Tuesday 12 November 2013

Enough cake already?!

To satisfy the request for more cake, my healthy blog is turning into a cake blog, so this has to be the last, for a while at least!  
This recipe idea came purely from having some great products delivered to my kitchen - firstly a box arrived from Naturya, with their great superfood ingredients, and then more personally, my lovely friend Gail (founder of Kandula Tea) arrived fresh off the plane from Sri Lanka, with her latest blend of delicious teas.
Obviously the first thing we did was to have a cup of tea and catch up with all the gossip, but then I felt the need to use the tea for something more.......so cake it was!  
If you are a lover of mint tea I have tasted none better than Kandula - it tastes really fresh and tangy - as if there were fresh mint leaves dropped into the cup, with no tannin aftertaste that you find with a lot of other teas.
In December I will be visiting Sri Lanka, so will hopefully find out more about not only the tea, but also the wonderful food - lots of great vegetarian dishes and delicious fresh fish - watch this space!

Kandula Maca Tea Bread

Makes 1 loaf

200 g mixed dried fruit
250 ml Kandula Moroccan Mint tea (made with one bag)
125 g wholemeal self-raising flour
100 g self-raising flour
1 tbsp Naturya Maca powder
100 g golden caster sugar
25 g pecans, roughly chopped
50 g Coconoil, melted
1 egg

Preheat the oven to 180°C (375°F) Gas mark 5.  Grease and base line a 2 lb loaf tin.
Place the dried fruit into a bowl and pour over the hot tea.  Leave to stand for at least 4 hours.
Place the flours, maca powder, sugar and pecans into a large bowl.
Beat together the Coconoil and egg.
Add the dried fruit, tea and egg and Coconoil mixture to the dry ingredients and gently mix together - do not overmix.
Spoon into the prepared tin and bake for 45-50 minutes, until a sharp knife inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
Remove from the tin and leave to cool on a rack (if you can wait that long - I couldn't!)

Happy cake-eating!

J xx

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