Happy Easter weekend! Egg free Easter buns & revisiting my orange almond cake

Four day weekend! Time to rest, recharge, enjoy the last of the warm autumn weather. Bahahaha! Nope, not happening.

Why the hell can’t I take a weekend off? Well, it’s financial year end and nearly my birthday, with lots to do before my party.

On, Thursday, I had appointments in town, then shopped for weekend food. On Friday, two of our nephews came over. One helped in the garden, and one did some data entry and filing, and the year end stocktake. On Saturday, a day late, I finally did my eggless Easter bun experiment. More below…

Today, I headed off to a friend’s 60th birthday BBQ, so revisited my orange almond birthday cake recipe to take along.

I hadn’t been to their house before – what an amazing view!

Although I didn’t know anyone else there, it was a nice group of people and I had a great afternoon.

So the eggless Easter buns…

Remember @sift666 is currently not eating eggs, dairy, sugar or fruit. What kind of Easter buns will these be!

If you don’t need to be everything-free and still feel like doing a bit of baking for the rest of the weekend, you might prefer my coconut flour and ground almond Paleo Easter buns or the even yummier Cashew based Easter bun recipe from last Easter. But if you’re limited in what you can have, this might give you some ideas.

This is a version of the chocolate muffins I made for his birthday. A few drops more orange stevia, spices instead of cocoa powder, some extra orange essence and some dehydrated lemon rind.

Ingredients

• 3 Tablespoons (about 16gms) of ground flaxseed (measured after grinding)
• Plus 9 Tablespoons (135ml) of water (or you can use three pastured eggs)
• 250gm (2 cups) raw unsalted cashews
• 1 cup (220gm) pre cooked pumpkin
• 20 drops of Sweet Leaf Valencia Orange flavoured stevia
• ½ teaspoon orange essence
• 1 teaspoon mixed spices
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon vanilla powder (or pure vanilla extract would also work)
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 teaspoon fresh or dehydrated lemon or orange rind (I used Frontier brand dehydrated lemon)
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 1 Tbs apple cider vinegar (optional) plus an extra 5 drops stevia

The method

First, prepare the flaxseed eggs by whisking the flaxseed and water together well.

Oops, back up a bit, there isn’t enough ground flaxseed in the freezer. I like to grind up a jarful at a time, then keep it fresh in the freezer. So out comes the little coffee grinder attachment for the food processor.

Then put them in the fridge for 10-15 minutes. Well, that’s what the instructions say. But they didn’t work quite as well as last time. They separated out in the fridge and never quite got gel like. So I think my “mistake” last time of leaving them on the bench for a while first is actually better. So in future I’ll leave them out for 15 minutes, then in the fridge for 15 minutes.

Turn on the oven to 150ºC (300ºF).

Put the cashews into the food processor and blitz till the pieces are small (about like a pin head).

Add the pumpkin and beat till thick and creamy. (This time I used baked pumpkin, which I’d prepared the night before. Much easier to take off the skin AFTER cooking.)

Then I sifted together the spices, vanilla powder, baking soda and salt, and added the rind, then put them to one side. If I’d been using powdered stevia, that would have gone in the mix too.

I also got out my silicon muffin cups and popped them into a muffin tray.

I sat about and twiddled my thumbs a bit, intermittently stirring the flaxseed mix, and eventually decided they were as good as they were going to get.

Add the flaxseed eggs, orange essence and liquid stevia (and if you’re using liquid vanilla, that too), beating till they are well mixed in. Scrape down the sides a couple of times if needed.

Add the mixed dry flavourings and beat again.

I often use a little apple cider vinegar to help activate the baking soda, though if the mix is very wet, I might leave it out. Today, the mixture was quite stiff, so I added 1 Tablespoon of ACV plus a little extra stevia to offset the sour.

Take out the food processor blade, and spoon mixture into the muffin trays. Today’s mix made 10.

Bake for about 30 minutes at 150ºC (300ºF), or until a skewer comes out clean. This mix took 40 minutes, probably because the flax eggs weren’t as good.

Pimping them up a bit

I didn’t bother with any pimping this time… If you’re able to have some dried fruit, adding that would make them interesting enough, I think.

The verdict

Like the chocolate birthday muffins they were very moist, and while warm were almost a porridge texture, but firm enough to pick up. All in all, they weren’t Easter buns, but they were still a nice snack.

Tomorrow (Monday)

Maybe I can get some rest, yay…

Thanks for reading

Images from Pixabay or by myself or @sift666, unless otherwise stated.

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