Stories, News & Updates...

Raw Cake Stall at Cambridge Climate Change Multicultural Festival

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 12:51:56 +0000

We are having a Have Raw Cake And Eat It stall in Cambridge on 21st March from 2-6pm at the Many Voices, One World Festival organised by Cambridge Carbon Footprint and The Akashi Project. We will be selling our regular Raw Chocolate Brownies as well as 2 new flavours we are trying out - chocolate mint and the totally cacao free carob orange. Come and chat to us and find out more about raw food and see some of our other products too. See details below.

Are you going Kale Krackers this winter ?

Sat, 9 Jan 2010 10:36:49 +0000

You might have made a New Years resolution to eat more raw greens in 2010 if you happen to be reading this. We all love our green smoothies, soups and salads of course, but but in the winter we tend to get lots of kale in our vegetable boxes. What a better way to eat bunches of this wonderful leaf vegetable than in these Kale Krackers. My children adore these - they are light and crispy and great to take out with you, or just for a snack on their own or with a dip. I have been making them for a long time and have finally got round to adding the Kale Krackers recipe to the recipes section of the Have Raw Cake And Eat It website.
I can pack the huge bag of kale I get in my Riverford vegetable box into a batch of krackers. Kale is considered to be a highly nutritious vegetable with powerful antioxidant properties; it is also considered to be anti-inflammatory. Kale is very high in beta carotene, vitamin K, vitamin C, lutein, zeaxanthin, and reasonably rich in calcium. Because of its high vitamin K content, patients taking anti-coagulants such as warfarin are encouraged to avoid this food since it increases the vitamin K concentration in the blood, which is what the drugs are often attempting to lower. Kale, as with broccoli and other brassicas, contains sulforaphane (particularly when chopped or minced), a chemical believed to have potent anti-cancer properties.

Raw Christmas Cake Recipe

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 10:25:20 +0000

I have finally got round to posting a Christmas recipe on my blog - life is busy home educating my 2 wonderful young boys. I got round to making our family’s raw Christmas cake yesterday and wanted to share the recipe with you all. I don’t know if life is like this when you make a raw cake, but it certainly is for us........I think to myself - that looks huge - it should last for ages.
Then we all have a slice (or two) and suddenly it has shrunk to 3/4 its size! My kids adored it and this one is extra special with raw marzipan and icing - all free from added sugar or agave as all of my recipes are of course. It does contain dried fruit - but it can’t really be a Christmas cake without it. One of the best things about making Raw Cakes is that you can’t overcook them - an extra hour in the dehydrator really does not make much difference - you don’t have to worry about whether or not they will rise - and you don’t need to spend all that time beating eggs and trying not to make the mixture curdle. Of course the other best thing is eating them! My partner said the dried apricots in the marzipan make it taste like marzipan with apricot jam, like on a traditional Christmas Cake.
The peeling of the almonds for the marzipan is of course very time consuming but you will get better tasting marzipan this way, but and life is definitely too short to do this more than once a year in my opinion. In our house it inspired interesting discussion about capitalism. socialism, technology and profit as my peeling of almonds was interrupted by BT calling me (again) to try and change my broadband provider. I said I thought this person’s labour would be better employed manufacturing something as no profit seems to be made to invest in our failing economy by simply transferring one service to another and these competing privatised services seem ridiculous to me. My partner likes to tease me about owning a small business and being part of the petit bourgeoisie but was even more amused by my peeling of almonds! He suggested that capitalism would not allow such a manner of food production to thrive and would be replaced by technological machinery capable of the job. However, the fact remains that unless you peel them soon before eating they will be rancid. On the basis that we managed to eat a quarter of the cake between 4 of us the day we made it it will probably only last 4 days in our house so that is much less time exposed to the elements than the commercial marzipan.
This should be kept in the fridge as it is quite moist and I keep mine covered too. If you need any ingredients I will be sending out the last Post Office orders from the Have Raw Cake And Eat It online shop on Monday 21st to arrive before Christmas and there might be some courier ones going on Monday and Tuesday and too - weather dependent - my courier did not come on Friday because of the snow but the forecast looks a little better for Monday - sleet instead!

Ingredients
Cake:
400g raw almonds, soaked about 8 hours
600g raw dates, washed
70g dried apricots
500g mixed dried fruit
2 teaspoons cinnamon
zest and juice of 1 orange and 1 lemon
100g purple corn flour
20g mesquite meal
80g lucuma
Marzipan:
300g almonds, soaked 8 hours and peeled
200g dried apricots
Icing:
50g cacao butter
20g coconut butter
35g lucuma
Decoration (optional)
dessicated coconut
goji or incan berries

