Vegan Green Tea Brack

Happy St Patrick’s Everybody! Lá Fheile Phádraig Shona Daoibh! Why not celebrate with this vegan green tea brack?

For St Patrick’s Day I thought I’d add the greenest recipe I’ve ever made. It tasted good – smelled even better while baking – there’s a little coconut flour in it and it just made it smell great. I haven’t made it since though. It’s a bit on the fussy and expensive side. It uses things I don’t find in my local supermarket – but which it turns out I do really like – like the green tea – but I’d rather just drink the green tea. Also the topping that I add here is great – it’s actually better than the brack – unfortunately it doesn’t go well with the brack so you’re better off just making the brack by itself. I know I’m really selling this one to you, amn’t I? 

Oh yeah, this was one of my “experiments” and I had two goes before this one…

Well, third time’s a charm! This Green Tea Brack still has a fudgy rather than a crumbly cake consistency but actually this works well here – and the taste is great.

The problem was really the blend of flours. I think I’ve mentioned previously that before I started abitmoreveg I tried some gluten-free banana bread recipes where I used a ready made gluten-free flour blend and I was not at all pleased with the results. It made me physically sick – in fairness something else was probably the real cause. I have since made a really yummy banana and chocolate chunks loaf with gf flour.

Anyway I decided to try the gf flour mix here – except this time I used some other flours with it. To be honest I did this because I thought it might make the cake more crumbly. It didn’t. But the taste is right. So now I’m using a mix of polenta (corn meal), gluten-free white flour mix, rice flour and coconut flour.

I added in the polenta because it add a nice gentle sort of creaminess to the taste. This time I just whizzed the lime juice, coconut oil, avocado, green tea, maple syrup and the polenta (corn meal) together in the blender and left this overnight in the fridge to get rid of any grittiness in the corn meal. It was a liquid mix when I put it in the fridge and the next morning it was quite doughy and solid.

The last attempt I made I added in 80g of coconut flour – that was way too much, but I kept remembering how good it smelled baking so I decided to add 20g this time and yes this was the right amount. I felt like Goldilocks – it was just right.

The fruit I added in is a mix of raisins, sultanas and dried cranberries – a fistful of the Supervalu luxury fruit mix. Again, it was just right.

There is also more maple syrup in this one. The recipe uses a full 250ml bottle of maple syrup. It is very sweet but it is a cake so… It still pretty healthy as cakes go and it’s full of good fat. Both the cake and it’s topping are full of avocado and coconut oil.

Will I make it again? Definitely. I like this a lot. But I don’t think I’ll be making any more vegan cakes, vegan desserts yes but baking gluten-free cakes without eggs it’s a bit beyond me. But I do need some more good vegan desserts – they’re so heart healthy.

I’ve never made this since. But I still remember how good it smelled baking – really really good.

*****

OK, after tasting this again this morning, not after eating a whole load of chocolates beforehand (’tis the season in fairness… I made this in December 2015) – this did taste really really sweet – the topping especially so, so please add the maple syrup according to your own tastebuds.

Also, this is very very filling.

So get your green on – and happy Paddy’s!