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Lime and Courgette Cake

Courgette cake with lemon and lime marmalade

I took this to a coffee and cards and told everyone it was a lime cake, not a courgette cake, it was very strongly lime flavoured. It makes a lovely moist sponge and with the lime was quite ‘refreshing’ according to one taster. Courgette/zucchini cake with lemon and lime marmalade

The original recipe for this lime and courgette cake comes from Nigella Lawson’s book ‘How to be a Domestic Goddess’…but as usual I modified it quite a bit!

There are reasons why I modified it but they all hinged around making this a dairy free cake. That meant I didn’t try and do a cream cheese icing on top (dairy free cream cheese is, in my opinion, just yuk, though with plenty lime it might have been ok I didn’t want to risk it). Then there was supposed to be a lime or lemon curd filling and as I didn’t have the time or energy to make my own I shop bought one, only to realise seconds before putting it on that it contained butter, if I had made my own I could have made it dairy-free.

So here is my version:

Ingredients

250g courgettes (2 large ones – zucchini if you’re across the pond)
2 large eggs
125ml vegetable oil
150g golden caster sugar
225g plain flour
3 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate soda

2 x 20cm sandwich tins, greased and lined (I only lined the bottom but it is definitely easier if you line the whole tin!)

Filling
1 jar lemon and lime marmalade (in my case a last minute decision, and a home made marmalade found hiding at the back of the cupboard!)

Icing
300 g icing sugar, sieved
100g dairy free spread (I use ‘Pure)
juice of 1 lime

To decorate
2-3 tablespoons of chopped pistachio nuts
lime zest curls

Method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C

Wipe the courgettes, don’t peel them and grate but not too finely as they can go a bit soggy. I squeezed out some of the excess juice before I added them but you can decide how squishy they are.

Put the eggs, oil and sugar together in a bowl and beat with a hand mixer until creamy. Sieve in the flour, baking powder and soda and beat again until well combined. Stir in the courgette, pour mixture into tins and bake for 30 minutes. They should be slightly golden and firm to the touch. Leave in tins for about 10 minutes then cool on a rack.

To make the icing, beat the icing sugar and dairy-free spread with a hand whisk and add the lime juice. Add more icing sugar if necessary to thicken it. (To be honest I guessed the quantities above, I just made it up when I did it!)

Spread the marmalade over the bottom layer. Stack the second layer on top and cover with the dairy-free ‘buttercream’ icing.

Sprinkle with lime zest curls and pistachios just before serving (best to allow the buttercream to set a little first).

When serving you can decide what to call the cake. I started calling it lime cakeinstead of courgette cake and I did own up to the courgette after they’d eaten it!…and as for the lemon curd, well my husband loves the stuff and was delighted to be told he’s got a whole jar that’s been opened and needs to be eaten!no

Update August 2018, I can now get an Oatly dairy free creme fraiche which I think could be used to make an alternative topping with lime juice and some icing sugar. Haven’t tried it yet but confident it would work.

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A tale of two cheesecakes

Dairy free raspberry cheesecake to go with blueberry cheesecake

It was my daughter’s 7th birthday this week and for her ‘cake’ she wanted a blueberry cheesecake, her favourite dessert. As two of us in the family are dairy free I also had to make a cheeseless cheesecake, so here are my recipes for both. These are adapted from Nigella Lawson’s recipe in ‘Nigella Express‘. I’m not sure the cheeseless one is the best dairy free cheesecake and I would love suggestions on how to improve it but it was edible and a pretty good alternative.

‘Real’ cheesecake

Ingredients

100g digestive biscuits
25g ginger biscuits
300g cream cheese
60g icing sugar
1tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp lemon juice
250ml double cream
Blueberry conserve and fresh blueberries for topping

Method

Whiz the biscuits in a food processor until beginning to turn to crumbs (don’t whizz too hard!) then add the butter and whiz again until the mixture clumps.

Press the mixture into a 20cm springform tin, press a little up the sides to form a slight ridge. (As you can see from the picture I didn’t have two springform tins so I used a heart shaped silicon cake mould for this cheesecake and didn’t try and take it out of it before serving, looked pretty enough in the mould)

Beat together the cream cheese, icing sugar, vanilla extract and lemon juice in a bowl until smooth.

Lightly whip the double cream and fold it into the cream cheese mixture.

Spoon cheesecake filling on top of biscuit base and smooth off. Put in the fridge overnight of for at least 3 hours.

When you are ready to serve, unmould (or not!) and spread blueberry conserve over the top and sprinkle with fresh blueberries.20151007_151857

Serves 6-8 (if you don’t like it as much as my husband does!)

Cheeseless cheesecake

Ingredients

100g digestive biscuits (make sure they are dairy free, most supermarket own are)
25g ginger biscuits (again make sure they are dairy free, most supermarket own are)
255g soya cheddar-like cheese spread
60g icing sugar
1tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp lemon juice
250ml soya yoghurt with almond
For topping I used 1 x 284 jar St Dalfour Rhapsodie de Fruit Raspberry Spread and some fresh raspberries.Dairy free raspberry cheesecake

Method – exactly the same as for cheesecake substituting the cream cheese for the cheese spread and beating the yoghurt in with this mix (it’s not going to whip!).

I find the soya cheese spread revolting on its own so I used the almond plain yoghurt to add flavour and used a whole jar of raspberry spread and lots of fresh raspberries again to counteract the cheese spread. In the picture I had tried to make the raspberry spread look pretty but I ended up spreading it all over and adding fresh raspberries, much like I’d done with the blueberry – was much better but I forgot to take a photo! I think it worked (made a previous version of this without so much added flavour and couldn’t get past the horrible cheese spread taste!)

You can of course use whatever fruit topping you like, these ones worked for us.

I’d love some comments on how to make a cheeseless cheesecake that sets, this goes slightly firm but nothing like a real cheesecake. I use that particular cheesespread as it’s the only one available locally, there may be alternatives near you, and again I’d love to know what works for you.