Category: celebration

Chocolate cake – allergy friendly, indulgent & healthy

Well, as healthy as the word goes with cake! Better than many options and yay this one is coconut free!

Having three kids means not only three birthday cakes a year, but I also have to make cake every time someone else has a birthday celebration so my lot don’t have to miss out. My usual go to cake has coconut oil and coconut flour which I can’t have this year because I’m breastfeeding our baby with a coconut allergy. I love the wacky cake recipe for its allergy friendliness using gluten free flour. Not so much all the sugar though. And quite frankly I feel like I’ve made about ten wacky cakes this last year due to ease and it being a fairly fail safe and crowd pleasing cake. But for Hazel’s first birthday this year I wanted to make her a cake with a little less sugar and a little more goodness.

So here came this recipe, gluten free, dairy free, soy free (though the chocolate I use in the ganache does contain soy lethicin, which we are ok with), nut free, egg free, coconut free, refined sugar free and contains vegetables. Now that’s a cake I’m happy for miss 12 months to scoff. And me, I was also happy to scoff this cake. It was truely delicious. It freezes well, so you can make ahead. I doubled the mixture and divided it into three, to make a three layer cake.

Ingredients

1/2 c cocoa or cacao powder
1c gluten free flour (I used Edmonds gf plain flour)
2 Tb psyllium husk (most supermarkets stock this in the health food section)
2 tsp baking soda + 1 tsp cream of tartar (OR 2 tsp baking powder)

2 c Kumara (purple skin) or carrot finely grated
1/2 c maple syrup (or make a syrup with 1/2 cup sugar + 1/3 cup boiling water, then cooled)
1/2 c water
1/2 c oil (I used light olive oil)
1 t vanilla extract

what to do

Preheat oven to 160 deg fan forced (180 deg regular).

Measure out the wet ingredients + grated veg and add them to a bowl. Sift over all the dry ingredients and mix together. Let it sit for a couple minutes while you grease your cake pan, it will thicken as it sits. Pour into very well greased or lined cake tin (recommend a spring form tin).

Cook for approximately 35 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. And it feels the same to touch in the middle as it does round the sides.

Cake notes:

If doubling the mix and dividing into three cakes, cook each cake for 20 minutes.

I make a chocolate ganache using two blocks of Whittaker’s dark chocolate, melted with 3/4 cup of almond milk and spread this between the layers with refined sugar free raspberry jam and also used the ganache to coat the outside of the cake to make it smooth for the white fondant icing over the top.

To make this cake, after I assembled with the ganache, I rolled out ready made white fondant icing and placed it over the top of the whole cake. I made two plaits with the remains and curved them into a circle on the top. Then added the fresh berries just before serving.

I assembled the cake and ganache then froze the whole cake overnight before adding the white icing on the day, then let it to sit out and thaw until later in the day.

Kayla

Egg Free Mayo

Ingredients

3/4 cup olive oil (light olive oil works best)
2 T Dijon mustard
1 T lemon juice
1/4 cup chickpea brine (yep the stuff you usually tip down the sink from your can of chickpeas!)
1/2 tsp salt

what to do

Put all the ingredients in a narrow blender (or tall narrow container if using a stick blender). If your blender has a wide jug it may not work, and you may need a stick blender or NutriBullet type blender, my vitamix works fine.

Blend starting slowly, then increasing speed slightly, until it is thick and creamy, usually about a minute. Store in a glass jar in the fridge for a week. It will thicken slightly more after refrigeration.

This recipe can be temperamental to work with, and even with exact measured ingredients can sometimes end up with two completely different textured mayos! I suspect maybe the temperature and exact measurements might play a part. If it’s not thickening up, adding a scant 1/4 cup wholegrain mustard turns it into a really delicious tangy mayo, add then blend until thick. Often now I will add wholegrain mustard from the start (and omit the Dijon mustard) because I like the flavour.

Kayla

Chocolate & Raspberry Mousse Tart

Ingredients

Base
1 cup dates
1 cup nuts or seeds
1 cup desiccated coconut
2 T coconut oil
Pinch of salt
2 T cacao powder

18 – 20 cm baking tin, pie dish or 4 individual pie / tart dishes.

