Coffee, Date & Pecan Cake, How to be Sugar-Free and Keep Your Friends by Megan Davies. Photography by Kim Lightbody.
You’re being healthy, eating in a more considered manner and, most importantly, you’ve never felt better. So why is it still so tricky to navigate life as a sugar-free diner? From going out for dinner to staying in with friends, it can be a challenge to cook, eat and socialize in a world of refined sugar eaters.
How to be Sugar-Free and Keep Your Friends helps you to go about your life without compromises, excuses or apologies. Instead, you’ll be armed with over 50 fresh, exciting and globally-inspired recipes, free from any refined sugar, and discover a whole new world of natural sweeteners.
Happily cook for yourself, your friends and your family (without hearing any complaints!), and dip into tips, tricks and hacks to learn how to be a better, more easygoing sugar-avoider.
Your options will open up, you’ll enjoy a delicious new menu of food and your friends. well, they’ll never have a bad word to say again!
How to be Sugar-Free and Keep Your Friends is available at Amazon.com and Indigo.ca.
Coffee, Date & Pecan Cake
SERVES 8–10
2 tbsp hot milk
3 tbsp instant coffee granules 200g / 1½ cups self-raising (self-rising) flour
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
180ml / ¾ cup groundnut oil
3 eggs
140g / 7 tbsp date syrup
80g / 3oz pecan halves, half roughly chopped and half saved for the top
140g / 5oz dates, pitted and roughly chopped
COFFEE CREAM
2 tbsp instant coffee granules
2 tbsp hot milk
200ml / ¾ cup double (heavy) cream
Preheat the oven to 170°C / 330°F / gas mark 3½. Line a non-stick 900g / 2lb loaf tin (pan) with parchment paper.
Add the hot milk and coffee granules to a small bowl and mix to dissolve and combine. In a large mixing bowl, put the flour, bicarbonate of soda (baking soda), oil, eggs, date syrup and the dissolved coffee mixture and, using an electric hand whisk, whisk just briefly to combine; you don’t want to overmix.
Once combined, fold through the chopped pecans and the dates, then pour into the prepared loaf tin. Smooth the top slightly and decorate the top with the pecan halves, in any way you like.
Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 1 hour, or until risen, browned and cooked through (a skewer or knife inserted into the middle will come out clean). Place the cake in its tin on a cooling rack for 20 minutes, then turn the cake out and let cool completely.
While the cake is cooling, mix the coffee granules and hot milk to dissolve, then add the cream and whip to almost stiff peaks. Serve the cake with dollops of coffee cream on the side.
Recipe reprinted with permission from Hardie Grant Books.