This is one of my favourite things to make.  It is rich, moist, dense and oh so satisfying.  I think I have a separate stomach just for this cake as I can eat an embarrassingly large amount in one sitting!

250g raw almonds
200g dairy free dark chocolate
270g rapadura sugar
2 tspn baking powder
125g coconut oil
6 eggs
1 T Cointreau (optional)
200g fresh figs or 1 jar Forager Handmade Preserves Fig Jam

-preheat oven to 170C and grease or line a round springform cake tin
-if using fresh figs, cut into quarters (or eights if they are large) and marinate in Cointreay for a few hours
-mill almonds in thermomix for 1 min, speed 9, scraping down sides as needed
-add chocolate and mill at speed 9 for about 10 secs, scrape sides to combine with almond meal if required
-add sugar and baking powder, blend at speed 6 for 10 secs
-add coconut oil and eggs, blend at speed 6 for 30 secs
-carefully blend through fig with spatula
-pour and scrape into prepared cake tin
-bake for approx 60 mins until browned and cooked all the way through.

Notes:
*If you don't have a thermomix, substitute almond meal for the raw almonds and grate the chocolate before adding.  You will need to beat the mixture for longer in a mix master.
*We love Green & Black's dark chocolate and Oxfam's fairtrade dark choc

I know it's almost upon us, but as usual I am sliding in sideways with a few seconds to spare...with a beautiful, nourishing Mother's day (or any day) treat for the body and the soul...

Beautiful Bircher with Luscious Lemon Curd

1/2C unstabilised oats
1/2C apple juice, water, full cream milk or milk substitute (rice, oat, almond etc.)
1/2C of 24 Hour Cultured yoghurt or full cream natural yoghurt - recipe here
Forager Lemon Curd
Fresh seasonal or frozen berries (organic if you can as the fungicides sprayed on conventional berries are nasty)
1/2 an apple, greated, skin on

optional extras: 
1 Tbspn raw nuts, smashed a bit with a mortar & pestle (I like almonds, but you can use walnuts, hazelnuts or brazil nuts or a combination) - add 1Tbspn liquid
1 Tbspn sunflower seeds, smashed as above (I love these for their beautiful oils, minerals and nutty flavour) - add 1 Tbspn liquid
1 tspn chia seeds (for Omega-3 fatty acids) - if using chia, add another 2Tbspn liquid

-The night before, mix together oats, liquid (juice, milk or water) and any nuts & seeds you wish to add
-soak overnight in the fridge
-next day, remove from fridge and allow to come to room temp
-if using frozen berries, allow to defrost in a small bowl
-give the wet mix a stir and add more liquid if needed.  It should be the consistency of creamy porridge
-grate the apple and add to the oat mix immediately (to stop it oxidising and turning brown)
-spoon into a beautiful bowl (mandatory!)
-top with yoghurt
-then add a good big spoonful of Forager Lemon Curd
-top with berries
-indulge!

Notes:
*Running short in time?  Soak 1/2C preprepared muesli in 1/2C liquid overnight and skip the apple
*Forgot to soak the night before? That's OK, this recipe is still really good with pre-prepared muesli, yoghurt, curd and berries
*Don't like soggy wet grains for breaky? That's OK too - a crunchy toasted muesli will stay crunchy and taste delish with yoghurt, curd and berries on top.

*We LOVE Masons Country Fresh Organic Rolled Oats from Kojonup because they are from a lovely Kojonup family, and I believe they are from a single grain farm.  Read more about oats here on my blog about gluten in oats.
*We LOVE Bannister Downs full cream, unhomogenised milk for the dairy tolerant members of our family, and for yoghurt making.  Remember peeling off the metal seal on the glass milk bottles & dipping your finger in to pinch the cream?  Well, with unhomogenised full cream milk you can relive the glory days and share them with the kids.  Also the yoghurt forms with a beautiful layer of cream on the top. Mmmmmm....Sunnydale Dairy make a beautiful full cream milk in glass too which is high in A2 casein, but it's homogenised, so I prefer Bannister downs if I can get it.

I LOVE oats.  There is just something so nurturing about them.  They're like a big, long, warm hug.

I'm just going to quickly bash out what I've learnt about gluten and oats because although the Australian Food Standards body doesn't recognise oats as being 'gluten free', their European and US counterparts do.  I eat oats for this reason (and of course because I LOVE them and am obsessed with them).

Oats do contain gluten, and the Medical Advisory Committee for Coeliac Australia recommend that people with coeliac disease don't eat oats.  Research seems inconclusive.  Anecdotally, some Ceoliac sufferers claim no problems while others the exact opposite.

The type of gluten in oats is different to the gluten in wheat and the gluten in rye and the gluten in barley.  Each grain has its own form of gluten. Much of the difficulty comes not from the oats themselves, but from the mass production of grains, which results in contamination.  'Gluten free oats' sold in Europe and the US are grown on single crop farms and processed in single grain facilities.  They are not contaminated with glutens from wheat, barley or rye.  These 'gluten free' and 'wheat free' oats are starting to be imported to Australia.