Choc mousse
3/4 c coconut cream
1 medjool date or 2-3 regular dates (soaked) Or 1 Tbsp maple syrup
1 Tbsp cocoa or raw cacao
1 Tbsp gelatin + 1/4 c water

Raspberry mousse
1/2 c coconut cream
1 c raspberries (i just use frozen)
1 Tbsp Maple syrup
1 Tbsp gelatin + 1/4 c water

optional – additional raspberries for scattering through mouse and to garnish on top.

what to do

Base – put the nuts or seeds into a food processor and break them down until finely chopped. Add the rest of the ingredients and process until it forms a sticky crumb.

Line a dish, cake tin, pie dish, whatever you are using with baking paper and press the base into the tin. Set in the freezer while you make the mousse.

Choc mousse
add the gelatin to the water and leave to ‘bloom’ – chuck the rest of the ingredients in a blender if using dates – if not then just mix all together in a saucepan. bring to a gentle heat and add the gelatin mix, stir until dissolved and pour over the base. Put back into the freezer to set.

Raspberry mousse
While the choc mousse sets you can make this part. Add gelatin to water to bloom. Because i used frozen berries i start by putting the remaining ingredients in a saucepan to gently heat. Add galtin and stir until dissolved. Add all to blender and blend until smooth. Take the mostly set (doesnt have to be fully set) tart from the freezer. If using, scatter berries over the choc layer, then pour the raspberry mouse layer on top. Put back in the freezer, or the fridge to set.

This is best served around 24 hours after making, and stored in the fridge. Sadly, unlike my cheesecake recipe it doesn’t keep quite as well in the freezer so best to prepare the day before. It *can* freeze and be stored in freezer and eaten defrosted but it slightly changes the texture of the mousse, which personally i think is best eaten fresh. This has, however not stopped me from keeping some in the freezer to pull out for pudding over the course of a few weeks!

I had heaps left over from the base recipe (which is pretty much just my simple bliss ball mix) so I roll the extra into bliss balls. For my Christmas version I’ve also doubled the sweetener, because you know, Christmas (and that it will be served to guests who are used to partaking in regular sugar filled baking and treats, so they might be a bit more inclined to prefer it sweet!)

Kayla

How To help Out a New Mum with special dietary requirements!

So, as Ashton has so kindly shared with many shop checkout assistants and strangers over the last months, in December, we are going from a family of 4 to a family of 5 (humans, that is, we don’t count our pets anymore or i might just pack my bags and bugger off somewhere less crowded!)

While i’d love to say this is for all you out there who are expecting a new baby soon,  this is also aimed at hopefully helping my family and friends overcome the barriers and worries of supporting me and my family, with dietary restrictions and allergies for 3 out of the 4 food-eating family members! Though i’m not totally selfish – Hopefully, it can fulfill its purpose and also help some others out too – a resource to direct well meaning friends and family members to, if you find yourself with a new baby and a family to feed with allergy requirements.

Myself and the boys avoid dairy, soy and wheat / gluten (this includes oats, barley & rye for Felix and I). We try to eat real food – food that doesn’t come with an ingredients list, with added colors, flavors, sugars or preservatives. I don’t eat refined sugar as it makes me feel terrible, and it sends Ashton bouncing off the walls! I absolutely cannot eat any gluten, it makes me really sick, and very minimal dairy. Felix is also very strictly dairy / soy and gluten free while we continue to let his gut heal from his extreme allergies he suffered in his fist 18 months of life, to pretty much all foods.

Because of the boys’ allergies, and how they presented from birth, to foods in my diet while i was breastfeeding them, i have opted to remove dairy, soy, gluten / wheat, nuts and eggs from my diet 5 weeks before my due date, to ensure that, when baby is born, there is no trace of this in my breastmilk. Because having a newborn baby is hard enough, without adding in the harrowing experience of  a baby reacting to it’s only food source. If i opted to ‘wait and see’, by the time we recognize there is a reaction, after eliminating the offending foods, the proteins are not completely clear from my system for up to 6 weeks! So i’m getting ahead and doing it backwards, if all is well, then when baby is 6 weeks old i will introduce these back to my diet one by one, to carefully check for any signs of reaction, and hopefully, there wont be!

