Healthy Aargau Carrot Cake

      I fancied carrot cake one afternoon. Actually, that's a lie. I was thinking of carrot cake all morning and fantasized about sinking my teeth into a slice of carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. I remembered that some time ago in Singapore, I baked a carrot cake that used ground almonds as a base for the recipe. I remembered that the name of that type of carrot cake starts with an 'A'. 
 
      So I looked it up and I found it: Aargau carrot cake. Aargau is the name of a canton in Switzerland that is famed for its carrot cake. There are a few recipes out there that claim to be authentic but all are very different from each other. The most popular recipe seems to be one which contains no added fat besides the fat that is in the almonds and the eggs.

     Being a person who can hardly leave a recipe alone without making alterations to it, I made an already healthy cake a little healthier by reducing the sugar content very slightly, increasing the amount of carrots and using whole wheat flour. I also added some spices to the cake for some warmth. It turned out with a dense crumb and the whole wheat flour gave it a slightly crunchy top. I spread some light cream cheese frosting on it and it was so good!

     Without further ado, here is the recipe along with the recipe for light cream cheese frosting.

Healthy Aargau Carrot Cake

makes one 8-inch cake

3 eggs

1½ cup grated carrots

1 cup ground almonds (almond meal)

2 TBSP lemon juice

1 tsp grated lemon/orange rind

1½ tsp baking powder

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup caster sugar

1/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp ground cardamom (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease and line an 8-inch cake tin with baking paper.

2. Sift the flour, baking powder and spices in a small bowl

3. Put the sugars into a medium sized bowl.

4. Separate the eggs, putting the egg yolks in the same bowl as the sugar and the egg whites in a separate bowl.

5. Beat the egg yolks into the sugar thoroughly, for about 2 minutes.

6. Add the lemon juice, rind, ground almonds and flour mixture into the egg yolk/sugar mixture and mix well.

7. Beat the egg whites until frothy. This will take at least 3 minutes if done by hand.

8. Fold the beaten egg whites into the batter until well combined.

9. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake in preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes

* The top of the cake may brown too quickly, so after the cake has been in the oven for 10 minutes, check on it and cover it with foil then continue baking. Leave to cool completely.

Light cream cheese frosting

makes enough to cover cake

90g light cream cheese

2 TBSP orange juice

2 TBSP honey

2 TBSP light margarine (approx 15g) 

I used Flora Light

1. Whip all the ingredients together with a whisk or electric mixer

2. Add more honey if desired

3. Spread on cooled cake

     Let me know your results if you try this recipe! I would love to hear from you. 

Banana-only 'Ice Cream'

    How do you like your ice cream? Soft and creamy like soft-serve? Thick and creamy like Ben & Jerry's? Do you like it smooth or with chunky bits in it? I'm a Ben & Jerry's fan. I have a reputation for finishing entire pint-sized tubs in one sitting. We all know that's very, very unhealthy so when I saw a recipe for a one-ingredient ice cream, I had to try it!
     The one ingredient is: Bananas. "But just bananas? Isn't that very plain?" you ask. Yes, it is very plain. And that is why I added some extras to it. I added some honey, praline almonds and maple syrup.....anything goes really. The point is that you CAN make something similar to ice cream using just bananas!

Pardon my bad lighting

      For me, the texture of this turned out to be on the icy side. I would describe the texture as a cross between a sorbet and soft-serve. Nevertheless, if it's ice cream that you want but not all the sins that go along with it, this makes a decent substitute. It will taste of bananas, but there are plenty of possibilities for things you can add in to customize this 'ice cream'. There is a lot of potential to make this into a Ben & Jerry-esque chunky ice cream.

      This is also a great way to use up brown, speckled, overripe bananas that might be sitting in your fruit bowl. In fact, overripe bananas are perfect for this because they are naturally sweeter than just-ripe bananas. Of course, you can also use overripe bananas in cakes and other bakes....but I digress.

      I now present you with my take on this one-ingredient ice cream, using more than just one ingredient.....

Banana 'Ice Cream'

makes 10 small scoops

4 large bananas 

(the riper the better!)

2 to 3 TBSP milk or cream

(cream will give a nicer texture but will add to the fat content)

1 to 2 TBSP honey/maple syrup (optional)

1. The night before you plan to make this ice cream, cut the bananas into 1cm-thick disks and freeze in a container. Alternatively, lay the sliced bananas in a single layer on a baking sheet and freeze for about 4 hours, until frozen solid.

