Hypoallergenic sweet treats!
This week has been very up and down. It was all going according to plan on the hypoallergenic diet – less bloating, pain and all those other nasties – and then a few mishaps in the weekend led me back to square, well, 1.5. But the good news is that when I stick to the plan completely it really seems to be working, so hopefully I’m a few steps closer to finding out what I’m intolerant to!
Over the next week I’ll post some recipes that have been getting me through the days. Firstly, here’s one from the hypoallergenic diet website that’s great for morning tea, dessert or when you’re craving something sweet!
I halved the recipe and cooked it in a loaf tin, used mango and pear instead of just pear and didn’t have flaxseed on hand so skipped the first step. Instead of so much honey, I used around 6-7 x fresh dates, roughly chopped and 1 x TBSP of unpasteurized honey.
Buckwheat Pear Cake (10 servings)
- 3 x TBSP ground flaxseed
- 1 x cup boiling water
- 2 x cups buckwheat flour
- ¾ x tsp baking soda
- 1 x cup rice milk
- ½ x cup walnuts
- ½ x cup olive oil
- ¾ x cup honey (see note above)
- 3 x large pears, peeled and cut into chunks (or other suitable fruit such as blueberries, plums, mango)
- ½ x tsp sea salt
- ¼ x tsp ground nutmeg
- 1 x tsp ground cinnamon
- ¼ x tsp ground cloves (optional – I used ground ginger instead)
- 2 x TBSP rose water (optional)
In large bowl, stir together flaxseed and boiling water and let it sit for 5 minutes (if not using flaxseed, just start with a bowl with 1 x cup boiling water).
Add flour, rice milk, baking soda and olive oil to the bowl and whip for 5-6 minutes. Stir in the other ingredients.
Pour into greased pan or a cake pan and bake at 175C for 35-40 minutes.
*Update*
Other delicious alternatives I’ve made include:
- Grated carrot, pear, cinnamon, ground ginger, walnut and date. Adds an extra vege in for the day.
- Raspberry, pear and coconut milk instead of rice milk, with some flaked almonds sprinkled over top before cooking rather than walnuts in the batter. Sour, sweet and succulent.
- Pear and plum, also deliciously sour.
- Mango and blueberry with almonds sprinkled over the top.
People – namely my workmates who see the strange concoctions I bring along for lunch – have been asking me what I miss the most. Tough question. As tough as the one I proposed to my boyfriend: would you rather give up coffee or alcohol for the rest of your life? (No, you can’t have English Breakfast tea or caffeine either.) He took a good ten minutes to answer, switching back and forth between the two. While it’s unlikely I’ll have to give them both up for life, I’m not having either at the moment, and I do miss them. Not that I drank a lot of either, but it was nice to meet up for a social glass of wine (rather than a sparkling water with a lemon wedge to at least make it a tad fancier), and I’ve been (creepily?) getting my coffee fixes from taking a whiff from the grinder in the mornings. It’s not the same, I assure you.
Food-wise, I’m not actually missing things per se (well, maybe eggs for brunch in the weekends…) because I know how good I feel if I eat right, but I’m missing the ease of it all. I have to be so prepared and my life is currently revolving around food. It’s hard not to isolate yourself when people invite you for group lunch dates, but my trick is to eat first, pack a snack for later, then order a cup of fresh mint or green tea.
With this diet, there’s not many grab on the go options (that’s the point, to stay away from processed foods), and if I get stuck out in the city late in the evening, I can’t pick up some sushi or a wrap on the way home. But it’s only temporary! I can’t wait until the exciting ‘elimination phase’ where I can test out all those things I’ve been omitting. Suspects are currently: vinegar, citrus fruits (other than a squeeze of lemon or lime with meals) and tomatoes. But we’ll see…
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