So while i manage to feed us breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks, day in and day out, no problems, to an outsider with no allergies, this sounds pretty bloody daunting! I know, because i once was an allergy outsider! And when you don’t live the life every day, its hard to comprehend and remember!

So – how on earth to you turn up to visit a new Mum and baby with something they can eat!? Here are some of my suggestions that comply with my family’s needs (free from – gluten, dairy, soy, eggs & nuts).

I’ve divided it into categories of time, location and expense (because, if you are buying allergy friendly packaged goods, they are going to be more expensive than their not so friendly counterparts!)

So you can choose from:

QUICK AND EASY MEAL PREP – make at home with minimal cooking & prep

QUICK PICKS FROM THE SUPERMARKET – pick up from the supermarket on the way over

ONLINE PRODUCTS – more specialty items to buy online and have it delivered straight to us (please count this as a gift for us or baby!)

HOMEMADE – or go the whole hog and bake or cook  something (recipes included!)

(**disclaimer** this post is in no way sponsored or any of that jazz by the food companies I recommend, they have never even sent me free shit! It purely based on my own personal experience and overall satisfaction with these particular products, and how they fit into our lifestyle, that i recommend them).

Quick Easy Meal Prep

ROAST VEGETABLES:

We eat all veggies, chop them up, roast them in olive oil, coconut oil, rice-bran oil, avocado oil – or give me a text to check if your oil might be ok (‘vegetable oil’ generally isn’t as it can contain soy). We love to snack on roast veggies, make them into soups, put them in smoothies even! Or serve them with meat for an easy tea. Roast some veggies, you are on to a winner, bonus is, its pretty easy and fuss free!

CHOP UP SOME VEGGIES:

Don’t even cook them! Just chop up or prep a whole bunch of veggies that we can cook or use in salads. Capsicum, lettuce, cucumber, carrots for salads or snacking or root veggies for roasting, even mushrooms, courgette, cabbage, spinach, celery will get used. I spend a lot of time cutting and preparing veggies, it is such a big help to have this done for us.

CHOP UP SOME FRUIT

Baby is due in dec, there should be some yummy fruits around by then – make us a fresh fruit salad, the boys will be stoked and it will save me cutting up fruit snacks for them for a day at least! Or just bring fruit, whole, in all its glorious naturalness.

COLD COOKED MEAT

Throw some chicken breasts, in the oven with salt and pepper, cool then slice – this is an awesome protein rich snack for everyone in the family. Even a small roast, or some steak cooked and sliced would be very well received.

 

QUICK PICKS FROM THE SUPERMARKET

PROPER CRISPS

I really should ask proper crisps if we can partner up haha, I am a fantastic source of free advertising for them! Any flavour, we love them all! Grab them from the supermarket on your way over, easy as that!

ROTISSERIE CHICKEN & SALAD BAG

Pick up a hot cooked chicken (preferably one with no stuffing please 🙂 ) and a bag of coleslaw or salad. Meal done!

DIPS

Turkish Kitchen garlic hummus or ‘Kumara & Lentil with roasted Pumpkin’ dip.

‘Lisa’s’ hummus from the supermarket are gluten free – just a quick double check of the label to make sure it’s a flavour with no dairy, soy or nuts.

COCONUT YOGHURT

Raglan Coconut Yogurt, Cathedral Cove, and Zenzo are all brands that we can eat.

COCONUT ICE-CREAM!

Little island coconut ice-cream – a delicious summer treat – any flavour – we are not fussy!

LITTLE ISLAND COCONUT MILK

Again a delicious treat, especially the chocolate coconut milk, we might not share though!

