We are growing lots of herbs in our garden. And guess which herb is already spreading?
Yes, it is MINT. Mint really grows like weed but I don’t mind them cuz I love the smell of mint in our garden. Also Mint gives so much flavor to dressing, marinate, drinks, and dessert!

When I was looking at our weedy mints this morning, I wanted to use them to bake a cake today. I surfed through the recipe sites and landed to Giada de Laurentiis Lemon Mint Cake! It had great rating and looked pretty easy.

But of course, I have to modify the recipe cuz I am working really hard to cut Wheat based flour as much as possible. Also we are trying to cut sugar in our diet. Instead, we use more honey and agave nectar and we love it.

So, I read through the recipe and reviews (Reviews often give me good ideas of ingredients substitution), and modified the recipe to fit our diet!

Here is my version of Lemon Mint Cake GF/DF/SF!

Lemon Mint Cake – Gluten Free, Dairy Free, and Sugar Free

Ingredients

• Vegetable Oil for greasing
• Almond Flour for dusting
• Parchment Paper for line the pan

For Cake:
3 Eggs, separated, at room temperature
1/2 cup Agave nectar
1/4 cup Vegetable oil
1/4 cup chopped Mint
2 tablespoons Lemon juice (One Lemon / One Meyer Lemon)
1 tablespoon Lemon zest (One Lemon / One Meyer Lemon)
1 cup Almond Flour

For Syrup:
1/3 cup Agave nectar
1/4 cup Water
1/4 cup Lemon juice (One Lemon / One Meyer Lemon)
1 tablespoon Lemon zest (One Lemon / One Meyer Lemon)
1 tablespoon Orange Liquor

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 F. Oil and Almond flour 9-inch round cake pan.
I recommend putting the parchment paper on the bottom & side of round cake pan.

For the cake:
1. In a medium size bowl, with an electric mixer, beat the Egg Whites till stiff peaks.

2. In a separate large bowl, beat the Vegetable oil, Agave nectar and Egg Yolks. Add the chopped Mint, Lemon juice and Lemon zest. Add the Almond flour and mix until combined.

3. Slowly add 1/3 of the Egg White mixture into #2 mixture. With a rubber spatula, fold in another 1/3 of the Egg White mixture and repeat one more time.

4. Pour #3 mixture into the prepared cake pan and bake for 35 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Let the cake cool at least 10 minutes before moving to the platter.

For the syrup:

1. In a small saucepan, combine Agave nectar, Water, Lemon juice, and Lemon zest over medium heat about 5 minutes.

2. Remove the pan from the heat and add Orange Liquor. Let the syrup to cool, about 20 minutes.

When you serve the slice of cake, you drizzle this decadent syrup

This is light, fresh, and perfect Summer cake!

Enjoy!!!
Mrs. H

I remember growing up eating sweet or salty rice cracker, sweet or salty rice pancake, and sweet beans! Of course, I ate chocolate, cookies and cakes, but not as much as I eat now.

I think I can be innovative with western sweets recipe! West meets East or East meets West! I have been baking with Rice Flour a lot lately. And the final products came out pretty good so far. I like the texture of Rice Flour baked sweets. It is somehow very soft and fluffy inside and crunch outside! I love it!

My belief of Gluten Free baking is to avoid using Xanthan Gum. Some Gluten Free baking recipes require Xanthan Gum but I totally ignore it. I read recently that Xanthan Gum is usually made with corn and used as thickening agent. If I need thickening agent, I just add extra egg or something. I am a bit skeptical about product starts from “X”

Anyways, today I challenged myself baking SCONE. Gluten Free, Dairy Free, and Sugar Free Scone! I tweaked the amount of Agave Syrup and Milk. Just make sure your dough won’t get too soggy! This is very yummy ya’ll! Here we go!

Rice Flour Lemon Cranberry Scone – GF/DF/SF

Ingredients:

• White Rice Flour 150 g
• Brown Rice Flour 100 g
• Baking Powder 10 g
• Salt 1/4 teaspoon
• Agave Nectar 4 tablespoon
• Milk / Coconut Milk 140 – 150 ml (1/2 cup to 3/4 cup American Measuring Cup)
• Coconut Oil Solid 6 teaspoon
• Lemon Zest 1 Lemon
• Dried Cranberry 1/4 cup
• Coconut Sugar (option to sprinkle on top of scones)

Process:

1. Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.

2. Mix together the White Rice Flour, Brown Rice Flour, Salt, Lemon Zest and Baking Powder.

3. To the Flour mixture bowl, put Agave Nectar and 6 teaspoon of Coconut Oil Solid and cut them in the Flour mixture till the mixture looks like peas.

4. Slowly pour a half of Milk / Coconut Milk to the Flour & Coconut Oil mixture. Use folk to mix all ingredients together. Do not over mix. Keep pouring the rest of Milk / Coconut Milk until the Flour & Coconut Oil mixture has enough moisture to form dough.

5. Put the dough on the work surface with some White Rice Flour, do not knead but pad it down to make about 18 cm scone disk. Cut the scone disk to 8 pieces.

6. Line 8 scones (mini scone) on the baking sheet.

8. Bake at 425F for 25 minutes.

Enjoy~!
Mrs. H

I have a go to Gluten Free Brownie recipe by using a can Black Beans. But I wanted to use nuts flour. And I always have Almond Flour in my pantry, I decided to make Almond Flour Brownie. You can use Sugar for this recipe but I used Agave. This brownie is moist, nutty, and YUMMY! Here is the recipe!

