It's about time I made something a little healthier than my usual bakes and this recipe is dedicated to all my health conscious family and friends. Not only does it not have any butter and sugar, it also has tons of nutritious chia seeds. You can now eat (more) cake with less guilt!
For these little babies, I've replaced butter and sugar with olive oil and honey/ agave which made it a little complicated when I was figuring out and formulating the recipe. HERE'S WHY Click on the link and head over to the conversions page if you're interested in substituting honey for sugar in your bakes. Basically, I had to throw my usual creaming (butter+sugar) method out the window, reduce the amount of liquids, add baking soda and lower the oven temperature, so don't be confused when you see that I've set the oven temperature at 160°C.
Even though it's a healthier cake, I wanted it to taste like a regular cake, which I could use as a cupcake base or layered cake in future. So I focused a lot on the flavour, hence the long list of ingredients: lemon, Kahlua, coffee, vanilla, cocoa powder and cinnamon. And since I've already made so many substitutions, you could take it a step further and add soy milk instead of the low fat milk and Kahlua that I've used. Chia seeds are optional too if you're not a fan of it.
After the cakes cooled, I brushed the mini bundts with a thin lemon glaze (lemon juice+icing sugar) and topped them off with some Paul A Young cocoa nibs I brought back from London. The cake goes well with a nice cup of coffee for breakfast and I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I did.
Coffee & Olive Oil Cake (With Chia Seeds)
(makes about 3, 10cm mini bundts)
1 Large egg
100g - Agave nectar/ honey
Zest of 1 lemon
80ml (62g) - Olive oil
15ml - Lemon juice
70ml - Milk/ soy milk
15ml - Kahlua/ milk
1 tbspn - Chia seeds
2 tspn - Instant coffee powder
1 tspn - Vanilla bean paste/ extract
1 tspn - Cocoa powder
145g - Self-raising flour
1/2 tspn - Baking powder
1/2 tspn - Cinnamon powder
A pinch of salt
~Preheat the oven to 160°C (140°C fan oven). Lightly grease the mini bundt pans with olive oil.
~ Mix the lemon, milk, Kahlua, chia seed, coffee, vanilla and cocoa powder in a cup. Allow the chia seeds to soak in this mixture and expand, while you whisk the egg.
~ In a large metal bowl, whisk the egg and agave/ honey until pale and fluffy (this will take some time and an electric whisk).
~ Add the zest, olive oil and lemon-milk mixture to the egg.
~ Sift the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Fold the flour into the batter till it is mixed well.
~ Fill the bundt pans 3/4 full and bake for 25 minutes or until the inserted toothpick comes out clean.