Lemon almond cake

Our friends Alice and Josqui who were coming over for dinner on the weekend and as it was recently Josqui's birthday- so I just had to whip up an appropriate wheat and sugar free cake! Take no notice of Josqui's sceptical look in this photo- it really was delicious. It's intensely lemon-y and it's dense texture is half way toward a baked cheesecake. The additional of passionfruit to this recipe complements the tartness of the lemon perfectly.

Ingredients
2 cups almond meal
1/2 cup rice flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2/3 cup agave
5 eggs
100g butter, softened
1/2 cup plain yogurt
Lemon zest from 2 lemon
Juice from 2 lemons
2 passionfruit (optional)

Method
Grease a 25cm springform tin. Line the bottom with paper.

In a blender combine butter and agave until light in colour. Add yogurt and eggs and dry ingredients. Once batter is formed add lemon juice and lemon zest.

It should be a fairly runny mixture. Pour into prepared tin. An optional addition is to then drizzle passionfruit pulp over the top at this point.

Place in a low oven (about 160-degrees) for around 45 minutes (or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean). Allow to cool slightly before running a knife around the edges and turning out.

I might try scattering a hand ful of rasberries over the top next time rather than the passionfruit.

Chocolate Semifreddo

Decadent desserts are not the usual thing that springs to mind when embarking on a sugar-free diet. I've adapted a fairly standard semi fredo recipe to come up with this chocolate delight (shown here with a kiwifruit semifreddo). I tested this recipe on my parents and husband along with a few different flavours I had developed- but it was the chocolate they were raving about.

Ingredients

150g of 100% chocolate, finely chopped*
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp thickened cream

6 egg yolks
4 tbsp honey
1 cup thickened cream, whipped
3 tbsp unsalted nuts of your choice, chopped

＊ Note: 100％ chocolate is intensely bitter as it has no sugar.

Method

Make at least 4 hours prior.

Line a loaf tin with clingwrap- leaving excess to hang over the sides.

Place chocolate and honey in a heatproof bowl. Half-fill a saucepan with water and place the bowl in the water. Bring the water to a light simmer. When melted remove from saucepan and stir through cream. Leave to cool.

Beat egg yolks and honey together using beaters until thick and light in colour. It should almost double in volume. Fold in cream.

Add still warm chocolate mixture to cream mixture folding in constantly. As you combine some of the chocolate will solidify forming chocolate chips.

Pour into lined loaf tin. Freeze for 1-2 hours until beginning to firm. Add nuts gently stirring in. Adding the nuts to the slightly frozen mixture ensures they all don't sink to the bottom.

Freeze for at least another 2 hours.

Before serving place in refrigerator for 10 minutes so it's lovely and soft around the edges.

Turn our onto a serving platter. You may want to decorate with fruit or nuts.

Note: A more casual approach is to simply freeze the mixture in a plastic tub and scoop out like icecream. That's what I did.