I’m so excited to have collaborated with my friend and fellow blogger and baker, The Healthy Beard, again – this time bringing you some super delicious, easy to make and secretly good-for-you festive treats! All three recipes are vegan friendly, dairy and gluten-free and contain no refined sugars. Using some of our favourite products from some great brands, we hope you enjoy them!
First up is this divine loaf: Pears poached in tea bags full of winter spices, then baked in a coconut sponge batter flavoured with cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg – what more could you want from a recipe? We hope you enjoy!
Ingredients:
- 4 small pears, peeled
- 2 bags of spiced herbal tea (we used Yogi Tea Christmas Tea for a festive twist)
- 3 cups oat flour (we used Mornflake gluten-free oats and whizzed up in a blender to make our own flour)
- 1 cup coconut sugar (we used The Coconut Company)
- 2 tablespoons flaxseeds (we used Linwoods)
- 1/4 cup unsweetened desiccated coconut
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 2 teaspoons ginger
- 1 teaspoon nutmeg
- ½ cup maple syrup (we used Meridian)
- 2 tablespoons coconut oil, melted (we used The Groovy Food Company)
- 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
- 1 cup coconut milk (we dissolved 2 tablespoons The Coconut Company coconut milk powder in 1 cup warm water)
Get baking!
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C and grease and line a loaf tin.
- Place the pears in a large pan with boiling water to cover. Place the tea bags in, cover with a lid and poach for 10 minutes, until softened. Leave to cool.
- Mix together the oat flour, coconut sugar, flaxseeds, desiccated coconut, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and spices in a large bowl.
- Stir in the maple syrup, coconut oil, vinegar and coconut milk, plus 1 + ½ cups of the tea liquid from the poached pears. Mix well to form a batter.
- Spoon some of this into the loaf tin up to halfway. Now carefully drop the pears in with a small gap between them.
- Spoon more batter around the pears in between the gaps to reach the top of the loaf tin (you may have some mixture leftover – use to make muffins!).
- Bake for 30 minutes, then scatter over 1 tablespoon coconut sugar mixed with ½ teaspoon cinnamon.
- Continue baking for another 15 minutes, until firm, risen and golden. Leave to cool in the tin.
- Gently lift out the cake when cooled down – now slice up and serve!
Keep any remaining loaf in an airtight container for up to 2 days.
Check our our other joint recipes here and follow The Healthy Beard on Instagram and Twitter for tasty vegan updates 🙂