Retreat catering is a steep learning curve.
First things first, I’m no chef. Generally, I apply this policy when cooking: make it from scratch, avoid adding processed ingredients, add green things if possible and attempt to make it tasty.
The November Yoga & Nutrition Retreat was a really good opportunity to try some new recipes but it also brought along its own challenges, namely, making dessert (not my strong point anyway) that was also gluten-free and adaptable to a vegan diet.
It turns out you need either gluten or eggs to make cakes rise so I went through several versions of several different recipes before eventually mixing a few together to come up with this winning lemon cake.
At the retreat, squares of the cake were served with roasted pear, possibly the easiest and tastiest thing, plus mascarpone for non-vegans, coyo for vegans and finished with some freshly grated lemon zest, a drizzle of agave and torn mint.
The flavours worked well together. The cake is dense and lemony, the pears soft and cinnamony, the mascarpone added creaminess and the lemon zest and mint kept it fresh.
The cake does have sugar in it but you can’t exactly take every “bad” ingredient out and expect it to make a good cake. It’s a treat.
Here is an action shot straight from the retreat:
Ingredients (serves 8 approximately & keeps well)
200g self-raising gluten-free flour (I used Sainsbury’s own brand)
150g coconut oil
175g golden caster sugar
50g ground almonds
150ml gluten-free oat milk (I used Rude Health)
zest of 2 lemons, juice of 1
1/2 pear per person
cinnamon
rapeseed oil for roasting
To serve:
mascarpone or coyo
fresh mint
zest of a lemon
agave (or honey) to drizzle
Method:
Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C and line a square cake tin with baking paper. I tried this cake in both a loaf tin and a square cake tin and both work well so don’t get too caught up on the baking tin.
Put the sugar & lemon zest in a large mixing bowl. Sift in the flour and ground almonds and stir to combine.
Stir in the lemon juice and oat milk. Don’t worry if it is a bit lumpy initially, this will even itself out.
Melt the coconut oil over a medium heat.
Grab a spatula. Pour the coconut oil into the mixing bowl and stir in using a spatula. (Using a spatula instead of something like a wooden spoon will ensure that unmixed bits don’t end up sitting on the bottom of the bowl.)
It’ll initially look like a total mess and a bit like the coconut oil doesn’t want to mix but keep stirring and folding quickly and it’ll combine. You can also use a food processor to do the mixing for you.
Pour the cake mix into the cake tin and level out the top with a spoon or the spatula.
Bake in the oven for 1 hour and 10 minutes. The top should be golden.
Allow it to mostly cool in the cake tin then transfer to a wire rack.
To roast the pear, peel the pears, cut them into quarters and core them.
Lay them on a baking tray, drizzle with a little bit of rapeseed oil, sprinkle over some cinnamon and bake at 180 degrees C until the pears start to soften. Approximately 30 minutes.
To serve, put a square of lemon cake on a plate, top with 2 pear quarters, a tablespoon of mascarpone, some torn mint, freshly grated lemon zest and a drizzle of agave or honey.