Hazelnut chocolate torte

Hazelnut is my favourite nut in desserts. I love the sweet and nutty taste of it and the crunch it lends to biscuits and cakes.

Last summer, ahead of a couple of friends visiting me to see my new-ish home, I made this hazelnut chocolate torte to go with teas.

Hazelnut chocolate torte

Peanut butter cake

This is a peanut butter cake I made by frosting a yellow cake with peanut butter cream cheese. I've written about the yellow cake, adapted from a wonderful recipe I found in Dr William Davis's 'Wheat Belly Cookbook'. 

Peanut butter cake

Matcha pistachio cupcakes

I attended a chanoyu (茶の湯 or Japanese tea ceremony) a couple of weeks ago at House of Tea. While not a lover of ceremonial preparations and presentations per se, I have been interested in matcha and its culinary application for some time now. 

Last November, I made a loaf of matcha pistachio bread (recipe and pictures to follow). It was quite a success. This time, adapting a recipe from Wheat Belly 30-Minute (Or Less!) Cookbook, I made a batch of matcha pistachio cupcakes complete with frosting, which Husband helped to pipe! 

Matcha pistachio cupakes

Blueberry cheesecake

It's been over a year since I last made a cheesecake, so a month ago, I made a raspberry cheesecake with a chocolate glaze from Dr William Davis's Wheat Belly Cookbook. It was beautiful and tasted divine, but all the photos of this cake mysteriously disappeared from my mobile before I had a chance to upload them. 

So a couple of weeks later, I tweaked the original recipe slightly and made another cheesecake, this time with blueberries and leaving out the chocolate glaze. The result was still satisfying. 

Blueberry cheesecake

Torta di mele (Apple cake)

One of the complaints Husband has of my wheat-free, grain-free cakes is that they often have a grainy texture. Though he tries to soften the blow by stating that it's only a minor criticism and in all fairness, I don't think any wheat substitute can ever achieve the wheat result, I still want to find a way to improve upon the texture.

With that in mind, coupled with the feeling that my relationship with my new kitchen has evolved from casual acquaintance to devoted friend, I decided to try out a new apple cake recipe last week.

Torta di mele

Fluffy brownies (2)

The first batch of fluffy brownies turned out well. As per usual, I tweaked the recipe slightly just to see what it would be like. 

Fluffy brownie

Chocolate-frosted yellow cake

While I wouldn't call myself a cake lover, I do occasionally find myself hankering for cake. And that was what happened two weeks ago. I desperately wanted a slice of moist, dense, and fluffy cake. Being swamped at work and not really having an idea of how to make a wheat-free version, I picked up a toffee cake from the shops. While it tasted alright (not amazing, mind you), I paid for it with several days of discomfort and then more. And still, my craving wasn't satisfied.

So I bit the bullet and bought myself a coffee grinder so I could grind up golden linseeds as they seem to be called in several wheat-free, grain-free recipes. And boy, was I glad I did! Not only did the grinder work a treat for the linseeds, I also managed to make icing sugar without cornstarch with it, which was needed to make the frosting for my cake.

The cake I chose to make was a chocolate-frosted yellow cake. I came across a recipe for it in Dr William Davis's 'Wheat Belly Cookbook'. The cookbook has a good variety of recipes and is easy to use once you have the basic ingredients at hand. The wheat-free cakes I'd made so far were mostly loaf cakes so I wanted to try something new and a yellow cake looked like a good choice as it was versatile. I also wanted to try another kind of frosting (using something other than coconut cream/milk).

Chocolate-frosted yellow cake

Pineapple coconut loaf (2)

After a full schedule for the first two weeks of May, I finally had the time and energy to try out the tweaked recipe for my pineapple coconut loaf with less liquid and sugar. I also used the ground walnuts left over from making the chocolate walnut torte.

Pineapple coconut loaf

Decadent chocolate walnut torte

As my mini chopper successfully blitzed cauliflower for rice, I felt more confident that it could handle grinding walnuts well. And seeing as it'd been a while since I made any chocolate desserts, I reached for the bag of top quality antioxidant, non-alkalised cocoa that I bought a good while ago and my trusty Green & Black's dark chocolate bars to make this decadent chocolate walnut torte. 

