Cookery

Another delicious recipe from Denise Phillips

For more recipes and inspiration visit my website: www.jewishcookery.com

Dairy free & Sugar free Chocolate ‘Cheese’ cake

This cake requires no cooking, although needs time to set overnight. Perfect when you want to prepare in advance, as you need to freeze the mixture as part of the assembly process. It is the ideal recipe when you have over ripe bananas in your fruit bowl. These need to be frozen with the skins on.

Preparation Time: Overnight, 20 minutes plus 2 hours freezing Cooking Time: No cooking Serves: 10-12

Ingredients For the base 110g walnuts 40g unsweetened cocoa power 200g pitted dates 1 tablespoon vanilla extract 1 pinch salt

For the filling 360g raw cashews, soaked overnight in cold water, then drained 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract 165g ripe banana –skin removed –1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice 6 tablespoons water 1 pinch salt 40g unsweetened cocoa powder 200g pitted Medjool dates

Garnish: Cocoa powder Decorate with chocolate nibs, chocolate sprinkles Method 1. For the base, blitz the walnuts in a food processor until you get coarse crumbs. Add the remaining ingredients and blitz until well incorporated. 2. Press the mixture evenly into a cling film-lined 20cm round springform cake tin. Set aside. 3. For the filling, blitz the filling ingredients until well incorporated and smooth. 4. Taste the sweetness and add more dates as you wish. 5. Pour into the tin and smooth out using a wet spatula or spoon. 6. Cover with cling film and place into the freezer for 2 hours. 7. Remove 1 hour before serving. 8. Dust the top with cocoa powder and decorate with chocolate nibs and chocolate sprinkles.

Reducing Sugar

BY DENISE PHILIPS

This week is ‘Sugar Awareness’ week (814 November). It is a timely opportunity reduce to sugar consumption in the UK and this year, focusses on snacks, and how they contribute to daily sugar intake. From a young age, children see marketing communications for sugary snacks and get used to their sweet taste. This can obviously lead to bad eating habits in the future.

So I thought I would share some ideas on good alternatives that will allow you to reduce the amount of refined sugar in mainstream recipes.

As a general rule, you can reduce sugar by as much as 20% in a recipe without it affecting the sweetness too much. So if it says add 100g of sugar, try it with 80g.

However, do remember that sugar is a preservative and keeps baked goods moist, so watch out for over-baking— check for ‘doneness’ earlier than usual - and don’t expect your baked good to last as long as they might ordinarily.

Also, it is best not to play around with the quantity of sugar in ice cream or frozen desserts: sugar keeps frozen desserts from freezing solid, so you would need something else like alcohol in the mix to keep your ice cream from becoming as hard as ice!

But the best way of cutting sugar content is to use one of the many good sugar substitutes that are now readily available. These include vegetables in baking such as: courgettes, parsnips, chestnuts, carrots, beetroot and even pumpkin. They improve the texture, keep baked goods moist, add fibre and nutrients. The vegetables can be added grated raw or cooked and pureed.

Dates and figs add a delicious natural sweetness and offer several health benefits. If pureed, they produce a thick paste which can be used as a 1-to-1 replacement for refined sugar. Apple sauce and other fruit purees, for example banana or berries, also blend well in baking in particular cakes, breads, and muffins. If you buy readymade apple sauce and purees, be sure to select the unsweetened products, those with no sugar. The baby food section of the supermarket will often stock these.

Monk fruit and stevia are non-nutritive sweeteners. This means they have little-to-no calories or nutrients. Both are marketed as low/low calories alternatives to sugars and more natural alternatives to artificial sweeteners containing saccharine and other synthetic ingredients. There is also agave nectar which is a sweet syrup made from the filtered juice of the agave plant, native to Mexico.

Honey is another alternative to refined sugar and this is better than agave nectar because it is higher in antioxidants. Honey has a lower GI value than sugar, meaning that it does not raise blood sugar levels as quickly. Honey is sweeter than sugar, so you may need less of it, but it does have slightly more calories per teaspoon so it’s wise to keep a close eye on your portion sizes.

To conclude, reducing sugar should be part of your complete eating plan for good health. For optimal health, it’s best to eat mostly whole, nutritious foods like fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans, fish, drink more water and enjoy sugary foods sparingly or use the above alternate suggestions in more of your everyday cooking.