They may be a little primitive, but they’re one of my favourites – rock cakes! I’m more of a cook than a baker, but sometimes these little childhood treats can derail my clean eating, so I’ve started baking the cleanest recipe I could imagine!
Do you ever have little flashbacks to your childhood, especially centred around food? It can’t just be me – Mum’s flapjacks, Grandma’s Victoria sponges… I loved those sweet treats and the infantile happiness that came with them!
Classically full of butter, egg, white flour, and refined sugar, rock cakes couldn’t be further from my day-to-day mindful eating regime. Here’s how I swapped out the not so great ingredients:
White flour was changed for organic sprouted oats* and organic wholemeal buckwheat flour – a lot less gluten, and a lot more fibre to aid digestion. Butter gave way to extra virgin coconut oil – still a fat, but plant-based, high in LDLs, and I also reduced the amount used too. Refined sugar was swapped out for unrefined coconut palm sugar – as an afterthought, I would actually recommend an unrefined light brown sugar, unless you really love the nutty taste of coconut palm sugar.
I also got rid of the egg by making a ‘flax egg’ instead – something I’d read about recently, and wanted to try. While I’m still quite happy to eat eggs, I wanted to add some extra fibre, and also keep the recipe vegan too. See step three of the recipe for exactly how I made my egg.
And there you have it! A tasty ‘upgrade’ with all those memories and flavours left to enjoy!
Plant-based Rock Cakes
100g raisins
100g extra virgin coconut oil
150g unrefined sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
140g organic wholemeal buckwheat flour
275g organic sprouted oats*
1 tbsp flax seed meal
1 tbsp flax seed oil
- Preheat your oven to 180°C, and line two baking trays with baking parchment, or conversely use two glass lasagne dishes – I found these did not stick at all when cooked
- In a small bowl, weigh your raisins and add 50mls water, leaving to soak
- In another small bowl, mix your flax seed meal, flax seed oil, and 2 tbsp water, leaving to rest in the fridge – this is your flax egg
- To melt your coconut oil, weigh into a glass and put the glass into a small bowl, pouring boiling water around the glass
- In a large mixing bowl, pour in your sugar and then the melted coconut oil on top, mixing thoroughly before adding the now thick flax egg, sprinkle of cinnamon, flour, and oats
- Mix well with a wooden spoon, pouring in the final ingredient – raisins
- Now on your trays, add spoonful-sized dollops of the mixture, leaving a little room between each for some spread – I made 16 in total
- Cook for 12-15 minutes, until they’re golden brown. Careful not to let the raisins catch!
- Remove from the oven, and slide a spatula underneath each to ensure they do not stick when cooling – you could use a cooling rack but they are a little crumbly
- Now grab a cup of tea and enjoy!
