By Elizabeth Stein
Since a young age, I’ve always been a relatively healthy eater. I never drank soda, liked snacking on chips, or even enjoyed chocolate. My downfall, however, was homemade baked goods. Those made with fruits were even better!
So when I attended Integrative Nutrition, I set out to discover how to make some of my favorite baked goods healthier. A whole world opened up when I learned about alternative ingredients like coconut sugar, chia seeds, almond and millet flour and coconut milk.
I was so inspired by these new ingredients that I felt like the rest of the world needed in on this little secret…and so Purely Elizabeth was born. Here’s my new favorite homemade dessert using my favorite healthy alternative ingredients mixed with fresh summer blackberries, pistachios and lemon. Enjoy!
Lemon Olive Oil Cake With Blackberries, Pistachios + Cardamom Coconut Cream
Ingredients:
2 cups almond flour
1 cup millet flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp Himalayan sea salt
1 tbsp chia seeds
4 eggs
1 cup coconut sugar + ¼ cup
2 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp lemon zest
juice from 1 lemon + ¼ cup
1/3 cup olive oil
1 pint blackberries
¼ cup chopped pistachios
Blackberry Cardamom Coconut Whipped Cream
1 can coconut milk (refrigerated overnight, stored upside down)
¼ tsp cardamom
1 tsp vanilla
3 tbsp coconut sugar
3 blackberries
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl, add almond flour, millet, flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and chia seeds. Set aside. In the bowl of a stand up mixer, add 1 cup coconut sugar and eggs. Whisk together on medium to high for about 5 minutes. While running, add vanilla, lemon zest, juice from one lemon and olive oil. Continue to whisk for 2-3 minutes. Add dry mix to wet. Stir to combine. Pour 2/3 of batter into a cake oiled cake pan. Add a layer of blackberries on top. Pour the rest of the batter on top of blackberries and top with pistachios. Bake in the oven for 45-55 minutes.
When cake is done, set aside. In a small saucepan, heat ¼ cup coconut sugar and ¼ cup lemon juice. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat and pour on top of cake. Meanwhile, make the coconut whipped cream. Open a can of coconut milk and scoop out the coconut cream (should be separate from the water). Place in the bowl of a stand up mixer. Add cardamom, vanilla, coconut sugar and blackberries. Whisk together on high for 2–3 minutes. Serve cake with cream on top.
Elizabeth Stein is the founder of Purely Elizabeth, a healthy line of cereal, cake mixes, and granola that is distributed in grocery stores across the United States. This recipe is from Elizabeth’s new cookbook, Eating Purely: More Than 100 All-Natural Organic, Gluten-Free Recipes for a Healthy Life. Elizabeth is a 2007 graduate of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition.
Hi Elizabeth, I’ve been hooked onto various gluten free, paleo recipes on the internet. And find that the ingredients you use here are all already known to me. At IIN, did you learn, the difference between store bought: almond meal vs. home ground almond meal made from soaked almonds that are dehydrated and then ground up ? Since without soaking, the enzyme inhibitors in almonds, render the same difficult to digest if not indigestible to us. The same ‘healthy’ ingredient becomes ‘not so useful’ or maybe even harmful. Do you really get any culinary or scientific background on these new ingredients, and how to use them in IIN ?
Hi Taruna, please contact Elizabeth via her website, below. Thanks!