clementine cake

Desserts

When I first started documenting my recipes on my website, we were not an egg-free household yet. Expect to see more egg, dairy, sugar-free recipes soon! I never was a big dessert fan, but now that we are so restricted in our ingredients, I'm always on the look-out for safe sweets recipes. I find I often have to bring my own dessert to birthday parties and the like so my kids don't feel left out.

Spiced Pumpkin Cake

For cake:

Nonstick vegetable oil spray
2 cups cake flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1½ cups (packed) golden brown sugar
2 large eggs
½ cup whole milk
1 cup canned solid pack pumpkin

For frosting:

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
¾ cup (packed) dark brown sugar
3 tablespoons robust-flavored (dark) molasses
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 8-ounce packages chilled cream cheese

Make cake:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line bottoms of two 9-inch-diameter cake pans with 2-inch-high sides with waxed paper. Spray sides of pans with nonstick spray.

Sift flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, salt and cloves into medium bowl; sift again.

Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until fluffy. Gradually beat in sugar. Beat in eggs 1 at a time. Beat in flour mixture in 3 additions alternately with milk in 2 additions. Beat in pumpkin.

Divide batter equally between prepared pans (batter will be about 3/4 inch deep). Bake cakes until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Cool cakes in pans on racks 10 minutes. Turn cakes out onto racks; peel off waxed paper. Cool layers completely.

Make frosting:

Beat butter, brown sugar, molasses and vanilla in large bowl until fluffy. Beat in cream cheese. Let cake stand at room temperature 2 hours before frosting.

Rice Pudding

Ultimate comfort food.

1 cup arborio rice (Italian Rice)
8 cups milk
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Mix all ingredients together in a heavy saucepan. Heat over medium heat until boiling, stirring constantly. Reduce heat and stir until thickened, about 1 hour. To speed thickening up, turn heat to medium-high, but stir and scrape the bottom of the pan continuously or the milk will burn and trust me, there's nothing worse than burnt rice pudding.

Apple Coffee Cake

In a bowl whisk together:
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt

In another bowl mix together and set aside:
1 ¼ cups sour cream or yogurt
1 tsp vanilla

In a large bowl beat on high for 3 minutes:
¼ cup butter
1 cup sugar

Beat in one at a time:
2 eggs

Add the flour mixture in 3 parts and the yogurt mixture in 2 parts, beating on low until smooth. Put the batter in a 13x9 inch greased pan.

Peel and slice one to two apples. Put them on top of the batter, followed by the streusel. Bake at 350ºF for 35 to 40 minutes.

Streusel:
2/3 cup flour
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
5 tbsp melted butter
1 tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp salt

Pear with Maple Cream

4 ripe but firm Anjou pears
8 chopped dates
2 tbsp minced ginger in syrup
2 tsp grated orange rind
1/4 cup white wine
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 cup cream
1/2 tsp nutmeg

Preheat oven to 375. Cut off top of pear. Scoop out core. Combine dates, ginger and orange rind. Stuff into pear core. Stand pears in baking dish.

Combine wine, syrup and cream in a pot and boil for 5 to 7 minutes to thicken slightly.

Pour over pears. Bake for 15 minutes, basting and turning occasionally or until pears are tender. Sprinkle with nutmeg.

Clementine Cake

Egg-free, refined sugar-free, gluten-free.

5 clementine oranges
1/2 cup honey
2 1/2 cups ground almonds
1 banana, mashed
1 Tbsp whole flax seed, ground + 3 Tbsp water
3 tsp egg replacer*
3 Tbsp water (or whatever liquid your egg replacer calls for)*
2 tsp baking powder

*I used commercial egg replacer. It's basically baking soda, corn starch, and other things, that you add water to. For this recipe, I used an equivalent of 3 eggs worth of egg replacer.

Wash the clementines. Put in a medium pot and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil, covered, and let simmer for 2 hours. Check them periodically to make sure the water doesn't boil away. Drain and cool. When cool, split then open and remove and seeds. Put the clementines, peel and all, into a food processor and chop. Set aside.

Heat oven to 350. Grease an 8-inch spring-form pan and line the bottom with parchment paper.

Mix the ground flax and 3 Tbsp water in a small bowl. Let sit for a few minutes to become almost gelatinous.

In a mixer bowl, combine banana, flax seed mush, egg replacer and water. Beat together. Add the ground almonds, honey, and baking powder. Beat again. Add the chopped clementines. Mix well.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and put in the oven.

This is where things may turn out different for you. My oven is wonky and things never cook how they are supposed to. The cake took 70 minutes to bake in my oven, but I would check it after 40 minutes and then every 5-10 minutes after. I don't expect it should actually take any longer than 55 minutes in a reliable oven. I'll have to recreate this at my mom's house soon to test the baking time.

When a toothpick comes out clean, remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes in the pan. Remove from pan and let fully cool on a serving platter.

Just before you're ready to serve, you can sprinkle with powdered sugar if you wish. Next time I want to drizzle it with some melted dark chocolate or chocolate ganache!