1. Soak dried fruit in orange/apple juice, zest and cinnamon for about 3 hours in the fridge.
2. Process almonds, dates, dried apricots, cinnamon, purple corn flour, mesquite and lucuma in a food processor with the S-blade until it forms a large ‘ball’. You will probably need to do this in 2 batches with half quantities, or maybe even 3 batches with a smaller food processor. I did 2 batches with my Magimix 4200 in the 3l jug and it was fine.
3. Put the processed mixture into a huge bowl with the soaked dried fruit and soaking liquid. Mix it all together until it is well combined.
4. Turn the mixture out onto a dehydrator tray and shape into a cake shape. Dehydrate for 2 hours at 53 degrees and then for about 12 hours at 38 degrees.
5. Soak your almonds for the marzipan in advance.
6. Peel the almonds for the marzipan. This is of course optional and rather time consuming!
7. Remove from the dehydrator and cool while making the marzipan and icing.
8. Put your carefully peeled almonds into the food processor with the S-blade with the dried apricots and process until it forms a large ‘ball’.
9. Cover the top and sides of your cooled Christmas cake with the marzipan.
10. Melt the cacao and coconut butter in a bain marie and mix in the lucuma. Allow it to cool slightly so it sticks to the cake and does not run everywhere when you pour it on. Then cover your marzipan with this icing.
11. Decorate with dessicated coconut and goji berries if you have any left before they were hard to get. Alternatively you could do without or use incan berries.
12. Refrigerate and as soon as the icing is set you can start eating it!

Our New Solution to Raw Food and Travel

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 01:18:22 +0000

I am so excited to share this with all of you. I would like to introduce you to Rawry - our new travelling companion, who is going to enable us to go on holiday with our dehydrator, our blender, our food processor and all of the raw food ingredients we can’t really do without. The dehydrator even fits in the cupboard when we are not using it. Yes, we have got ourselves a little caravan - definitely not one of those white box caravans - this one has a pop top roof, a rounded shape and quite a cult following. It is called an Eriba Troll for anyone who feels like googling it! We have been lucky to find Eriba owners are well supported by a great forum of enthusiasts who have helped us out with all of our questions since we are complete newbies.
We are finally free from so many of the hassles that come with travelling while attempting to eat a mainly raw food diet. Yes, it is possible to buy fresh fruit and vegetables and munch away on those, but with 2 small children we really need to be able to blend sauces, make smoothies, dehydrate snacks and process nuts for everyone to eat properly while we travel.
We have tried one night away so far and it was such great fun - the kids adored it. We are so pleased with some of the other benefits too - it is co-sleeping friendly. In fact, the large seating area at the back converts into a huge bed the same size as our superkingsize at home and there is still another seating area at the other end that makes a single if anyone is feeling like they need a bit more space. It is also home ed friendly - at last we can take our little ones on trips to all of the places we wanted to visit at campsite prices so we will be doing a lot more holidaying that we have been recently - there are so many great educational opportunities from travel.
Here’s a picture of our littlest one - the first one to go to sleep in the ‘family bed’ on the first night we tried it out. We’ll tell you more about our adventures as we go - watch this space..............

Raw Christmas Treats

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 01:03:19 +0000

Just letting you know that some Raw Christmas Treats are in the Have Raw Cake And Eat It online shop for Christmas. First, we have a Christmas version of our very own Raw Chocolate Brownie - you can choose between a Star or a Snowman design. We also have some Raw Christmas Hamper Bags full of raw goodies packed in our very own Have Raw Cake And Eat It cotton bags - these represent great value as well as being fab gifts for someone else or yourself! Finally, we are offering the fantastic Rawr Chocolate in the form of individual Christmas bars or Christmas packs of four - they are handmade locally to us in Cambridge. Last despatch date for Christmas is 21st December but you might want to order soon to make sure you get your Christmas goodies in time.

Register your interest in pre-orders of bulk packs of raw organic almonds, dates and buckwheat

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 10:09:12 +0100

I am considering offering regular (possibly monthly) pre-orders of bulk packs of organic raw almonds, organic raw dates and organic raw buckwheat from the Have Raw Cake And Eat It Online Shop for customers who wish to buy larger quantities at lower prices. This has been inspired by a number of enquiries about finding it difficult to find good quality organic almonds, which have often been stored for a long time by retailers and not refrigerated. Large packs of buckwheat for buckwheaties and large boxes of organic dates can also be hard to find. I am hoping to offer 2.5kg of Raw Organic Spanish almonds for £25, 5kg bags of Raw Organic Chinese Buckwheat for £14 and 5kg boxes of Raw Organic Tunisian Pitted Dates for £20 (current prices). There might also be some seasonal availability of organic nuts in shells subject to a minimum number of customers. I am going to make an order of Raw Organic Dates at the end of the weekend so anyone who wants to order, the deadline is 8pm tomorrow and you can choose to have them delivered next Thursday or Friday. Please note the Have Raw Cake And Eat It online shop will be closed for a holiday from 24th - 31st October so if you want to stock up on other items please order by Friday 24th October at 7am for despatch that day.
I want these items to be as fresh as possible for you and would obtain them from suppliers with a high turnover and a reputation for quality. My aim would be to contact the supplier to ensure that the almonds were fresh and had not been stored for a long time - this might mean using different suppliers from time to time, depending on freshness and availability of stock and therefore prices might vary. I would post a date that I am taking the delivery and any customers who wanted to make their order could do so at anytime - I would despatch them out to you by courier on the day after delivery to me.
There would be no minimum order quantity, you could just order from the Have Raw Cake And Eat It website. I would need to despatch these items by courier so you would need to select one of the three courier services in the checkout - in practice the cost of the delivery for all of mainland UK would be £5.70 but more for Scottish Highlands, Islands and Northern Ireland. The maximum order size including packaging would be 25kg per £5.70 delivery charge. You would need to be in to collect you order, have somewhere safe to leave it or have it delivered at work. I would be unable to offer Royal Mail or Collect Plus for any of these heavy items. If you ordered anything else on the same order from the shop it would be despatched at the same time so if you wanted your other products sooner you would need to make a separate order.
I would be very keen to know if people would be interested in this service and if so which products they were interested in buying. If there are other similar products people would like on a similar basis I would also been interested in finding out and could offer them in addition if there was enough demand. Please use the form below to register your interest - this in no way implies any commitment to buy.

