Baking with Teff

A couple of years ago I noticed that I would have painful joint inflammation days after eating gluten, it was the kind of pain that nothing helped, applying warming herbal infused oils to my joints would help some but there was still a shadow aching pain, I tried CBD joint rubs, to using band-aids like Kratom for the pain to anti-inflammatory herbs like Willow, Turmeric and many others though it somewhat helped, I still had pain that would lead me to taking Ibuprofen. Both my mother and my father have rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease that inflammation is easily triggered when eating inflammatory foods, wheat being one of them. I have never been diagnosed nor am I self diagnosing but being that my parents have RH, I decided to change my diet, incorporate supplements and explore ways of re-creating all of the foods I love sans gluten.

I really do not like recipe blogs with LONG stories attached to the recipe so I will keep extra stuff out and here we go with my recent explorations with TEFF. For more healthy baking check out my blog category "KITCHEN WITCH" for more recipes.

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Gluten Free Coconut & Cacao cake

DRY INGREDIENTS

1 cup teff flour

1/2 cup coconut flour

1 cup Monkfruit sweetener or (your sugar or sweetener of choice)

1/2 cup coconut brown sugar

1 tbs hazelnut meal

2.5 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup cacao nibs

1/2 cup shredded unsweetened coconut flakes.

1 tsp ginger

1 tsp ground cloves

1 tsp allspice

1 tsp salt

WET INGREDIENTS

4 Flax eggs ( 6 tbs ground flax seed + 12 tbs water) or 4 real eggs

2/3 cup melted Coconut and Red Palm Vegetable Shortening

1.5 cup Cinnamon tea or use plain water

2 tsp of vanilla extract or you can use brandy in place of vanilla

Preheat oven at 350*

Mix all ingredients, pour into a,buttered or greased pan. Bake for 30 - 35 minutes

Nutiva vegetable shortening is certified Palm Done Right. They sustainably source their palm oil from long time small family palm farms in Ecuador where they do don't clearcut the forest to palm trees.

SUBSTITUTE INGREDIENTS

If you don't have all of the spices but you have chai tea bags you can open the tea bag, grind the herbs in a coffee grinder and add that instead just make sure you will have a total of 3 tsps. Another option is pumpkin spice, you can add that in place of the spices listed as well.

If you do not have Teff flour but you have almond, coconut or any other gluten free flour you can certainly sub the Teff for another. Teff can be drying but I found using the Flax eggs in place of real eggs adds more of a moistness to the cake being that flax is a demulcent.

If you do not have Hazelnut meal you can use Chia meal, Almond Meal or Flax meal.

BTW, my joint pain really is gone, only if I consume gluten will I get the aching pains. FOOD IS MEDICINE!