CATHEDRAL COVE CEREAL

They have one specific cereal that does not contain nuts – great for  sprinkling on coconut yoghurt and an easy snack for mum and kids. This is it here:

Online products

FRANKS SAUSAGES

Not all the sausages on the site are suitable for us .. but these ones are ok for all:

Pork, Apple & Cranberry, Pork & smoked parprika, Chicken & French Tarragon, German Bratworst, chicken & pork Chipolatas, chicken, mango & coconut, plus the mince meat selection .

HUNTER GATHERER GOURMET

The nut free baking mix is the only one I can eat, but the boys can have everything on the site! I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t mind if Mum could quickly whip them up some baking that they didn’t have to share 🙂

GREEN MEADOWS BEEF

They have a store on Katere Rd, New Plymouth, full of beefy goodness. Beef and Beetroot meatballs or patties!! Yum, this would save us so much time, and the boys would be over the moon – especially Ashton, who asks for meatballs for dinner every night!

MY FOOD BAG

The gluten free my food bag is ok for my family – 5 meals picked out and chosen with recipes, and all the ingredients delivered! I think we could manage that! Some of the ingredients contain dairy but it’s easy enough to leave out or only include for dairy eating family members. However, you would need to make sure they can deliver to your town (we would need this delivered to someone in New Plymouth, as they don’t currently deliver to Stratford).  They also do vouchers, so you could order a bag on a week that would help the most. Lots of options.

CRAFT SMOOTHIE

all the ingredients for 5 days of fruit & veg smoothies delivered to your door – all you have to do is throw them into the blender with some liquid – yes please!

From their website:

“Can I order a smoothie box as a gift?

For sure! Our smoothie kits make the perfect gift! To order a Craft Smoothie box as a gift, just email hello@craftsmoothie.co.nz with the name and delivery address of the recipient, and we’ll send you the payment details and confirm the delivery date. We will also add a personalised gift card in the box for that someone special 😊”

homemade

Have some extra time and want to attempt to make us something? Good on you – here are some recipes you cant go wrong with!

Meatballs – 4 ways

Choc Almond Cranberry Bliss Balls

Just make sure you swap the almonds for seeds 🙂

Veggie Nachoes

Chocolate Avocado Mousse

Hummus

Seed Crackers

Also i will hopefully have recipes up by the end of the month for:

Spag bowl mince

super simple curry

Taco / burrito / mexican meat and chopped salad

Roast Meat & veggies

Moroccan chicken salad

And maybe some links to other online recipes we use!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kayla

Party Food! Real food, allergy friendly party treats (gluten, dairy, soy, nut, egg free)

The one stop for real food birthday party food inspiration – find links to the stuff i made here! Every single thing on the party table is free from dairy, egg, soy, gluten, wheat, nuts, peanuts, refined sugar and vegetable oils. Most of the food is made from good quality wholefoods ingredients, without feeling like the party food is missing. No sugar highs or post cake meltdowns after this party! And best of all, one very happy two year old, who for the first time in his life could enjoy all the party food!

