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kitchen and garden diaries

Tag Archives: almonds


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some kind of wonderful

So I cooked the tamarillos. Lightly poached in water with a little pomegranate syrup (I own pomegranate syrup purely because I couldn’t walk past something that sounded so fine in the supermarket recently) and some cardamon pods. It wasn’t looking good, for a day of kitchen creativity (the man of the house was home unwell, and had proclaimed he had no appetite at all). I decided I wouldn’t let this deter me. I think I’d become a little fixated with the tamarillos, since my last post they had become a small symbol of hope in the fruit bowl. The big idea was to poach them (as above) and serve them with greek yogurt, drizzled with honey and scattered with almonds and fresh mint. Just writing it down sounds some kind of wonderful doesn’t it?

Unfortunately things didn’t quite go that way. It turned out that when the man of the house said he had no appetite he actually meant it, regardless of what kind of fancy shenanigans I pulled with a tree tomato. So I ate a couple straight from the poaching pan and put the rest to languish in a bowl in the fridge, awaiting happier times. In truth I haven’t been able to face them since then. Optimism and I aren’t very comfortable companions.

Chocolate cake, on the other hand, will always be my trusted friend. After putting the tamarillos to one side I made a quick cake with milk chocolate, prunes, blueberries and almonds. I’ve made loads of versions of this cake (just search the archives of this site under prunes – it’s pretty much the only thing I do with prunes). But I’m working on the ultimate recipe , the top of the chocolate prune cake pops. When I’ve got it, I’ll post it up on Welly Kitchen. This one was a decent port on a stormy day.

The basics of this cake (as far as I remember them : 1/2 cup blueberries, 1/2 cup prunes (poached together in a little water and then blended to a paste). 50 g melted milk chocolate (usually use dark but ran out), 70g melted butter. 3 eggs, 1 cup ground almonds, 1/2 cup rice flour, 1/2 cup cocoa powder, 1/2 cup yogurt and 1 tsp of baking powder. Beat the whole lot up any which way you like and bake for about half an hour at 180.


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chia chocolate plum and almond cake (gluten free)

This cake is trying to be a good family afternoon tea, rather than the most indulgent chocolate cake you’ll ever eat. The chocolate is really a tool to hold all the healthy stuff together – chocolate is very useful like that. It’s not particularly sweet (for a chocolate cake) so you could increase the sugar / chocolate components if you wanted something richer. Also, this is a big cake – doubled up on my usual quantities.

Stew 4 big chopped and de-stoned plums (or more small ones..) in a little water with a couple of tablespoons of chia seeds. Over top, melt about 80g of chocolate (dark) and 70g butter. When the chocolate and butter are melted the plums will be soft, Mix together or blend depending whether you mind plum lumps. Put this to one side.

Whisk 5 eggs with 3/4 cup of granulated sugar, Add 2 cups of ground almonds, 1/2 cup brown rice flour, 1/2 cup cocoa and 1 teaspoon gf baking powder. Pour in the chocolate mix and beat together the bake. Took about 30 mins,

You can ice it with a little more melted chocolate mixed with a spoon of yogurt, if you are so inclined,… I was.


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chocolate, prune, chia and almond cakes with chocolate yogurt icing (gluten free).

TThis is my second chocolate and prune baking endeavor this week – partly because the kids have been asking for a repeat and partly because I had a partly used bag of really good prunes that I knew if I didn’t use would languish somewhere and get forgotten about. So after school today I had 3 kiddie helpers with egg cracking being the most popular task.

Started by stewing the prunes until soft enough to pop the stones out, meanwhile covered some chia seeds with water (maybe half a cup). The seeds kind of solidify into a thick grey paste which it doesn’t pay to look too long at. Put the prunes, juice and chia gunk into the mini-blender (this wouldn’t be that necessary a step but my kids get a bit suspicious of lumps).

Mix about 70g melted butter with 1/2 cup soft brown sugar and then add a scoop or 2 of yogurt (this part was being managed by the kids so difficult to be too precise with the measurements). Beat in the chia / prune paste. Add just over 1/2 cup of cocoa, 1 cup ground almonds, 1/2 cup rice flour and 3 eggs and beat the whole lot quickly together.

Bake in muffin cases – took slightly longer than I was expecting – maybe 20 mins (checked a couple of times until the a knife came out clean).

Obviously an un-iced version of this would be the healthier choice but not quite as nice. Given there’s a ‘weather bomb’ (whatever that is  but doesn’t sound too good) heading for Wellington later then it doesn’t seem to be a moment for health to trump icing and so we melted down some chocolate and stirred in some yogurt then beat in some sieved icing sugar.


