PUMPKIN CAKE WITH A CRUNCHY CAROB BASE

This cake leaves no one indifferent, it is delicious and the mixture of pumpkin, chocolate and/or carob flavours is surprising. It is vegan, gluten-free and free of refined sugars. And it doesn’t need an oven.  All the ingredients in this cake are organic and/or fair trade.

Preparation time: 45 min | Difficulty: Medium | Servings: 12

INGREDIENTS:

BASE

• 110 g gluten-free fine oat flakes
• 110 g skinless almonds, soaked at least 5 hours (or overnight)
• 100 g rice syrup
• 100 g whole cane sugar (if you don’t add sugar, you will have to add 100 g more rice syrup)
• 2 tbsp. cocoa powder or carob powder
• 3 tbsp. extra virgin coconut oil
• 15 g coconut flour (optional)
• 50 g carob paste (or cocoa or chocolate 70%)
• 1 pinch of unrefined sea salt

FILLING

• 1 kg pumpkin
• 1 400 ml can of coconut milk, refrigerated overnight
• 1 cup apple juice (you can also make it from concentrate)
• 5 g agar-agar powder
• 8 g corn starch or arrowroot
• 1 pinch of salt
• 2 tbsp cinnamon powder
• 1 tbsp. ginger powder
• 1 tbsp. curry powder
• 1 tbsp. clove powder

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Toast oat flakes in skillet, medium heat 2 min. stirring continuously. Set aside.
2. Strain almonds and toast lightly in skillet until they give off a pleasant smell.
3. Melt the carob paste (or chocolate) in a bain-marie over medium heat. Set aside
4. Pulverise the almonds
5. Crush the flakes first and put them in a bowl. Mix with the rest of the ingredients until you have a sticky paste.
6. Line a 20 cm round baking tin with baking paper and coat with coconut oil, cover the base (and the sides, optionally, with the dough). set aside in the freezer to cool.
7. Peel the pumpkin and cut into pieces, steam for 15 minutes or until soft.
8. Boil apple juice with agar-agar and corn starch for 8 minutes or until well dissolved (you will see that the mixture thickens slightly).
9. Strain the coconut milk to use only the solid fat. Discard the excess water.
10. Add all the other filling ingredients to the apple juice and mash well to a fine texture.
11. Remove mould from freezer and fill with pumpkin cream, chill overnight in the fridge, garnish with cinnamon.

Enjoy!

Note:

If you want to make a crunchier base, you can bake it for 10 minutes, at 170ºC, once it has been spread into the mould, before adding the filling. In this case we will not toast the oat flakes or the almonds, which we will grind coarsely instead of finely.