Here i used my almond cranberry bliss ball recipe, but instead of almonds i used 1/2 cup sunflower seeds and 1/2 cup pumpkin seeds to make them nut free.
this fruit creation was kindly put together by my Mum (i said she could do the fruit or some baking – good choice mother). she just used a bunch of fruit available at the supermarket, honeydew melon, pineapple, apple, grapes, strawberries and banana – a pretty impressive selection at this time of year. the the middle is half an orange (skin and all) where she stuck the skewers and threaded the fruit on. The kids loved grabbing a skewer of fruit to take to their plate.
The famous everything free chocolate cake, so delicious and fudgy. recipe here along with choc ganache and marshmallow icing.
Batman biscuits! Recipe courtesy of Mummy Made It – its the ‘healthy tiny teddy’ recipe cut with batman cookie cutter. Free from dairy, egg, soy, gluten, nut and refined sugar! Ive made this a few times and is my go to special occasion biscuit recipe.
This pancake recipe comes from Be Good Organics – it is free from gluten, dairy, soy, eggs and nuts! But not free from deliciousness! For the party i subbed the buckwheat flour for a standard gluten free flour mix, given that buckwheat can be an acquired taste to unsuspecting guests! It is also the recipe i use in our waffles. The icing is choc ganache left over from the cake and the sprinkles i found at countdown which claim to be naturally colored, perhaps I was scammed by the marketing but i was willing to forgo research on this one for the sake of the party.
this was one of my favourite platters of the party! A trio of hummus. I used our standard hummus recipe, then to one added a bit extra garlic, the other about 1/2 cup roasted carrot and a tsp curry powder and the third, two small cooked beetroot and a little honey. lots of cut up vege to dip and some of our seed crackers.
Home popped popcorn! and Proper Crisps – salted and smoked paprika flavour. I love proper crisps because they aren’t cooked in refined canola oil, and they taste so good! Best chips I’ve ever tasted, they have spoiled all other potato chips for me now! For the popcorn, i melt about 1 Tbsp coconut oil in a large pot, add 3 popcorn kernels and cover, as soon as they have all popped add half a cup of popcorn kernels, cover and keep on the heat until the first ones start to pop. then turn off the heat and take the pot off the shake it, then put back on the element (while its turned off but will still be hot) for 30 seconds, and repeat until all the popcorn is popped. add a knob of coconut oil or butter to the hot pot and let melt through the popcorn then turn out into a bowl and season to taste.

 

Jellies! i made three types of jellies about a week ahead and kept them in the freezer, then transferred to the fridge to defrost a day or two before the party. I made blueberry, strawberry and lime (sorry didn’t get a picture of those ones!) and peaches jellies. i got the heart, star, duck moulds from Kmart and the lego men from Aliexpress.
Chicken Nibbles – Bostocks organic free range chicken nibbles (my second favourite after their wings!) marinated in honey, garlic, ginger and coconut aminos. For ‘honey soy’ chicken nibbles. these were delicious!
Franks sausages – our go to for gluten free, preservative sausages, these were the chicken ones and lamb ones. They are so good, and the only sausage I’ve found with ingredients I’m happy to feed Felix. In the big drink dispenser there is soda water with frozen blueberries and orange slices, and in the glass bottle chilled water with lime wedges.

Kayla

Real Food Jelly Lollies

Ingredients

Strawberry & lime

1 cup strawberries (frozen is fine)
1/4 cup water x2
1 T lime juice

1 T maple syrup (optional)

2 T gelatin*

Blueberry

1 cup blueberries (Frozen is fine)
1/4 cup water x2
1 T maple syrup (optional)
2 T gelatin*

Peaches

1 cup peaches (i used tinned – rinsed and drained)
1/4 cup water x2
1 T maple syrup (optional)
2 T gelatin*

*(you can use up to 4 T gelatin for a firmer jelly / lolly like consistency)

what to do

Put the fruit, one lot of 1/4 cup water and sweetener for your your chosen flavour in a small pot and heat through.

While its heating add the gelatin to the other 1/4 cup water and stir. It will expand and soak up the water. Add this to the hot pot and stir through until dissolved.

Remove from the heat and blend the mixture in a blender, or with a handheld blender.

Pour into moulds, or line a tray with cling wrap and pour into the tray to cut into shapes when its set.

Set in the freezer for 20 – 60 mins depending on the size, or overnight. This part is essential for making sure the jellies come cleanly out of the moulds, especially if its a fiddly mould – like a lego man! you can store them in the freezer and defrost over night in the fridge before needed, or store in the fridge for a couple of days.

They should be able to handle being at room temperature for a couple hours, but are nicest when cold.

Kayla

Chocolate cake – real food and top 8 free!

So this recipe stems from an original recipe, a somewhat famous cake in the real food world – the 84th and 3rd chocolate cake! The original recipe calls for pumpkin and has eggs in it, so we have made some adjustments to the ratios and ingredients, by changing out for seasonal veggies and substituting the eggs. If you are not egg free then go check out the 84th and 3rd best real food chocolate cake recipe ever ! (but stick around here for the marshmallow icing!)

