Cakes, Breads and Muffins, Gluten-Free Recipes, Grain-Free Recipes, Real Food, Refined-Sugar-Free Recipes

Halva Cake

When I was 16 – stepping back in time to 2013 – I was forevermore whipping up homemade halva balls. Halva is a middle eastern dessert made from tahini (ground sesame seeds) and honey. There’s usually a few other bits and bobs in there too, such as chopped nuts.

I’m all about keeping things humble, so I’d simply keep a bowl of un-hulled tahini mixed with raw honey in the fridge. When I felt like a snack or instant dessert, I’d roll a few spoons of said mix into balls, roll said balls in chia seeds and stud them with a goji berries.

It got to the point where I wouldn’t even bother with rolling the mix into balls. I’d simply dump a punnet of blueberries in a bowl, add a few (ridiculously generous) spoons of the halva mix on top, finish with a sprinkle of cinnamon and retreat to the couch for a good time of nutty pleasure (no puns intended I promise!).

Where am I going with this? Halva cake.

“Mum, would you like cake made for the week”. What a silly question. Mum always wants cake made.

Sometimes she’ll be like “You HAVE to make carrot cake muffins!!!” because these are a fave of hers! Other times she’ll be in a whatever-floats-your-boat mode and grant me permission to get creative.

We have a massive bag of sesame seeds in our pantry at the moment so I thought … ‘hmmm, I wonder if I could use sesame seeds  as a flour like I do other nuts and seeds?

I then considered that sesame seeds can be a tad bitter. I sensed I’d need something pretty darn sweet to balance it out.

Then I remembered how gloriously sesame and honey go together!

I whipped up a the snazzy batter below and poured it into a loaf tin. It looked ‘good enough’, but I wanted ‘next level’. I sliced up two ripe bananas and arranged them on top of the batter. To finish, I made a salted cinnamon and vanilla sugar to sprinkle on top – in the hope of achieving caramelised banana vibes. The result was well-received by the fam bam, and as sharing is caring … here we are.

Halva Cake

  • 1 cup sesame seeds
  • 1 cup blanched almond meal (or regular almond meal or whole almonds or whatever nut or seed you love)
  • 4 eggs (these eggs were on the smaller side)
  • 90g organic unsalted butter melted on the stovetop with 1/2 cup raw honey (could sub for maple syrup or rice malt – although then we’re really pushing it with the whole ‘Halva’ title)
  • 1 teaspoon gluten- and aluminium-free bicarb soda
  • A pinch of vanilla bean powder (or splash or organic vanilla extract)
  • A pinch of ground cinnamon
  • 2 ripe bananas, sliced into coins, for topping
  • 2 teaspoons of rapadura (or coconut) sugar, mixed with 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon, and a pinch each of vanilla bean powder and Himalayan (or sea) salt

Method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees fan-forced and line a smallish loaf tin with toxin-free (such as ‘If You Care’) baking paper.

Place eggs, then seeds and nut meal (or nuts), bicarb, vanilla, cinnamon and butter/honey mixture into a high speed blender or food processor. Blend on high until a smooth, sticky, creamy consistency is achieved.

Pour batter into prepared tin and top with even rows of banana slices. Sprinkle over cinnamon sugar evenly over the top.

Bake for 60 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Careful not to skewer a banana coin – you might get a false reading otherwise.

Allow the cake to cool before tipping out into a long serving tray and slicing into thick even slices – I managed 9 with this particular loaf.

Enjoy warm as is, or with a thick smear of your favourite nut or seed butter (tahini if you fancy the hashtag #allthesesame) and an extra pinch of ground cinnamon.