Pineapple coconut loaf (1)

My mother baked for the two some years that we spent in the States. One of her best creations was a coconut cake. I was probably only 7 years old at the time when I first tasted it but even decades later, I remembered it as a scrumptious cake loaded with shredded coconut with a crunchy sugary topping. When I was older, I asked her for the recipe, but she couldn't remember it, claiming that she'd got the recipe off the papers or magazine and didn't keep it.

For years I'd been trying to find that recipe and even attempted a coconut loaf glazed with coconut milk syrup a couple of years ago but to no avail. A couple of weeks ago, when I was making a pork stir-fry with pineapples, it occurred to me that I could pair pineapple with coconut in a cake. Adapting my recipes for the madeira cake and lime & coconut cake, I made a pineapple coconut loaf. At the time I wasn't thinking about my mother's cake. But when I took the first bite of this pineapple coconut loaf, I nearly shrieked with excitement. Could I have possibly stumbled upon the right recipe?

Baked vanilla cheesecake with chestnut biscuit base

Having attempted pie/cake bases with almond flour and coconut flour, I decided to experiment with chestnut flour to make a base for a cheesecake.

I bought a bag (500g) of ground chestnut flour at Fallon & Byrne a while ago thinking that it would make for a good wheat-free substitute. I didn't realise that chestnut flour was high in carbohydrate content, making it an unacceptable safe flour according to Dr Davis of Wheat Belly fame. But I hate wasting food, so after a couple of months of letting the bag sit in the cupboard, I went ahead. Because of the use of chestnut flour, this cheesecake is strictly an occasional treat.

Baked vanilla cheesecake with chestnut biscuit base

Cranberry lime loaf cake with honey butter glaze

I froze a small box of fresh cranberries leftover from making the orange cranberry cake over Christmas last year. Since that cake went down a treat, I decided to use the rest of the cranberries to make a cranberry and lime loaf. 

Cranberry lime loaf with honey butter glaze

Spiced banana cake with coconut cinnamon frosting

Whenever there are super ripe bananas at home, I tend to make banana bread. But this time I decided to mix things up and use them to make a spiced banana cake. This is an impromptu recipe so no doubt tweaking is required.

Macadamia nut brownies

Because my first batch of brownies received rave reviews all around (and because I only kept a few for the Husband), I made another batch a couple of days later, this time swapping honey for molasses and walnuts for macadamias.

Nutty fudgey brownies

I was invited to a ladies luncheon at a girlfriend's last week. I knew she was a fan of brownies, so I decided to make a some to bring over even though I'd never made any before. 

Banana & walnut bread

After a few loaves, I'm fairly confident with my banana bread. I made a loaf to bring down to my in-laws over Christmas so I could have something to eat for breakfast while I was there for the holiday.

Banana & walnut bread

And here's the recipe that guarantees to satisfy. 

Orange cranberry cake (1)

Conscious that most of my baking efforts have been lemon/lime based, when I saw fresh cranberries available at the local supermarket, I got a couple of boxes and picked up some clementines as well to make a festive orange cranberry cake.

Baked cheesecake with almond biscuit base

Baked cheesecake was a firm favourite of mine till I went wheatless. I hadn't tried baking any cake/pie base/crust using nut flours as I wasn't entirely sure how it would work out. After making several batches of chocolate chip cookies using almond flour with great success, I felt confident enough to give making a wheatless cheesecake base a go. So this experiment is really about the base.

Madeira cake with coconut & lime frosting

One of the cakes I discovered after moving to Ireland was Madeira cake. I was told it was a sponge but I thought it felt slightly denser than the sponge I was used to back in the East (like the 'traditional' birthday cakes in Taiwan). Still, Madeira cake became my favourite tea cake.

Lime & coconut cake

Ever since tasting the coconut and lemongrass cake at Kate's Kitchen in Sligo town, I've been trying to figure out how to recreate this delicious cake. I decided to use lime (the juice and zest) instead of lemongrass (which would require a food processor that I don't have to purée). And I figured that the almond flour and shredded coconut would provide enough oils/fat on their own that I could leave out butter/coconut oil.