ORANGE, C A R DA M O M AND HONEY POLENTA CAKE

Sometimes you want a nice plain bit of cake with a pot of tea. This uses polenta and ground almonds, making it gluten-free. Shop-bought cakes are laden with ultra-processed ingredients, which is why they have a long shelf life. This couldn’t be easier to make: just add the wet ingredients to the dry, stir and bake.

SERVES 6

FOR THE GLAZE H H

juice of 2 oranges crushed seeds from 6 cardamom pods or 1 tsp ground cardamom

50ml honey

H100g fine polenta

200g ground almonds zest and juice of 2 oranges 200ml olive oil

160g honey

4 eggs

2 tbsp flaked almonds, toasted

1 Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan/ gas 4. Line a 20cm cake tin with parchment paper.

2 Put the polenta, almonds and zest in a large bowl and combine well.

3 Put the orange juice, olive oil, honey and eggs in another bowl and whisk together.

4 Pour the wet mixture into the dry ingredients and stir until combined.

5 Transfer the batter to the cake tin and bake in the oven for

20-25 minutes. You can test if the cake is cooked by inserting a skewer, which should come out clean.

6 While the cake is in the oven, make the glaze by combining the orange juice, cardamom and honey in a small bowl and whisking together.

7 Take the cake out of the oven and pierce the top all over with a skewer. Pour over the glaze, then scatter with the flaked almonds. Leave in the tin for 5 minutes to cool.

8 Remove the cake from the tin and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before serving.

NOTE Don’t be alarmed if it sinks after baking – this can happen when there is no gluten to maintain the structure.

SWEET POTATO BROWNIES

There is something moreish about a good squidgy chocolate brownie. But if you read the ingredient lists of some shop-bought varieties, it can be off-putting. Often they will include modified starches, inverted sugar syrups, preservatives and emulsifiers, which are added to help maintain texture, taste and shelf life. These brownies are as unprocessed as you can get, with natural sweetness and gooey texture provided by the sweet potato and dates, which also add a valuable dose of crucial nutrients, including the antioxidant betacarotene.

MAKES 9

600g sweet potatoes, peeled and diced into

1cm cubes

225g medjool dates, pitted

80g ground almonds

100g plain wholemeal flour

4 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

4 tbsp honey pinch of sea salt

1 tbsp smooth nut butter made with almonds (for the recipe, see page 40)

HHH1 Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Line the base and sides of a 20cm square cake tin with parchment paper.

2 Wrap the sweet potato chunks in foil and put on a baking tray, then bake in the oven for 20 minutes or until soft.

3 Once the sweet potato is cooked, remove from the oven and leave to cool slightly before transferring to a food processor along with the dates. Blitz to form a smooth paste.

4 Transfer the paste to a large bowl and add the remaining ingredients (except the almond butter) and stir to combine well.

5 Add the mixture to the lined cake tin then drizzle the almond butter over the batter and swirl with a knife. Put the tin in the oven to bake for 15-20 minutes. You can test if they are cooked by piercing with a knife – if it comes out with just a few crumbs attached they are ready (it is better to undercook these than risk them drying out too much).

6 Once cooked, remove the brownies from the oven and leave to cool completely in the tin before removing and slicing into 9 squares.

NOTE These will last for up to 5 days stored in an airtight container in the fridge – or you can freeze them for up to 3 months.

OAT AND SULTANA COOKIES

These simple cookies score so much better on the processed food scale than shop-bought ones, as making them yourself means you control what goes into them. Oats are a whole, unprocessed food, and these cookies are sweetened with honey, which is a more natural sweetener than white sugar. This is a lovely recipe to use any homemade nut butter in. The cookies can be made in batches and even frozen.

MAKES 12 1 tsp ground cinnamon 125g smooth nut butter (peanut, cashew or almond; for the recipe, see page 32) 75g honey

1 egg, beaten

4 tbsp sultanas, chopped

1 Preheat the oven to 170C/150C fan/gas 3. Line 2 baking trays with parchment paper.

2 Put the oats in a food processor and blitz to about half their size, then add the bicarbonate of soda and cinnamon and pulse a few times to combine. Transfer to a large bowl.

3 Put the nut butter, honey and egg in a separate bowl and whisk together, then pour this into the oat mixture with the sultanas and mix until completely combined.

4 Take one tablespoon of the mixture per biscuit and roll into a ball (wet hands helps with this) then arrange on the baking trays, leaving a 2cm gap between them. Flatten the cookies to about 1cm thick.

5 Put the trays in the oven and bake for 12-14 minutes until golden brown. Leave the cookies to cool on the tray before eating or storing in an airtight container.

BAKED PEACHES WITH PISTACHIO CRUMBLE AND LIME YOGURT

Fruit crumbles are high on everyone’s list of favourite puddings. This has been deconstructed, but still has all the delicious key elements of warm fruit and crunchy oat topping.

SERVES 4 1 Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4.

Put the peach slices and honey in a bowl and combine well. Transfer the slices to a baking dish, flat side facing up.

2 To make the crumble, put the ingredients in a bowl and mix well using your fingers.

3 Cover the peaches with the crumble and bake in the oven for 20 minutes until the topping is golden and crisp.

While the peaches are in the oven, make the lime yogurt by mixing together the yogurt, lime zest and juice.

Remove the peaches from the oven and serve in bowls with a dollop of lime yogurt. Sprinkle any remaining crumble left in the dish over the peaches.

VEGETABLE CRISPS

These give a lot more natural flavour than artificially flavoured potato crisps and you can make them yourself for a fraction of the cost.

The key to an excellent homemade crisp is to dry the vegetables really well before you bake them and make sure they are sliced as thinly as possible using a peeler or mandoline – mind your fingers! If you want to spice them up a little, add chilli powder, ground cumin or smoked paprika.

SERVES 4-6

2 carrots, very thinly sliced 1 large parsnip, very thinly sliced

2 raw beetroots, very thinly sliced

1 tbsp olive oil sea salt

H1 Preheat the oven to 190C/170C fan/gas 5.

Lay out the sliced vegetables on sheets of kitchen paper and pat them dry (the drier they are the crisper they will become when roasted), then transfer to a large bowl. Drizzle the oil over the vegetables, season with a little salt and toss well.

2 Transfer the vegetables to 1 or 2 nonstick baking trays and spread them out evenly so they are not overlapping. Put the trays in the oven and bake for 15 minutes. Turn the vegetables over and cook for a further 10 minutes until golden brown and crisp. NOTE You can store these crisps in an airtight container for up to 3 days, but they are at their best the day you make them.