Italian Red Wine Cake with Teff

For someone who doesn’t like to drink alcohol, I do like to cook with it from time to time!

I call this dairy-free, gluten-free recipe”Italian Cake” because it comes together with red wine and olive oil, and to me, these ingredients seem Italian enough! Syrup cakes usually rely on the syrup to keep the cake moist but this cake works just as well without it but it is here where the flavour is and by omitting it you will miss out on the herby astringent flavour of the red wine. Don’t be tempted to use a lighter red wine – you will need something that packs a bit of punch like a cabernet sauvignon or merlot. Many years ago I used to make a white wine cake which was a sponge, sandwiched together with a custard made with 100% white wine instead of milk. Believe me, it was delicious!

I have also used teff which I have talked about in a previous post and it works beautifully in this recipe also. You could substitute quinoa or polenta for the teff but make sure you have milled the grain very finely so as not to make the texture too grainy. I did like the version with polenta but you will have to mill it for at least 2 minutes to achieve a nice fine texture.

100g teff seeds

1 teas cardamon seeds (not pods)

Juice and rind of 1 orange

100g honey

250g red wine

2 bay leaves

3 strips of orange rind, extra

120g rapadura sugar

220 raw almonds

70g tapioca

4 eggs

2 teas baking powder

120g red wine

120g olive oil (or macadamia)

Mill the teff seeds with the cardamon seeds on SP 9 for 1 minute. Set aside.

Place the juice & rind of the orange, honey & red wine into the TM bowl and cook at 90ºC for 5 minutes on SP 3. Strain and set aside to cool.

Mill the sugar, almonds and rind on SP 9 for 20 seconds. Add the eggs, baking powder, red wine, oil, tapioca and baking powder and mix on SP 5 for 10 seconds or until well combined. Pour into a lined square cake tin and bake at 170°C for about 40 minutes. Test with a skewer to check if cooked through. Using a larger skewer, prick the cake all over – I did this 100 times – yep, I counted!! before pouring the cooled red wine syrup over. This works best if the cake is hot and the syrup is cold.

Serve warm or at room temperature. It is delicious served with coconut yoghurt or cream.