Sugar-Free Plum and Blackberry Cake Recipe

If you have sugar cravings and don’t know what to do with them anymore, this cake recipe is a great alternative to the processed sugars and an easy way to start replacing them. Giving up sugar cold turkey can be quite strong as you experience jittery, drug like symptoms. And it makes sense when you see how sugar messes up with your body…

By overindulging in sugar we disrupt the balance of wanting, liking and learning. When we’re hungry and only start eating, we get pleasure and satisfaction.

We have a good signal that this is good for us, but naturally stop when we’ve taken what we needed from it.

By consistently overdoing and overeating sweets (and not only) we’re destroying the signalling mechanisms and fail to know when to stop before the tank is too full.

Science is only now starting to understand the basis of what happens from the moment sugar molecules touch your tongue and what that triggers in your brain and gut. One thing is clear, sugars should be taken in moderation and as much as possible in their natural form.

Yet, don’t start avoiding fruits and thinking they’re your enemy! Far from that.

We’ve been retreating in the English countryside for the past few months and have been blessed to have an abundance of blackberries, plums and apples in the garden.

I love picking blackberries, and now it’s the best time to go picking them, as they’re ready to eat. Check out your local woodland, forest area or park and go foraging. It’s the best thing you could do with your friends or family over the weekend.

Now, with all the surplus, there’s only so much you can blend, freeze or eat as they are. So, I’ve been making loads of cakes!

The thing about cakes is that I absolutely cringe at the thought of using sugar or flour in recipes.

First of all, I don’t even have these things in my kitchen, which makes me even more creative, and secondly, I’d just feed the sugar demons with that. Counterintuitive, I’d say!

Plus, I never know what I’m going to get. Just so you know, not all recipes end up written, so you only get the best out of the lot.

This one’s been a fascination for us all and it’s been enjoyed and loved by the entire family (and some of them are hard to convince!).

It’s a Sugar-Free Plum and Blackberry Cake – SecondNature, with lentils(!) instead of flour and bananas instead of sugar. Fibre level – HIGH! Yum!

INGREDIENTS:

125g lentils, soaked overnight and rinsed

125g dry lentils, ground up into a fine flour (you can use any other flour you have if
you don’t have a grinder)

4 tablespoons chia seeds, covered 2 thumbs over in water and stirred – allow to set for 5 minutes

4 ripe bananas (with brown spots)

2 tablespoons poppy seeds

1/2 cup blackberries, keep some extra for decoration

350g ripe plums (about 1 cup and a half)

1 tablespoon coconut oil

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1 pinch of salt

HOW TO:

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4 Use the coconut oil to grease the tray and line with baking paper

1. Ground up the dry lentils into a fine powder. If you don’t have a strong blender to do that or a coffee/spice grinder use a non-wheat flour you normally use (chickpea, buckwheat, millet). Transfer to a bowl.

2. Blend together the bananas and soaked lentils until you get a thick smoothie like consistency.

3. Transfer that to the bowl, add the soaked chia seeds, also call chia “egg”, baking powder, bicarbonate, cinnamon, nutmeg. salt and poppy seeds and fold it in.

4. Blend the blackberries and 150g plums without any liquid until you get a smoothie like consistency. If the seeds are not crushed at this point either blend for an extra minute or so, till they’re disintegrated or pass through a sieve and use a wooden spoon to push through, in circular motions.

5. Add the blackberry-plum blended sauce into the dough and fold it in.

gluten-free-sugar-free-plum-and-blackberry-cake

6. Transfer the dough mix to a tray lined with baking paper and greased with coconut oil and level it.

7. Cover the dough with sliced plums and blackberries. Create a pattern like I did in the photos so that you can slice it easier.

8. Pop in the preheated oven and bake for 30-45min. (Here it all depends on the quality of your oven. I used an old gas oven to make this one) After 30 mins put a fork or toothpick through the cake and if it comes out clean it’s done.

9. Allow to cool down and slice to serve. Enjoy!

P.S. I love having mine warm and drizzled with coconut milk!