Apple, Ginger and Cinnamon Tea Cake

Apple Ginger and Cinnamon Tea Cake. yellowreadis.com. Image: Two pictures of tea cake

About a year and a bit ago (I think, it feels like forever), with a specialists help, I finally managed to figure out that I have developed an allergy to egg. If you can’t hear the wailing and the knashing of teeth over here, you are lucky! Egg was one of my favourite foods, was an essential part of my baking and was a very difficult ingredient to replace. Not so much for its sticking power (banana does a great job for that), but for the light and fluffy-ness it adds to sponge cakes. So I have been experimenting for months and months with increasing despair – trying to bake a half-decent vegan, gluten-free sponge is hard!

But with the help of Jaime Oliver, and his magnificent Vegan GF sponge recipe, I now have cracked the code. This is not the same recipe, though his recipe is superb (I am incapable of not-tampering with any recipe). But it gave me a few pointers in the right direction for how to craft my own recipe that is repeatable and delicious.

So this is it, my Apple, Ginger and Cinnamon Tea Cake!
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Spice Biscuits

These yummy biscuits are lovely with a cup of tea, and have an aroma that easily wins me over to the ‘must-eat-biscuits’ cookie-monster dark-side. These biscuits are one of C’s favourites – but then again, he loves most cakes and biscuits. J rather loves crumbling them – and some even gets eaten. They’re also excellent as presents. It’s the freshly ground cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves that really does the trick – yes you can use pre-ground spices, but nothing beats that freshly ground smell. Continue reading “Spice Biscuits”