Cinnamon and Rhubarb Cake

Recipe LEE HOLMES

While most rhubarb recipes call for large amounts of refined white sugar, this recipe uses coconut sugar and spices to add sweetness and tastes just as good, if not better, than its unhealthy counterparts. It’s the healthy answer to your sweet tooth cravings that won’t leave you feeling guilty and bloated.

Serve this warm straight from the oven with a generous dollop of chilled yoghurt or whip up a batch of coconut cream. If you whip it up from chilled it’s easier and if left in the fridge, the thicker and creamier it becomes as the healthy saturated fats congeal. You can even use electric beaters to whip chilled coconut cream into soft peaks that form a whipped cream consistency.

Adding warming spices, such as cinnamon and nutmeg, enriches these delicious flavours and truly brings this dish to life. Adding a pinch of sea salt to your sweet recipes acts to further draw out the tastes. Not only is this dish incredibly nutritious, bursting with healthy fats and antioxidants, it’s also extremely versatile. If you want to impress the pants off your friends and family, then serve this after your home-cooked meal. It tastes so devilishly naughty that no one will believe it’s made from nothing but natural, wholefood ingredients.

(SERVES 6-8)

Ingredients:

60g (2¼oz) unsalted butter or ghee, softened

1 tsp grated lemon zest

225g (8oz/1½ cups) coconut sugar

2 eggs

200g (7oz/2 cups) almond meal

½ tsp gluten-free baking powder

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)

1 tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg

¼ tsp sea salt

125ml (4fl.oz/½ cup) coconut cream

250g (9oz/2 cups) chopped rhubarb (see tip)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 170°C (325°F). Grease an 18cm (7 inch) round cake tin or a 9 x 30cm (3½ x 12 inch) loaf (bar) tin.

In a large bowl, beat the butter, lemon zest, coconut sugar and eggs until creamy.

Fold in the almond meal, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and coconut cream. Gently fold in the rhubarb.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 45-55 minutes, until the cake springs back when pressed in the centre.

Cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Supercharged Tips:

If using a loaf tin, you can lay the rhubarb, unchopped, on top of the cake, rather than stirring it through the cake, with warmed honey or rice malt syrup for a lovely glazed finish.

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