Always after different things to grow in the garden, a couple of years ago, Leonie from Brushtail Foods gave me a couple of yacon rhizomes. 

A tuber root vegetable that tastes like an apple crossed with a water chestnut crossed with a potato. You can bake, roast, stir fry and bake into a cake. 

What’s a Yacon?

Like all good bloggers, I went to the source of all correct information – Wikipedia and asked. A species of perennial daisy, related to sunflowers and hence Jerusalem artichokes. 

They contain an indigestible polysaccharide (geez, that’s a big word) made of fructose. 

This makes the tuber sweet tasting but allows the vegetable to pass through a human unmetabolized, with a very low-calorie intake. That’s enough scientific talk.

Let’s make a cake …

Let’s make a processed sugar-free, gluten-free, dairy-free, basically vegan cake 

I promise it will taste great

Yacon and Date Cake

Ingredients

200 grams Dates

300 grams Yacon

200 grams Vegan Spread - I use Nutlex 

50 grams of olive oil

300 grams of almond meal

1 teaspoon gluten-free baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon powder

1 pinch of salt

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Line and grease a 23-cm cake tin.

2.    Place dates in heat resistant bowl and cover with boiling water. Allow to stand for 10 minutes, then drain off the water.

3.    Place the dates, yacon, vegan spread, and olive oil in the bowl of the food processor. Puree until smooth. Add the almond meal, baking powder, cinnamon and a pinch of salt. Pulse to combine.

4.    Pour into your prepared 23 cm cake tin. Bake for 25 minutes or until cooked through. 

Enjoy!!

 

PS: If you ask, Walk Amongst the Weeds can be a private vegan meal, where I make this cake as one of five plant only based courses. 

PSS: If you want your yacon to plant, I have rhizomes to plant as I dig up and use the tubers. Drop by sometime during opening hours, and I will have a piece ready for you. 

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