Nori Rolls

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:39:44 +0100

We made some yummy Nori rolls today for our lunch. Very simple but the kids loved them. For the ‘raw rice’ we soaked some almonds overnight and then put them in the food processor with cauliflower until the mixture was well broken up. This was the base which we spread over the Nori. The we chopped up cucumber, pepper and celery into tiny pieces (adding some wheat free tamari - I know, not all raw foodies approve and we generally don’t eat soya). We put this in the centre, rolled and joined the Nori, left it to stick and then sliced the rolls with a sharp knife. This is better eaten soon after making as the Nori tends to go a bit soggy otherwise. We use Clearspring untoasted Nori which is processed at a temperature between 35 and 50 degrees centigrade, which is not totally raw but not the toasted type either. We think it tastes great anyway.

Pictures of Raw and Wild Festival

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 22:36:51 +0100

We had a fantastic time at the Raw and Wild Festival at Plaw Hatch Biodynamic Farm near Forrest Row at the weekend. Julia was an amazing host and had set her beautiful courtyard up with spectacular covered stalls for us all, including one specifically for the raw food demos. We were lucky to have lovely sunny weather so many people enjoyed a full day out there. Some had come from afar to find out about raw food, others were local to Forrest Row and the surrounding area. There were also passers by who popped in to find out more.
We loved meeting all of the great people including some names we knew from the Raw Food UK Yahoo Group. There was a Manna stall there with some of their wonderful food to sample from their cafe in Brighton. Rob from Funky Raw took a group on a Wild Food Walk and there were also demos of making food with raw seasonal vegetables and raw chocolate. I enjoyed making raw fruit cakes with purple icing and chatting with you all about raw cake making - thanks to all of you who turned up and to those of you who tried some - I have now put the recipe for Raw Purple Iced Fruit Cakes up on the Have Raw Cake And Eat It Recipes section.
It was really child friendly and my kids roamed around safely, played in the fantastic woven willow sculptures that one talented stall holder had made and rested from the sun under the gazebo we had been given for our stall. They loved seeing the hens wandering around and enjoyed playing with other kids from like minded families. I was astounded by the incredible shop they have at the farm and know that if I were lucky enough to be living in the area, my regular fruit and vegetable shopping would be sorted. Imagine having a local source or biodynamic fruit and vegetables like that!

A New Concept - The Raw Food Gift Selection Bag

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 23:30:48 +0100

I know the cooked food world has plenty of Food Hampers around to buy but I rarely see them in the Raw Food World. The Have Raw Cake And Eat It Shop has come up with a new concept in raw food gift giving, but as an alternative to the gift hamper - who needs another basket - the items all come in a neat little ‘Have Raw Cake And Eat It’ cotton bag which folds up small enough to fit in your handbag or jacket pocket for shopping trips when you never know when it might come in handy.
You can have a look at at The Raw Food Gift Selection Bag in the Have Raw Cake And Eat It Shop to add to your inspiration for giving presents to Raw Foodies.

Cambridge Raw Food Pot Luck Meet

Fri, 4 Sep 2009 22:39:22 +0100

We had our first raw food pot luck meet in Cambridge recently and I wanted to post some pictures. There were 9 of us altogether - a few people could not make it and hope to come another time - and enough raw food for at least double that! Luckily the rain held off and we were able to enjoy being outside at Milton Country Park.
We had some fantastic huge bowls of salad and lovely berry fruit salad, some great dehydrated sausages, dehydrated breads and some wonderful sweet treats including a pineapple nut combination that went down very well with the children.
There was also some Have Raw Cake And Eat It cake and some delicious RAWR chocolate - courtesy of 2 of the guests who run a local raw chocolate company. It is not pictured as we got it out a the end to stop if from melting in the sun!
We had a fantastic time and it was great to chat about raw food and have a chance to network with local people. The children loved playing outside at the park afterwards and we would love to invite more people along next time. We hope to have another one in the near future so do contact me if you would like me to put you on the mailing list.