeners, sugar or toxic sugar substitutes like aspartame. Organic coconut milk is a healthy drink but only reliably so if it’s free from BPA (a potential toxic found in the lining of canned goods containing coconut milk, soup, tomatoes etc.) and guar gum (that can cause digestive problems). As far as I’m concerned, if it’s a choice between factory-farming or industrially-processed dairy substitutes, they can all milk off! 

Fortunately, with just two ingredients, a decent blender and a nut milk bag it’s easy to make a healthier, better tasting ‘milk’ at home by simply blitzing nuts with water. 

Rich and creamy almond milk can be drunk straight, in tea or coffee, poured over Primal Plate’s Nut & Seed Granola or as a substitute for cow’s milk in recipes for soups, smoothies, shakes, sauces, ice creams etc. It is particularly good when made into our Cream of Cauliflower Soup. 

A delicious health-food option for everyone, I think nut milks are an absolute boon for vegans, anyone who is lactose intolerant and not least of all, cows! 

Almond Milk (makes 750ml)

Ingredients:

200g raw, organic, unblanched almonds, soaked overnight in cold water

600ml freshly filtered cold water (see note below)

Instructions:

The next day, drain the soaked almonds and rinse well under cold water. Drain again.

Tip the almonds into a blender and pour in 600ml of filtered cold water. Blitz for 3-4 minutes until completely homogenised and smooth.

Open up the nut milk bag and set it inside a medium sized mixing bowl. Pour the mixture from the blender directly into the bag. 

Tighten the tie at the top of the bag to hold everything inside, then using your hands firmly squeeze out all the liquid until you’re left with only dry almond pulp.

Transfer the milk into a lidded glass jar or bottle and chill. 

Store covered in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. Stir or shake well before using. 

Notes

The above recipe is for unsweetened almond milk. To sweeten, add 2 teaspoons maple syrup (or raw organic runny honey) and 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract or 2 roughly chopped stoneless Medjool dates to the soaked almonds and water before blending. Alternatively, add organic liquid stevia to the finished milk to taste (approx 4-6 drops). 

You can make cashew nut, macadamia nut, hazelnut, tiger nut (see our recipe for Horchata) and coconut milk (with organic coconut chips instead of nuts) using the exact same method.

I strongly recommend freshly filtered water for making nut milks. I think this warrants the separate blog post entitled ‘Cool, Clear, Water’ to tell you why and how!

Carbohydrate 2g Protein 2g - per 100ml serving (unsweetened)

Cream of Cauliflower Soup

Back in the 1960s, for one brief year, I attended catering college. During our daily student briefings, prior to lunch service in the college’s public restaurant, I learned culinary French. For example, today’s recipe for Cream of Cauliflower Soup would have appeared on the restaurant menu as Crème Dubarry. 

It’s funny how half a century later the words ‘Crème Dubarry’ kept haunting me when, due to an oversight, I’d defrosted too much milk. A glut of defrosted milk taking up too much fridge space is not a good thing, so I knew I needed to conjure up a ‘cream of something’ soup and do it quickly. A foray into my second fridge (I have one solely dedicated to storing fresh fruit and vegetables!) revealed an organic cauliflower and a couple of leeks left over from last week’s food shop. Clearly my subconscious was trying to tell me something, because at this point cream of cauliflower soup was a foregone conclusion! And, since I really like the story of how cauliflower soup came to be known as Crème Dubarry, so was today’s blog post.

Madame du Barry was a very beautiful, highly desirable courtesan - a high-class prostitute to the men of the French court - before officially becoming King Louis XV’s last mistress. Later she lost her head during the French Revolution and was guillotined in December 1793. Cauliflower was first introduced to the French court during Louis XV reign and having tasted it boiled in stock, flavoured with nutmeg and served with melted butter, the king liked it so much that he dedicated it to his mistress Mme. du Barry. It is said that if she was ever served anything other than cauliflower soup for a starter, she would send it away and demand that it be replaced. Subsequently, cauliflower soup became known as Crème Madame du Barry and, given its origins, it is a veritable ‘upper-class’ soup, to say the least! 

Silky smooth, milky-sweet, almost nutty flavoured, this elegant soup is destined to become another Primal Pronto classic. For a special occasion it can be garnished with sautéed wild mushrooms, pan-fried king prawns or a poached egg, but for a family meal it really is a lovely, luxurious soup that’s best kept simple with a drizzle of melted butter and a dusting of fresh nutmeg. Since it was this simple pairing of nutmeg and butter with cauliflower that so impressed King Louis XV and popularised it in France, I hope it will impress you too!

To make a meal of this soup you need something more that can hold its own against cauliflower’s potency and nuttiness. I thought Cheddar Muffins might do the trick, and they did. Spread with butter and still warm from the oven, Primal Plate’s cheesy, savoury muffins with their ‘crusty’ tops are a cross between a bread roll (they don’t fall to pieces when you spread cold butter on them) and a muffin. Just the thing if you’re on a low-carb diet and haven’t figured out how to satiate your appetite without a slab of bread with your soup. I’ll be posting the recipe soon!

