Hummingbird layer cake with pineapple flowers
If your fruit bowl is overflowing with bananas, freeze them. Then there's a stockpile for when baking calls. This healthy take on the classic hummingbird cake puts natural fruit juices and dextrose to good use. Dextrose may sound lab-made, but it's actually naturally occuring in all of us, and very similar to glucose, which some health experts advocate as less taxing on the body.
Hummingbird layer cake with pineapple flowers Source: Chris Middleton
Coconut and pandan crème brûlée
Be sure these cremes are completely chilled before torching them. And if you've never brûléed before, don't overdo the syrup, tempting as that may be.
Coconut and pandan crème brûlée Source: Chris Middleton
Coconut raspberry jam slice
A modern, refined sugar-free riff on the retro jam slice, this one also happens to skip on gluten, too. Apple purée helps to add bulk to recipes like this one that have had the cane sugar removed, as well as provide natural sweetness and fibre.
Raspberry chia jam Source: Chris Middleton
Chocolate shortbread sandwich biscuits with banana cashew cream
They look like Oreas and taste like the biscuit version of a banana split, sans the guilte that ensues. In a nutshell, they are an all-round winner.
Source: Chris Middleton
Ricotta, fig and hazelnut cheesecake
Who said cheesecakes was virtueless? This one, made with ricotta cheese, is sweetened with marsala, figs and liquid Stevia, a plant-based sweetener extracted from the leaves of the Stevia plant. It's also virtually foolproof, with help from your trusty food processor.
Ricotta, fig and hazelnut cheesecake Source: Chris Middleton
Brown butter loaf with brown butter frosting
Fructose-free rice malt syrup is used to sweeten this beautiful, butterscotch-flavoured loaf. Browned butter is a great way to inject more nuttiness into a dish - everyone in nose-shot will want in, immedietely.
Brown butter loaf with brown butter frosting Source: Chris Middleton
Passionfruit cashew cream melting moments
Anyone who's ever made melting moments knows too well how all-out indulgent they can be (the ratio of butter to flour is scarily close to equal). This one features half the butter by using raw cashews for the cream filling.
Passionfruit cashew cream melting moments Source: Chris Middleton
Brownies with coconut–date swirl
These are the perfect cure to 3pm-itis, in that they'll keep you going until dinner, with a sweet hit to boot. The star ingredient? Dates! Coconut cream is optional.
Brownies with coconut–date swirl Source: Chris Middleton