I’ve been meaning to post this recipe for a while but I’ve had some dramas with technology. Anyhoo. 

A friend gave me this recipe one day. I had some girlfriends over for afternoon tea, all fancy like, and I commented on this nice sliced up, buttered cakey breaddy fruity thing she had brought along, so she wrote out the recipe for me. Since then I’ve made this about every second day. I’ve tried some different variations of the recipe too. It’s a lot of fun. 

(I love being in my kitchen. It evens me out, calms me, makes me feel happy, productive, sane. I love cleaning it, working in it, dreaming about changing it. It is a healing place for me.)

I have to share this with you because if you are ever needing a quick recipe for something yummy, this is really great. 

You can see that this recipe is free from egg and butter. If you use almond or coconut milk, this is a completely dairy free cake. 

You can use spelt to lower the gluten in this cake. You could use almond, coconut or rice flour (a combination of the three perhaps) or some other gluten free flour, and make this dairy and gluten free. Pop in some natural sweetener alternative, like stevia, and this becomes a:

Dairy, sugar, gluten free Cake. 

Go ahead, try it!

Simone’s Cake

(I have never met Simone but she must be a lovely person to share this recipe)

Ingredients 

2 cups flour/spelt 

1 cup shredded coconut

1/2 cup sweetener (eg stevia) or sugar 

1 cup raisins, sultanas or choc chips

Milk

Method

Mix all ingredients together, adding milk until it’s a sloppy consistency. 

Bake 180*C 45 minutes – 1 hour. 

Ok. So that’s the recipe I was given. I have played around with it and the following is my version. Like I said, I make this a few times a week, although I do change it up a bit sometimes.

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Rebecca’s version of Simone’s Cake

Ingredients 

1 cup raisins

2 cups milk

2 cups self raising flour (white or wholemeal or both)

1 cup shredded coconut

1/2 cup brown sugar

Optional: 1 tsp mixed spice, cinnamon or nutmeg  

Method

Pre heat oven to 180*C. Grease a loaf tin. 

Soak one cup of raisins in a cup of milk. This is important; if you don’t do this the raisins draw moisture from the cake and make it too dry. 

Mix dry ingredients. 

Add raisins and another cup of milk. Pour into loaf tin and bake for 35 – 45 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. My electric oven cooks things quickly, so check your cake’s progress.??

We like this served warm with butter! But it is very nice cooled too, without butter. Our children prefer sweeter, more chocolatey treats, to be perfectly honest, but this cake is healthy enough to make a nice school lunch box treat, and a healthier treat for all. It’s great to take on picnics or for afternoon teas. I really like it. 

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I haven’t tried adding chocolate chips yet, but I often make this with dried mixed fruit instead of just raisins. The dried orange peel gives it a great kick! I haven’t tried using fresh fruit yet. I imagine that if you do use fresh fruit, or even grated zucchini, beetroot or carrot, you would not need to add so much milk. 

ETA: I recently made this with choc chips as well as my standard recipe. It gives it a nice pop of chocolate surprise. It’s very nice!