Walnut paleo cake

I made my first flour-free cake! 

A bejegyzés magyar nyelven itt olvasható.

The paleo cake!

Niina introduce me to the word of flour free sweetnesses and dishes, because she tries to live without flour. One day I just visited her with a surprise cookie, than we started to discuss our next common dinner-night. Mostly I make the desserts for these occasions, but this time I promised her that she will get an own flour free sweetie. We found a gastronomic journal, where I have discovered a “chocolate sour cherry paleolit walnut cake”. This cake was made by a famous Hungarian actor, János Kulka, who already has his own cookbook. So, I don’t know where the name of this cake comes from, because it contains no chocolate among ingredients, but Niina wanted it…. so I made it!

To be safe I checket this whole paleolit diet on the internet. The point is that in prehistoric times humans ate only meat, fish, fruit, vegetables and sometimes seeds. In that time milk products and cereals were unavailable. This diet tries to model this nutrition style, so these ingredients are forbidden. (After all the Neanderthals didn’t milk the mammoths, and they didn’t cultivated the land! J ) This cookie will be a perfect choice, if someone is celiac or has to eat gluten free stuff!

I have choosen my most beautiful ceramic pastry cutter and I red the ingredients of this recipe! I modified the components on my own and finally I used these things for the cookie:

Ingredients:

200 g minced walnuts

50 g chopped seeds, approx. a bigger handful of seeds (sunflower, almond, pumpkin seeds, nut)

4 whole eggs

2 handful of sour cherry compote (dripped)

1 bigger apple

peel of 1 lemon

4 tablespoon of sugar

1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

1 teaspoon of baking powder

1 pinch of salt

I have quickly realized, that this problem can only be solved by our own home-grown walnuts, because here walnuts are really expensive! Additionally, my mother makes sour cherry compote for my traditional Xmas fruitcake every year, so I also had this ingredient home, too. Later I learned, that sour cherry cannot be bought in Finland, so my mom’s compote saved me! If someone meets with the same problem, sour cherry can be changed for any sour fruit (for example blueberry).

Preparation:

First I minced the walnuts and mixed it with baking soda, than I frittered the mixed seeds, but I didn’t mixed it with walnuts then. I peeled and sliced up the apple, than I covered the pieces with a thin layer of cinnamon. (If our sour cherry compote would be too wet and juicy, it has to be dripped off). I heated the oven for 160°C, because mixing the pastry is very fast!

Making the pastry:

First I separated the egg whites from the yolks, than I whipped the egg whites with the salt and  sugar until I got a white and shiny foam. I put the yolks one  by one (!) into it, than I continued my work with a wooden spoon with hole. I added the vanilla extract and lemon peels to this mix plus the minced walnuts, which already contained the baking powder. In the end I jumbled the fruits and the chopped seeds with the pastry. I tried to transfer the pastry in one piece to the ceramic cutter and not to hurt the structure of whip. I let the pastry bake in my oven for approx half hour. Don’t forget to check your pastry in the end of baking with a toothpick!

The pastry!

Possible errors:

Practically this sweetie is unmessable, but there are a few things, which you have to pay attention. The spirit of this cake is the good egg whip! Mixing the sugar with the egg white before whipping is a common mistake. In my opinion it’s better, if we add only the salt to the egg white before we start to whip our egg white, than we have to add the sugar slowly to the half-whipped egg white foam. Using this method the foam will be more stabile and bigger, it won’t drop in a second. After this procedure the egg yolks can be added one by one to this foam and mix them together. The dry commodities have to be mixed with a wood spoon with hole or with plastic spatula. Mixing the dry things has to be carried out in huge O-size movements from the outer side to the mid-point of the pastry.

My opinion is that the fruits are really important in this cookie! You can omit the chopped seeds, or may be the sour cherry, too, but don’t leave out the apple! The taste of this whole cookie is similary to a very concentrated walnut sponge or Xmas cookie filling (like Hungarian bejgli), so apple is needed to mellow the cake! After preparing this cake I think a 3:2:1 short pastry (150 g flour + 100 g butter +50 g sugar) or a biscuit pastry (150 g minced biscuit + 5-8 g butter) can be used as a base of this cookie, but it is not necessary.

In summary, making this cake was a huge experience for me, I didn’t disappoint in it! I think this cake stands its ground independently, but it can be served for children or beside a coffe!

I can offer this cake to everybody, because it’s really delicious and special! J

My gift to Niina!