What’s Christmas without a tasty treat… or three? But wait; before you go overboard at the buffet, we have a few healthy alternatives.
Sugar-free raspberry sorbet
Ingredients
- 6 cups frozen raspberries
- 3 overripe bananas, cut into 1cm pieces, frozen
- 60g fresh raspberries, roughly crushed
Method
- In 3 batches, blend the frozen raspberries and bananas until smooth.
- Transfer each batch into one large bowl, then stir through the crushed raspberries.
- Spoon into a 1.25L container.
- Serve immediately.
Gluten-free Christmas cake
Ingredients
- 100g margarine
- 1 large ripe banana
- 2 large lemons, finely grated (rind and juice only)
- 100g soft prunes, stoned and halved
- 75g raisins
- 75g sultanas
- 75g currants
- 150g soft dried apricots, chopped into large pieces
- 50g mixed peel (a mixture of orange and lemon peel)
- 75g walnuts, halved and 25g hazelnuts chopped OR 75g large pumpkin seeds and 25g sunflower seeds
- 2 eggs (or 2 level tsps gluten-free baking powder to make an egg-free cake)
- 75g coarse polenta and 75g rice flour and 1 level tsp xanthan gum OR 150g gluten-free flour that already includes xanthan gum
- 2 heaped tsps ground nutmeg
- 1 heaped tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 heaped tsp ground ginger
- ½ tsp ground cloves
- 2 tbsps brandy (optional)
Method
- Preheat the oven to 160 degrees.
- In a food processor, beat the margarine with the banana and the lemon juice and rind. Pour into a bowl.
- Mix in the dried fruit and nuts or seeds.
- Beat the eggs (if you’re using them).
- Sieve the flours with the baking powder (if you’re substituting it for the eggs) and the spices.
- Fold the eggs (if you’re using them) into the fruit mixture alternately with the flours. Add a little brandy if you’d like.
- Line a 20cm cake tin with greased greaseproof paper. Spoon in the mixture and level off the top.
- Bake for about two hours or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.
- Remove from the tin and cool on a rack.
- Eat as it is, or store to be iced for Christmas. You can also decorate this cake with whole nuts like almonds.
Dairy-free ginger turmeric cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup coconut butter, softened
- ½ cup granulated sweetener
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 heaped tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp turmeric powder
- 1/8 tsp or more black pepper
- ¼ tsp sea salt
- ¼ tsp baking soda
Method
- Place the coconut butter, egg and vanilla in a food processor and combine.
- Add in the sweetener, baking soda and all the spices. Blend until it’s all thoroughly mixed.
- Form the dough into balls and place on a baking paper-lined baking sheet.
- Press each cookie down with your palm.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown.
- These cookies are fragile when warm, so let them cool for a few minutes on the cookie sheet. Remove and let them cool completely on a cooling rack. They will harden up as they cool.
- Store in an airtight container.