BLOG'N'BAKE'S DAY @ STREET FEST LONDON - PALEO LEMON POUND CAKE

After the crazy baking rush at the end of last week Blog'n'Bake braved the torrential downpours pounding London and headed to Dalston Yard for #BloggerSaturday at Street Feast London to present our much blogged baked goods to the world.

I baked up some of my favourite Paleo Brownies, Lemon Pound Cake & Lemon Bars, Hannah had baked up her Naniamo Bars (soon to be made Paleo), Giulia had made her famous Carrot Cake & Chocolate Cheesecake whilst Wendy bought along her Tart au Citron and a few very special Kaya Jams she had slaved over the night before.

I really enjoyed chatting with people about the benefits of a Paleo lifestyle and describing how the baked goods came together, thankfully only a few people turned their noses up when I told them everything was gluten, grain, diary & refined sugar free but plenty of other people had heard of Paleo and were interested to hear what treats looked like in my world. This was of course great to see in London

Definitely an awesome day and I'm really looking forward to some more Blog'n'Bake outings in the future!




We definitely had awesome day chatting to the other vendors and trying their fantastic food with a few highlights being a bunless burger from Honest Burger and some amazing Scallops from a fellow food blogger Pork and Salmon. After Saturday I'm really looking forward to some more Blog'n'Bake outings! And so, onto the Lemon Pound Cake:

This lemon pound cake is truly spectacular, the glaze is a must and if you bake it right it comes out so beautifully moist it doesn't feel you're giving up anything but not packing it with crappy sugar and faux lemon juice. Unfortunately I can't claim credit for how awesome it is as I pretty much stick to Civilised Cavemen's recipe but reduce the honey to 1/2 a cup, leave out the lemon zest as I feel it gives the glaze a very strange texture and bake it in a loaf tin to increase the thickness and keep the centre more moist.

BLUEBERRY BANANA BROWNIES (PALEO)

These brownies are fantastic, in fact I think they are some of the best I've ever had - George of Civilized Caveman isn't lying but I've modified the recipe slightly through some tinkering of my own:

Ingredients:
170g Almond Butter
2 Eggs
40g Honey (Melted)
1 tbsp Vanilla Extract
30g Cocoa Powder
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp Salt
200g Blueberries
100g 90% Dark Chocolate (Lindt) Broken Up
1 Ripe Banana (Mashed)

Method:
Pre-mix the almond butter to get it nice and creamy then add the eggs and mix well.
Add the honey & vanilla followed by the salt & baking powder.
Add the cocoa powder & mix into a smooth paste.
Add the blueberries & broken up chocolate followed by the mashed up banana & mix until smooth.
Bake at 200 until a knife comes out of the brownies clean then remove from the oven and cut into squares.
Place the brownies on a metal cooling rack and put them back into the oven for 5-10 minutes to double bake the edges. It makes them much more chewy!

My Paleo Experience (so far):
I first became really interested in nutrition in April last year after I saw Tim Ferris on Chase Jarvis Live talking about his new book The 4 Hour Body (4HB). I proceeded to read the book front to back and applied the diet side to my already dialed in training regime helping me to drop about 6kg of weight in few months, but the problem with 4HB is its a diet, not a lifestyle and so I slowly began looking elsewhere and started to hear about Paleo.

I've been eating a pretty strict Paleo since January and I'm just getting away from that pesky cheat day thanks to a 21 day stint after our last trip to Exmoor. During that time I've been playing with making the occasional treat to help satiate my cravings for baked goods and these brownies are part of that effort!

I'm hoping to bring more of this side of my life to the blog over the coming months including more of my journey and some of the amazing food & training I'm enjoying as a result.

NOT PALEO - CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

This idea has been floating around in my brain ever since I posted my Banana Bread photograph on flickr and over the weekend I setup my micro studio (an IKEA cutting board and blanket for backdrop) to start shooting. I found a recipe for chewy cookies and decided on a half batch (because cheat day only comes once a week) then got down to shooting, in case you can't follow along with the photos I've reposted the recipe below:

Ingredients

Serves: 9

• 125g plain flour
• 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 85g unsalted butter, melted
• 150g brown soft sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 150g chocolate chunks

Preparation method

Prep: 10 mins |Cook: 15 mins

1. Preheat the oven to 170 C / Gas mark 3. Grease baking trays or line with parchment.

2. Sift together the flour, bicarb and salt; set aside.

3. In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar and caster sugar until well blended. Beat in the vanilla, egg and egg yolk until light and creamy. Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended. Stir in the chocolate chips by hand using a wooden spoon. Drop cookie dough onto the prepared baking trays, with each cookie around 4 tablespoons of dough (for smaller cookies, drop 1 rounded tablespoonful and adjust baking time as necessary). Do not flatten the dough. Cookies should be about 8cm apart.

4. Bake for 15 to 17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges are lightly toasted. Cool on baking trays for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.