Luckily for us there is a WA grower (Kojonup) whose crop is on a single grain farm - Masons country fresh rolled oats.  The Mason's oats are certified biodynamic and are processed in a single grain facility.  For this reason there are quite a lot of natural health practitioners recommending them for people avoiding gluten.  If you have Coeliac Disease of course discuss with your doctor before you try 'gluten free' oats.

If interested, here are some links to research papers on oats and oat gluten (called Avenin)
Paper suggesting oats don't trigger immune response in coeliac tissue culture
-sorry, off to bed - will post more as I find them :)

I get lots of requests for this easy recipe that is suitable for many people who have difficulties with dairy.

I discovered I was intolerant to dairy when my eldest was a baby and diagnosed lactose intolerant.  I stopped eating dairy so that I wasn't passing any cow's milk proteins to her through my breastmilk and was astonished to discover it had a huge impact on my digestion.  In a good way - it improved dramatically.  Almost 11 years later I can't tolerate any unheated dairy, and have to be very careful about the quantity of cooked dairy I eat.  I tiny bit of ghee in a cake can be OK but that's about it.  

A few years ago, I started buying commercial lactose free yoghurt for my daughter.  Interestingly I couldn't tolerate it, but she could.  I wasn't overly happy giving her what I considered to be a pretty processed food, so I started researching in the hope I'd find info on how to make my own.  What I read was pretty simple.  Essentially, the process of culturing yoghurt involves lactose (the sugar in milk) breaking down to glucose and galactose.  The longer the culturing time, the more lactose is broken down.  Pretty simple really.  

Some sites suggested 19 hours, some suggested 24.  I was worried the yoghurt would go off in that time - I had made yoghurt a lot before, but only allowed it to culture overnight, for a max. of 12 hours.  To my surprise it didn't go off.  I tried a little bit and had no reaction.  I tried a lot, still no reaction!  Happy days!  I could eat yoghurt.  

Interestingly, I ran out of yoghurt this week, and had to buy some run of the mill greek yoghurt for a quick curry.  I thought my youngest daughter (not sensitive to dairy at all) would LOVE the opportunity to eat something processed and not home made - it looked so thick and creamy.  But she actually ended up spitting it out and proclaimed "yours is MUCH better!".  Music to my ears!

Anyway, enough blabbering and to the recipe:

24 Hour Cultured Yoghurt

1.5-2l full cream milk

starter culture or 2 Tbspn commercial natural yoghurt or 2 Tbspn home made yoghurt

-Bring milk to just under the boil to pasteurise, allow to cool to 37C - this is important as if it is too hot the bacteria in the starter will die.  You should be able to put a drop on your wrist and it will neither feel cold nor hot.

-add culture and stir to mix it thoroughly through

-immediately transfer to a very clean food thermos or glass jar

-must be kept warm (21-25C) for 24 hrs.  You can do this by wrapping in towels and popping in an esky with a hot water bottle, or you can use a dehydrator if you have one, or if your oven is really accurate and goes really low, you can use the oven.  I use a food thermos, with a couple of towels over the top and put it in our sunroom in summer (gets really warm) and next to the fire in winter.  In between seasons are trickier!  

-that's it!  Refrigerate after 24 hrs and enjoy.  

Notes:

*I get my starter culture from cheeselinks - I use this culture (type C aBY).  I keep it in a sealed plastic container in the freezer and it lasts absolutely yonks!  I think I calculated Cheeselinks recommended quantity to be about 1/8 tspn per 2l batch, but I use even less - just a little pinch   

*you just can't keep using your homemade yoghurt as a starter for too long - I do a max of 3 consecutive batches before I use a new starter, but mostly I just use starter - it honestly goes a long way. I think I bought my last pack 2 years ago and I still have heaps left.  I make about 2l of yoghurt a week.

*I skip the pasteurisation stage with no ill affects, but I normally buy milk the day I am going to make yoghurt

*If the yoghurt is too thin for your liking, you can strain it by popping a bit of muslin in a sieve and letting it drain into a bowl (do this in the fridge).  1 hour should be plenty.  Keep the liquid below - it's whey and is really nutritious - you can use it to soak grains (it helps break down the phytates which are difficult to digest, and it even breaks down gluten making it easier to digest); you can add it to smoothies (the kids will never know! and it's so good for digestion); you can drink it; you can add it to soup; it keeps for ages in the fridge.

*make your own labneh by straining yoghurt overnight.  You'll end up with beautiful thick spreadable yoghurt cheese in the top and all that nutritious whey underneath.  You can use labneh in place of cottage and ricotta cheese.

*Remember, if you are wanting thick creamy yoghurt like commercial products, they are thickened by adding powdered milk.  Even organic yoghurts have this added to thicken, and many conventional yoghurts also have gums and other thickeners added.  If the amounts are under 5% of the weight, it doesn't need to be listed on the ingredients in Australia either.