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one pot, chocolate chunk cookies (gluten free) for the first day of Autumn

One of those horrible Wellington days where the wind howls around – in fact even got lashed with hail while walking up to school this morning. I’m not usually a cookie baker – we’re all more cake people around here but I guess the season change spurred me onto making something different.

The most important thing when making chocolate chunk recipes is to use decent chocolate – not least because you will be pigging some down during the baking process. I don’t by pre-cut chocolate chips because I find it enjoyable to hack up a big bar and that’s certainly the highlight for the kids as well.

So onto the cookies… just a small batch because cookies are best straight from the oven. 50 butter, melted in saucepan then whisk in 1/2 cup of soft brown sugar. Let cool a little then whisk in 1 cup ground almonds and 1/2 cup rice flour – made a kind of lumpy dough – added 1 beaten egg and it came together as a smooth cookie dough – in went the chocolate chunks and gave it another quick mix then dolloped it out onto a baking sheet. Took around 10 mins to bake and came out a mix of crispy and chewy – inspired me to get a bit more radical with my cookies from now on.


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Braised beef curry with peas and almonds

Curry seems to be becoming a bit of a Wednesday night favourite because I can leave it slow cooking while I take the kids to afternoon swim class. Today I made a base out of celery, garlic, onion,  fresh red chili (star anaise, cinamon stick, cardamon pods, tumeric, cumin, garam masala, chili, ginger (would have been good fresh but I didn’t have any) squeeze of lemon, some sultanas, carrot – got all that starting to soften up in some coconut oil over a low heat in the le creuset and then added some diced beef – browed it and then added a sweet potato and covered in water. Put the lid on and then put it in a low oven for a few hours (added some more water part way through.

Just before serving it added some peas (basically motivated by ensuring the kids had a daily dose of green but actually the peas worked really well). Had some cucumber / mint / yogurt on the side and some slivered almonds over the top.


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little chocolate, pear and almond cakes (gluten free)

Melt about 10 – 12 sqs dark chocolate and 50g butter over water. Whisk 4 eggs with 1/2 cup soft brown sugar. Then grate in a ripe pear. Add 2 cups ground almonds and 1/2 cup good cocoa powder. Then add in the melted chocolate and butter. Made 12 cup-cake size cakes. Took somewhere between 10 and 15 mins to cook. Excellent result – extremely moist and chocolate-y kids wolfed them down with yogurt after dinner.


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really good gluten-free chocolate cake

Wanted a really good moist chocolate cake for morning tea so was going to use regular flour but then had a last minute moment of guilt that G wouldn’t be able to eat it so switched at the last moment with great results – perhaps good karma for being nice!

around 80g of butter (never measure just chop a piece of the block that looks about the right size) melted till soft , 1/2 cup soft brown sugar, 2 large spoons live full fat organic yogurt – mix up to a light paste, crack in 3 eggs then add 1 cup grounds almonds, 1/2 cup good cocoa powder and 1/2 cup brown rice flour. Beat the whole lot up and tip in a cake dish (with bottom lined with baking paper)

I made icing today as it’s Saturday and was feeling festive. Used 6 squares of dark chocolate melted over boiling water, 1 scoop of sour cream and a couple of spoons of icing sugar. Extremely good – boys had 3 slices each with berry smoothies.


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honey, orange and mint roast salmon with roast potato chips, brocoli, spinach, fresh corn and toasted almonds

This was going to be lemon roast salmon but I never manage to get everything I mean to at the supermarket and today having all 4 kids in tow didn’t help concerntration. So went to cook and realised no lemons – but there was a big juicy orange looking at me.. so I mixed some orange pulp with some olive oil a few fresh mint leaves and a spoon of runny honey , salt and pepper and poured it over 2 massive salmon fillets. Chucked the remains of the orange halves in the tray with it and roasted it up for about 20 mins. Chopped up a few potatoes into chip shapes and roasted them in olive oil and sea salt also. Then steamed some brocoli, spinach and fresh corn and toasted some almond slivers in a hot pan. Served the salmon with the pan juice and an extra squeeze from the roasted oranges. Tonight’s plate was absolutely gorgeous colours – definitely worthy of a photo.. but come on.. I have 4 kids to feed and get to bed so photographing these creations is a step too far right now!


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muffin factory

There was some dispute over what flavour muffins to bake for afternoon tea so to keep the peace and to keep B and D entertained I made a base using about 70g butter (melted) 1/2 cup of soft brown sugar, 2 large spoons yogurt, 1 cup sf flour, 1/2 cup of wholemeal flour and 1/2 cup of ground almonds. Then split it into 2 bowls and gave them frozen blueberries, rasberries and chocolate chunks to add what they wanted to their own mix. More washing up than I would have liked but the results went down well – I guess kids get a kick out of eating something they feel they have some ownership over the making process of.

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