Guilt-Free Rainy Day Cake

Guilt-Free Rainy Day Cake

This is a strawberry and grape cake. It contains no butter or packet sugar. It’s gluten-free, low in bad fat, full of fruit and fibre. And it’s very yummy. Give it a go.

This is a revised abitmoreveg recipe. It’s revised because I had too much cake topping in the original version – I wanted to use up six ripe bananas that I had that day. I mentioned in the recipe that it was better with less of a topping so when I remade it for this post I used much less cake batter to cover the same amount of fruit and it’s definitely the best way to make this cake. And it’s so good. This is also a variation of an old twimii recipe – one of my favourite which I have made so so often – the Apple Banana Cake. This cake is sweeter though.

just out of the oven
While it’s cooking the fruit juices bubble up through and around the cake topping making a lovely fruity sort of toffee around the cake.

This sweet treat is gluten-free, dairy free, low in fat, high in fibre and has very little refined sugar in it. I did add some vanilla bean paste to the cake batter and that does contain some sugar but most of the sweetness comes from the fruit. It’s a pretty healthy sweet treat which is why I called it guilt-free and it’s a good way of using up ripe fruit before it’s too ripe. The vegan soft fruit cookies and the apple banana cake are also great for using up fruit.

old featured image
The version on abitmoreveg had much more of a cake topping – because I wanted to use up all the bananas. It’s good but a bit heavy – better with less cake.

I have to admit that even though the twimii version is the better cake the abitmoreveg cake looks better – admittedly it was pretty good too. But although this one may not look as good it tastes better.

old ingredients
So the old ingredients list read: 1 punnet strawberries, sweet red grapes, 6 ripe medium-sized bananas, 2 large eggs, 175g ground almonds, small pinch finely-ground salt, 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste, cinnamon (to taste)
ingredients
Ground almonds, vanilla bean paste, bananas, strawberries, grapes and an egg – and some sunflower oil for greasing the cake tin.

Guilt-Free Rainy Day Cake

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour

Serves 4

Ingredients

  • 75g ground almonds
  • 3 ripe (spotted brown) bananas
  • ~20 sweet grapes
  • 10 - 12 strawberries
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla bean extract
  • sunflower oil for greasing the cake tin

Instructions

  1. Turn the oven on to 140 C. Grease an 8" cake tin. Use a deep tin if you have one as the fruit juices boil up while the cake is baking and will spill if the dish isn't deep enough.
  2. Halve the grapes and slice the strawberries. Line the greased cake tin with the fruit.
  3. Put the ground almonds into a deep bowl. With a fork mash up the bananas into a gooey mush. Add the goo to the almond and crack in the egg, Beat together until it's all well combined. Stir in the vanilla bean paste.
  4. Pour the cake batter over the fruit and spread out so that it covers all the fruit. Place in the heated oven and leave to bake for 1 hour.
  5. When it's done take out and leave to cool for 30 minutes. It taste even sweeter when it's cooled.
http://twimii.com/recipes/guilt-free-rainy-day-cake/

ready-to-bake
Unlike in photo above, you really should leave at least a cm between the cake and the top of the baking dish. Otherwise be sure to put a baking tray underneath it or you will have a fruity toffee spilling over on to the bottom of your oven. Verified fact.
ready to bake
If you have this much cake topping it’s not essential to leave a gap at the top of the dish.
slice of cake
Now this version has just the right ratio of cake topping to fruit base. Tastes yummy.
a bite of guilt-free cake
It tastes great. So I tried really hard to get a picture that would show this.
not-pretty-but-tasty
I did not succeed. It’s not pretty no matter what you do – but I love it.
Why are my abitmoreveg photos so much better looking than the twimii ones??? The cake even looks good here. But the twimii version tastes better.

I called it a rainy day cake because it was raining the day I made it for abitmoreveg – and because you’re using up stuff they way you’ve got to when the rainy day comes.