Happy Cinco de Mayo!
To celebrate this excuse to drink margaritas holiday, I’m sharing my most recent development: almond pudding cake with dulce de leche sauce! It’s warm, gooey, sweet, and surprisingly healthful!
These little cakes are vegan, gluten-free, oil-free, and sweetened with maple syrup and coconut sugar. You could even eat these as breakfast muffins if you wanted!
I call these almond pudding cakes because they are very dense and moist thanks to the applesauce used in the place of oil. If you’ve ever had sticky toffee pudding, these cakes are like the healthier version. They also contain flax “eggs” and almond flour, so they’re great sources of protein, fiber, and healthful fats!
I don’t know about where you are, but we’ve had a LOT of rain here in Winston lately. As a result, I have several new recipes in my queue, there have been many failed attempts at potty training my toddler, the TV has been on more than I’d like to admit, and my kitchen looks like it hasn’t been cleaned in weeks.
BUT yesterday afternoon the sun came out, so I put Abby in the stroller and we walked to the park. The slides were wet, but nobody complained!
The rain has returned today, so here I am, typing this blog post while Abby runs around the house with her plastic golf clubs.
Anyway, on to the recipes!
If you’ve never had dulce de leche sauce, it’s nothing more than caramelized sweetened condensed milk, and it’s delicious. In my opinion, the vegan version is equally fantastic because it’s made of coconut milk and coconut sugar. But why don’t you be the judge and try it for yourself?
You may find that you want to put it on everything, eat it directly from the jar with a spoon, or put it in your coffee!
- ¼ cup coconut sugar
- 2 T. water
- 1 t. vanilla extract
- ½ cup full-fat coconut milk (canned)
- Pinch sea salt
- Dissolve coconut sugar in the 2 T. water in a small saucepan over medium-high heat.
- Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to medium and add the vanilla, coconut milk, and salt. While stirring, cook about 10 more minutes until desired thickness is reached.
- Turn off heat and allow to cool slightly before serving. Sauce will thicken as it cools. Keep in a jar in the fridge up to 3 weeks.
YUMMMMMMM . . .
Wait, let’s back up.
You can make the dulce de leche sauce before you make the almond pudding cakes, but that can be risky. You may find yourself “tasting” the sauce a dozen times, then barely having enough for your cakes. I recommend making the sauce while the cakes are in the oven. This guarantees that you will have enough for the cakes, and the sauce will be nice and hot for serving.
Turning a muffin upside-down = mini cake!
A pinch of sliced almonds and coconut sugar in the bottom of each muffin well yields a crispy, caramelized top to each cake.
- ¼ c. coconut sugar
- ¼ c. sliced almonds
- —————————
- 1 T. + 1 t. milled flax
- ¾ c. almond flour
- ½ c. tapioca starch
- ¼ c. coconut flour
- 1¼ t. baking powder
- ¼ t. baking soda
- ¼ t. salt
- ½ t. cinnamon
- Pinch cardamom
- ————————-
- ⅓ c. maple syrup
- 1 c. nondairy milk
- 2½ T. applesauce
- 1 t. vanilla extract
- ½ t. almond extract
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease a 12-welled muffin tin. In the bottom of each well, sprinkle some sliced almonds and a generous pinch of coconut sugar.
- Combine the flax with ¼ cup warm water and set aside.
- In a large bowl, stir together the remaining dry ingredients until no clumps remain.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients, including the flax mixture.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir until moist, but do not beat.
- Immediately divide the batter among the muffin wells and bake for 25 mins, until the edges of the cakes are brown and the tops of the cakes look dry.
- While the cakes are baking, make the dulce de leche sauce (see recipe above).
- Remove cakes from oven and allow to cool about 10 mins. Run a knife around the edges of the cakes before removing from muffin tin.
- To serve, place each cake almond-side-up on a plate and drizzle with a generous amount of dulce de leche sauce. Serve warm. Garnish with berries or a small scoop of vanilla or cinnamon nondairy ice cream.
You’re going to love these elegant almond pudding cakes! They certainly didn’t last long in this household!
Have a healthy and safe Cinco de Mayo, everyone!
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