This recipe has been tried and tested half a dozen times between Justine at Our Kitchen Adventures and Myself. She was kind enough to adapt the original recipe first and share it with me! I have also made the original recipe, which isn’t egg free, for Ashton’s birthday, when Felix was too little to eat cake! I’ve made it with pumpkin, kumara (sweet potato) and carrot, i’m not a huge fan of the pumpkin version, but kumara and carrot are both delicious. This time i used carrot because kumara is like $10 a kilo right now!

Justine from Our Kitchen Adventures made the cake for her sons 2nd birthday dinosaur party.
And for her son’s Thunderbird’s birthday party

Ingredients

Cake:
1/2 c cocoa or cacao powder
1/4 c coconut flour
2 Tb psyllium husk
1 t cream of Tatar
2 t baking soda*
1/2 c maple syrup***
1/2 c water
1/2 c coconut oil
2 c Kumara, carrot or pumpkin finely grated
1 t vanilla extract
* or 1 t baking soda and 1 t baking powder

Chocolate Icing:
1 block dark dairy free chocolate (this part is not refined sugar free! the darker the chocolate the less sugar it has)**
1 400ml can coconut cream
1 t vanilla extract
** for a refined sugar free icing do try to the 84th and 3rd dairy free ‘buttercream’!)

what to do

Preheat oven 180 degrees c.

Cake

Put all the wet ingredients into a bowl and stir in the finely grated vege.

Sift the dry ingredients on top and then mix everything together, let sit for 5 mins for the mixture to thicken slightly.

line a cake tin with baking paper. I used a 18cm cake tin and split the mix in two to make two thin layers – so for the whole cake i made three batches of cake and 6 layers. (i made 1 batch a night and froze the layers to minimize the kitchen marathon!)

if you are doing two layers, bake each layer for 20 – 25 minutes, or a full cake batch for 35 minutes. lift out the baking paper and carefully place on a wire rack to cool. Without eggs to bind the cake is fragile so minimal handling works best. If you are wanting to layer or shape it, i recommend freezing for for easier handling. It freezes and defrosts beautifully, and actually tastes better after a couple days in the fridge!

icing

Melt the chocolate and add the coconut cream, refrigerate for an hour or so until firm then whip the mixture on high using an electric beater until fluffy and spreadable.

layer up with choc ganache icing between each layer, we also added strawberry chia-seed jam between each layer too, which was delicious!

If you want to add the marshmallow layer on the top then the instructions for that is here. Otherwise use this as your canvas to create whatever you want!

This part could be made a couple days in advance and stored in the fridge then the marshmallow icing added on the day or day before.

***for two of the cake batches i ran out of maple syrup! So i used coconut sugar made into a syrup, by measuring out half a cup of coconut sugar, then pouring boiling water over to reach the half cup measurement and stirring to dissolve.

Kayla

Marshmallow Icing

This is what I poured over the top of Felix’s birthday cake in the weekend, to get the yellow drizzle topping.  You can find lots of party snack photos on our facebook page and i’ll add more recipes for everything throughout the coming week.

Ingredients

1 cup water
3 Tbsp gelatin (we use great lakes or vital proteins)
100g honey or maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch salt
Natural colour if you wish (i used 1/4 tsp turmeric, beetroot powder would probably work for pink – use your imagination im sure the natural colour options are endless.

what to do

put 1/2 the water in a large mixing bowl with the gelatin and leave to bloom while you prepare the honey.

In a saucepan heat the honey, water, vanilla, natural colour and salt until melted and combined.
Using an electric beater or stand mixer, start to beat the gelatin and water on low, while slowly pouring in the honey mix. Once combined turn the speed up to high and beat until it starts to become fluffy marshmallow texture, can take anywhere between 5 and 15 mins depending on the speed of your beater. Mine takes no longer than ten mins.

I’m not sure if i over beat it every time, but i find it sets too fast to ice a cake with, so i then melt it in the microwave ever so slightly (5 seconds at a time!) to make it a pour-able texture. Don’t worry if you melt it too much – it will firm back up on standing! But you need to make sure its loose enough or it won’t pour over the cake!