Cream of Cauliflower Soup (Serves 6)

Ingredients

1 medium/large cauliflower, stalks discarded and florets broken into small pieces (about 450g prepared weight)

2-3 medium leeks, white part only, finely sliced (about 165g prepared weight)

20g butter

2 tbsp olive oil

600ml vegetable stock (made with freshly boiled filtered water and 2½ tsp organic Marigold Vegetable Bouillon powder)

500ml full-fat milk

1 bay leaf - optional

sea salt 

freshly ground white pepper

50g raw cashews

100ml double cream

a little melted butter, freshly grated nutmeg and single parsley leaves. to garnish

Instructions

Put the cauliflower florets and leeks into a large saucepan with the butter and the olive oil. 

Gently heat the contents of the pan, stirring the vegetables around in the melting butter and oil until they are evenly coated and they start to sizzle. 

Cover with a lid and sweat over a low heat for about 10 to 15 minutes, stirring from time to time. At the end of this cooking time, the vegetables should be softened but not browned.

Pour in the stock and bring to the boil, then pour in the milk and return gently to a boil. Turn down the heat, season to taste and simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes.

Take the pan off the heat and add the cashews. Leave to stand for a further 10 minutes - the hot soup will help soften the raw cashews.

Add the cream (if using) then blend everything together in a food processor or blender. 

Pass the puréed soup through a fine metal sieve into a clean pan. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary.

When you’re ready to serve the soup, gently re-heat to just below boiling point, stirring occasionally. 

Ladle the hot soup into individual warmed bowls, then spoon or drizzle a little melted butter on top, dust with grated nutmeg and add a parsley leaf to each bowl. 

Notes

If preparing ahead, cool, cover and chill for up to a day.

Primarily a vegetarian, I am in a constant state of flux trying to achieve a balance between fulfilling my nutritional needs (organic, raw milk and cheese is an excellent source of Omega-3, calcium and protein) and pacifying my sensibility towards animals (the cruelty involved in the dairy industry per se breaks my heart). Gentle souls and vegans rejoice! I made a second batch of Cream Of Cauliflower Soup using just almond milk instead of cow’s milk and cream. And, because the flavour profiles of cauliflower and almonds have a natural affinity, it turns out that the finished soup was equally as creamy and delicious as when it was made with full-fat dairy milk and cream! 

However, this does necessitate making your own almond milk before making the soup. I do not recommend shop-bought almond milk that’s been industrially-processed and loaded with stabilisers, emuslifiers, thickeners and sugar! Meanwhile, for all cow’s milk naysayers, the environmental ravages of siphoning off water in California for their almond crops isn’t boding well for the planet either! I don’t pretend to have all the answers!

If you do eat dairy and are not up for making your own nut milk, please seek out the best quality cow’s milk you can buy. By the best, I mean milk that’s good for you, has been ethically produced and is environmentally-sustainable. At Primal Plate we don’t consider purchasing cheap milk from abused cows an option. The cheap, mass-produced, heat-treated (pasteurised) stuff found on supermarkets shelves is not a nutritious health-giving food, furthermore animal welfare is ignored and the environmental cost is too high. 

I buy my milk online from Gazegill Organics’s happy cows because there is simply is no substitute for clean, full-fat, organic, grass-fed, raw milk. The more expensive price you have to pay for real milk is worth every penny. It contains all it’s vital nutrients, tastes more rich and creamy and behaves differently to the watery substance that passes for milk in supermarket chiller cabinets. For months Sarah complained that her chocolate banana milk shakes (made with organic pasteurised milk purchased from a supermarket) didn’t come out nearly as thick and creamy as my Raw Chocolate Banana Milkshake. When I finally realised what was going on, I substituted some of my supply of raw milk for her pasteurised milk and…Voila! No more thin milkshakes! Remember, pasteurisation not only destroys harmful germs but kills off useful bacteria and a high percentage of vital nutrients too. It also makes the calcium contained in raw milk insoluble, so there’s little point in feeding it to your kids to build strong bones!

Then there’s the horrific reality of mass milk production - one of the most exploitative and cruellest industries in Britain today. Sad cows, housed en masse in concrete confinement feeding centres, fed an unnatural diet of corn, soy and other grains that their bodies aren’t designed to eat. Overfed, over-milked and kept alive on a chemical cocktail of hormones and antibiotics, they are pushed to their limits 24/7. When these poor animals are finally worn-out - literally milked-dry of their profit potential by humans - they are dispatched to the abattoir, where their vastly shortened, miserable lives end violently. I have to ask myself, who in hell wants to drink this stuff?

Meanwhile, the oldest, luckiest, milk-producing cow on Gazegilll Organics farm, where she has access to 16 acres all year round and a diet that's kept as natural as possible, is twenty-one years old already! How fabulous is that?  As consumers, we have a choice. Please do yourself and farm animals a favour. Only support dairy farmers that produce organic, grass-fed milk from cows that are treated with this much love and respect. Thank you.  

Carbohydrate 13g Protein 6g - per serving