The Healthy Cake

As promised, the healthy cake recipe. Three versions of the cake were made in the cookery demonstration, I'm posting the one that came out the best with my own adjustments. Bear in mind, this makes a pretty big cake.

1.5 cups wholemeal flour
3/4 cup soy yogurt - plain works well, but I found it better with an apple flavoured one
2 tsp agave syrup
1/4 cup rice milk
Whole bar dark chocolate, grated
One apple, de-cored and grated
One courgette (zucchini), grated
One red pepper, grated
1/2 cup brazil nuts
1/2 cup walnuts
1/2 cup dried cranberries
Lemon zest (optional)
2 tsp Cinnamon (optional)

Mix together flour, chocolate, fruit, vegetables and nuts.
Add yogurt, syrup and milk, and blend until the mixture is slightly thicker than a normal cake mixture. If it is too firm, add a touch more rice milk. It needs to be slightly thicker, because the fruit and the vegetables will release moisture when baked, softening the cake.
Add cinnamon and lemon zest if required - I like it best with the cinnamon, but without the zest. Gives it a nice kick.
Bake in the oven for about 20 mins on 180, or until cakey.
Allow to cool (if you can wait, it's pretty tasty warm).

Notes:
-Cranberries can be substituted for red cabbage
-Nuts are interchangeable; cashews work well too, or use your favourites. If you're allergic to nuts, take them out of the recipe and reduce the amount of soy yogurt slightly.
-I haven't tried this yet, but I bet a mashed up banana or two would go quite nicely in place of 1/4 cup soy yogurt.
-Try different types of dark chocolate; some with orange, or hemp seeds, for example.

Goody Good Stuff

I've been raving about these for almost a year, since last year's Bristol eco veggie fayre. Back then, Goody Good Stuff had only just started, and you couldn't buy their products anywhere. Which was a huge problem for me, because I'd tried them and bought several packets, only to discover my new favourite sweet treat was unavailable to purchase.

Fast forward about six months, and I'm looking around my local health food store. Goody Good Stuff sweets are on the shelves, in all their delicious varieties, at the same cost as a bag of Haribo with none of the nasties. They're fat-free, too, so I don't feel too guilty about working my way through a bag after a workout.

When I went to the stand at the Brighton vegfest last week, I was glad to see the company back, doing well, and getting their products out there. Surprisingly, they even remembered me, and the sweets were as good as ever. Highly recommended.

http://www.goodygoodstuff.com/

Brighton Vegfest

Yesterday, I went to Vegfest in Brighton. It was paradise; it's not often a veg*n will go somewhere that they can eat everything without asking about ingredients. Besides eating almost everything that was on offer, I tested out a lot of new products and got some good deals on old favourites. I also attended a cookery talk, in which we were taught how to make the world's healthiest cake, and although it went a little wrong in the live demo, I wrote down the recipe anyway because it's likely to work well with a little home tweaking.

My next load of blog posts will be about everything I loved from the show; food, beauty products, books, and recipes I've created around what I found there. So stay tuned.

Vegfest is also going to Bristol in May this year, so for anyone who wants to attend, and I think that you all should, here's the website: http://www.vegfest.co.uk/