2. Take the bananas out of the freezer 10 minutes before you are ready to make the ice cream. Get your food processor ready.

3. Separate the slices of banana as much as possible, then tip into the food processor.

4. Turn the food processor on to high speed and process the frozen banana until they look like small grains.

5. Scrape down the bowl then process at medium speed for another 1 to 2 minutes.

6. While the food processor is running, add the milk or cream into the feeder tube of the food processor 1 tablespoon at a time, until the bananas look creamy.

7. Stop the food processor and scrape down the bowl, then turn the motor back on to medium-slow speed.

8. Now add the honey 1 tablespoon at a time, depending on how sweet you want your 'ice cream' to be.

9. If you want your 'ice cream' plain as it is, you can now scoop the mixture out of the bowl and into a freezer-safe container or eat it right away (soft-serve texture)

10. If you want to add mix-ins, now is the time to do it.

       I scooped out half the banana mixture into a container so that I could compare the plain banana 'ice cream' with the other half. I then added my praline almonds to the other half and turned the food processor on to break up the praline pieces. I scooped it out into a separate container then swirled in some maple syrup before putting the tub in the freezer.

      My verdict? The maple-almond praline version is nicer than the plain version. But that's just me. Maybe you like yours plain? Here's a link to other mix-in options. I think maple-cinnamon would be go well with the bananas. 

      Please note that you will have to take the tub of 'ice cream' out of the freezer 5 to 10 minutes before serving so that it softens enough for you to scoop it. By the way, scooping it can be a real pain the butt so I made a few scoops at one go, then froze the scoops of 'ice cream'. 

Served on 'Better-for-you Peanut Butter Cookies'

Better-for-you Peanut Butter Cookies

     I bought a jar of peanut butter a few days ago because I needed a tablespoon of it for something. I love peanut butter, but it has to be the right kind. It is easy to go wrong with peanut butter (too salty or too sweet) and this jar that I bought wasn't the kind that I would keep spooning into my mouth. I knew it would just sit in my pantry looking desolate, so I thought of making peanut butter cookies.

     Peanut butter cookies are not my favourite thing in the world. Actually I wouldn't even say that I like them very much; but maybe I've only had greasy, butter-laden artery-cloggers that were too chewy. I looked up recipes and was quite horrified and puzzled as to why people would use butter AND peanut butter in the same recipe. Peanut butter has a high fat content so surely that provides sufficient fat in baking recipes...? I don't know. I'm not a food scientist.

     I did find a recipe that used only four ingredients: peanut butter, sugar, egg and baking powder. However, even that didn't satisfy me so I played around with the proportions of the ingredients and ended up having to add an extra ingredient to it: flour. The result is a cookie that is lower in sugar because I halved the amount of sugar used. You can add an extra tablespoon or so of sugar if you want your cookies sweeter. This recipe will give you crispy cookies with slightly chewy middles. That's just the way I like it! The cookies can burn quickly so please watch the oven while the cookies are baking.

Small-sized

Peanut Butter Cookies

makes 24 small cookies or 8 large cookies

1 large egg

1/2 cup white sugar

120g peanut butter*

40g self-raising flour (approx 1/4 cup)

1/4 tsp baking powder

1. Preheat oven to 175°C. Line 2 large cookie sheets with lightly greased baking paper.

2. Put the flour and baking powder in a small bowl and whisk to combine.

3. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg and sugar together for 1 minute.

4. Add the peanut butter to the egg/sugar mixture and whisk to combine.

5. Lastly, tip the flour in and mix well.

The batter will have the consistency of thick honey

6. Drop the batter onto the cookie sheet by teaspoonfuls or tablespoonfuls, depending on the size of cookies that you want.

 Be sure to leave space between each cookie to accommodate spreading! 

1-inch space around each cookie should be sufficient.

7. Bake in preheated oven for 10 to 12 minutes (timing depends on your oven), until the edges of the cookies are medium-brown.

8. Remove from oven, leave to cool on the baking sheet for a 5 to 10 minutes, then lift the cookies onto a cooling rack.

Large-sized

These cookies can be stored for 3 days in an airtight container.
*To measure 120g of peanut butter, put the jar of peanut butter on a digital weighing scale, set the tare to 0g then spoon out 120g. Easy!

The large sized cookies make a great base for a dessert. This was my creation for a girls' night in dessert: Peanut butter cookie topped with Banana-only 'Ice Cream', with a smaller peanut putter cookie on top!