Ingredients:
• 3/4 cup Almond Flour
• 1/4 teaspoon Salt
• 2 tablespoons Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
• 1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
• 1/2 cup Sugar OR 1/4 cup Agave Syrup
• 3 large Eggs
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla
• 1 teaspoon instant Espresso Coffee Powder
• 1/2 cup Butter OR 1/2 cup Coconut Oil
• 3/4 cup Chocolate Chips
• 1/4 cup chopped Walnuts

Process:
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

2. Mix together the Almond Flour, Salt, Cocoa Powder, and Baking Powder and set aside.

3. In a separate bowl, melt together a scant 1/2 cup Chocolate Chips with the Butter.

4. While the Chocolate is melting, beat together the Eggs, Sugar OR Agave Syrup, Vanilla and Espresso Coffee Powder.

5. Slowly pour the melted Chocolate and Butter into the Egg/Sugar or Agave mixture while whisking until fully combined. ***Mixed them slowly so that you won’t made chocolate scramble egg***

6. Pour the Chocolate mixture into the dry ingredients and mix well.

7. Pour the batter in the greased 8 x 8 pan. (I used canola oil)

8. Sprinkle the top with the remaining 1/2 cup Chocolate Chips and 1/4 cup chopped Walnuts, and gently press it into the batter.

9. Bake for 30 minutes and check to see a toothpick poked into the center comes out clean. If itâ€s not done yet, cover the edge of brownie with a piece of foil and bake another 10 to 15 minutes.
Like this:

10. Let these cool completely before you cut them and serve!

Try this recipe! Enjoy!!

Mrs. H

I was looking for a cake recipe with minims damage that I would do to my body. And I found this recipe called Orange Almond Cake, which does not use any leveling agents, no flour, and no oil (except on the cake pan)

So I modified this recipe to my way, and also sized down so that I won’t feel bad if I ate the whole cake by myself… (Well, if I eat the whole cake by myself, I should feel bad…)

Here is the recipe! (Oh yeah, this is metric measurement…, for 9 to 10 inch spring foam pan, just double the ingredients!)

Almond Cake with Lemon Agave Syrup
Ingredients:

Cake:
Almond Flour – 100g
Egg – 3 Large (separated with yolks and whites)
Coconut Sugar – 50g (Any other sugar substitution)
Lemon Zest – 2 Lemons (Used Myer Lemons)
Vanilla Extract – 1 Teaspoon

Syrup:
Agave Nectar – 2 Tablespoon
Lemon Juice – 2 Lemons (Used Myer Lemons)
Orange Liqueur – 1 Tablespoon

Process:
1. 18cm Spring foam pan (7 inches), lined parchment paper on the bottom and side. Oil the bottom and side just in case the case may stick.
2. Put Egg Yolks to the bowl, and mixed with Coconut Sugar. Mix them well.
3. Added Almond Flour, Lemon Zest, and Vanilla Extract to the Egg Yolks and Coconut Sugar mixture and mix very well. (It will become very stiff batter) And set this mixture a side.
4. With Egg Whites, make Meringue with stiff peak.
5. Put ¼ of Meringue to Egg Yolks mixture and mix well. And add slowly another ¼ of Meringue to the mixture and start folding the mixture. Repeat 2 more times in ¼ of Meringue to incorporate to Egg Yolk mixture.
6. Pour the mixed batter to the prepared spring foam pan. Base in 350F for 25 minutes.
7. Make Syrup while the cake is baking.
8. Squeeze Lemon Juice to the small sauce pan, add Agave Nectar and Orange Liqueur. Boil them for 2 minutes and let it cool.
9. After the cake is baked, let it cool about 5 minutes and pour the syrup on top of the cake. Pour about 2 to 3 Tablespoon of Syrup.
10. Eat the cake!

You can serve the cake with Whipped Cream, Chocolate Sauce, or whatever you desire.

The reason why I used Coconut Sugar and Agave Nectar to this recipe, it is because these two sugar substitution won’t spike your insulin level

This cake is so airy, light, moist, lemony, and sweet! Because I make this cake in 18cm pan, the cake itself is pretty small and a 1/8 slice is like 3 bites for me. But it definitely calmed down my craving for the cake!!!

So I call it, SUCCESS!

Enjoy~!
Mrs. H

This recipe uses Metric measurement. Majority of digital scale should have ability to choose between Metric or English, don’t be afraid of using Metric measurement!

Whether Metric or English, I like to bake cakes and breads by weigh. There are a bit more work but once you get used to it, you would enjoy this way and you’ll notice that the final product comes out the same every time! = Success!

Here is the recipe!

Baked Coconut Donuts

Ingredients:

1. Rice Flour – 100g
2. Baking Powder – 1 Teaspoon
3. Egg – 1 Large
4. Agave Nectar – 2 Tablespoon (You can totally substitute with Sugar but I’ll increase the amount to 3 Tsp)
5. Heavy Cream – 70ml (You can totally substitute with MILK!)
6. Coconut Oil (Melted) – 20g
7. Vanilla Extract – 1 Teaspoon

Process

1. Measure Rice Flour and Baking Powder and put them in a bowl. Mix them well.
2. Wisk an Egg in a bowl and add Agave Nectar, Heavy Cream, and Vanilla Extract, and mix them really well.
3. Add melted Coconut Oil to the Egg mixture, and mix really well.
4. Pour the batter to the greased donuts pan and bake in 355F to 360F for 15 to 20 minutes.
5. Eat Donuts!!

This donuts is NOT sweet sweet donuts that you get from donuts shop. So I recommend to dust these donuts with powdered sugar or covered with chocolate sauce if you like sweet donuts.

This is perfect sweetness for me and especially in the morning with my coffee!! And frankly speaking, these donuts are pretty healthy (minus the heavy cream!) and Gluten Free!

Try this recipe and let me know what you think!
Enjoy!

Mrs. H