Depending on your climate it might set out of the fridge (its freezing at my house!) otherwise an hour or two in the fridge will firm it up.
Alternatively pour into a baking paper lined tin and cut into squares of marshmallow when set.

Kayla2 Comments

Choc Almond Cranberry Bliss Balls

Ingredients

1 c almonds
1 c dates
1/2 c dried cranberries
1 t vanilla extract
1 T coconut oil
1 T raw cacao or cocoa powder
1 c desiccated coconut

what to do

Put the almonds in the food processor and pulse until they are broken down. If you want almond chunks then leave them a bit chunky, if you want them all blended in then grind them to a powder. Add the rest of the ingredients and process on high until the dates are broken down and the mixture is clumping and sticky. Roll into balls and store in the fridge or freezer. I store them in the freezer and they get eaten straight from there.

Remember there is lots of dried fruit in these, even though they are wholefoods etc, they are still a ‘sometimes’ treat 🙂 they are especially good as an after dinner sweet or a high energy lunchbox treat.

Kayla

Waffles – Free from gluten, dairy, egg, nuts

So if you have been following me for a while, you will know that I’ve spent a good part of this year trying to create the perfect gluten, dairy, soy free but also egg and nut free waffle. And a month or so ago I finally cracked it. Well actually, that’s kind of a lie, I found this fantastic pancake recipe from one of my favourite real food blogs and decided to try and turn it into a waffle. Low and behold, it turned out perfect! there is nothing I could have done to make this recipe any better. So i really can’t take any credit for the everything free waffle recipe I spent so long trying to create, but I’m totally cool with that because it found me in the end!

All the credit goes to Buffy from Be Good Organics who created this stunning pancake recipe which I then turned into waffles. Here is the original pancake recipe, and below I will outline how I make it into waffles! The best part is I can serve this to the whole family and everyone loves it, gluten eating Dad and egg eating Chef Ashton included, and the best part is that our little guy Felix can enjoy the same breakfast as the rest of the family! He thinks its pretty cool and loves to partake in ‘build your own’ waffle Sunday when I lay out a bunch of condiments on the table and you can choose what to top your waffle with. (think blueberries, banana, kiwi fruit, maple syrup, seeds, dark chocolate, whipped coconut cream, coconut yoghurt, homemade chia jam, honey).

This makes 4 waffles and feeds our family of 4, with toppings.

Ingredients

1c buckwheat flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp himalayan pink salt
1 large ripe banana
1c + 1/4c coconut milk (or milk of choice)
1/4 lemon (juice & flesh)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 dates

Oil – for the waffle iron (this is the one and only place I use an oil spray)

what to do

Turn the waffle iron on and set to preheat. Grease the waffle iron, grease it real good, like i said this is the one time i use an oil spray instead of coconut oil because you really need to get into all the crevices. Trust me, you don’t want the waffle to stick!

Add all the ingredients into a blender or food processor, except the 1/4 cup milk – i put them all into a 1 litre glass jug and use my hand held blender. If it’s too thick add at the 1/4 cup milk. The consistency works best if its thick, but pour-able, with the help of a spoon.
Blend until all the ingredients are combined.

When the waffle iron is heated set it to your desired doneness (i like it a little brown, but not too much – which is about a 4 or 5 on my machine). Pour 1/4 of the mix in and close the lid. Obviously your waffle iron might be a different size to mine, so be the judge over whether that will be enough or too much. You don’t want it to overflow! I’m always so greedy and pour too much in the first two then the second two end up kinda stingy (the kids get those ones haha).

Remove each waffle with a spatula when done and place in a low temp oven until the others are cooked. While they cook, I chop and assemble the toppings (see above for suggestions) also some nice suggestions in the original recipe you could check out.

So there you have it, the most delicious egg and nut free (and all the other stuff free) waffle! I’m generally not a hue fan of a strong buckwheat flavour, but I don’t find the buckwheat flavour over powering at all in these.

If you are like us, and need options for egg free baking, you should definitely check out Be Good Organics, why reinvent the egg free baking wheel when you can just go there! Some seriously yum stuff, using good, quality, real food ingredients that I’m happy to feed my family.

Kayla