by Carrie Saum
Summer is here. And maybe your new little baby is here, too. Snuggly and warm.
Oh, so warm.
Almost suffocatingly hot.
Dear God, is that a baby or a furnace you’re holding? The temperature outside is a stifiling 100+ degrees and holding that little fireball while also living on the approximate surface of the sun might be a bit much for you.
But you want cake.
Except it’s summer and who has the time or energy or heat capacity to use an oven?
But you still want cake.
Enter your new BFF – The CrockPot.
Yep. Make your cake IN THE SLOWCOOKER.
There is no need to turn your house into an incinerator while taking care of your miniature lava ball on top of the erupting volcano we call Earth just to have a tasty and relatively healthy treat.
This recipe utilizes the amazing benefits of oats (with milk-boosting powers!), lowers the glycemic index with the use of coconut palm sugar, and gives you the fun milk-boosting benefit of stout beer without actually consuming it. Plus, after baking it for several hours in a large pot, a majority of the alcohol dissipates so you don’t have to worry about you (or your other kiddos) getting a buzz when eating it. All of this, just by using your crockpot.
Now, to be clear, this is a dense cake. It’s almost more of a bread. Should we call it a cake bread? Either way, it’s satisfying and just perfectly sweet. You can add chopped up apples or nuts if you want to give it more texture. I prefer to top my crockpot cake with a bit of homemade whipped cream, sweetened slightly with honey.
Ingredients:
- 3 cups oat flour (You can make your own using old fashioned oats and your food processor or blender, which is the easiest and cheapest, IMO.)
- 1.5 cups old fashioned oats
- 1 cup coconut palm sugar
- 2 Tbsp tapioca flour or arrow root powder (or wheat flour but it won’t be as milk boosting)
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1.5 cups stout beer (like Guiness)
- 1/3 cup oil or melted butter
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 Tbsp honey (optional)
Instructions:
- In a large bowl, combine all dry ingredients.
- In a smaller bowl, combine all wet ingredients and blend thoroughly.
- Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix until it begins to thicken.
- Pour batter into very well-greased or parchment paper lined crockpot. (I recommend parchment paper if you have a dark-colored crock.)
- Place kitchen towel over the top of the crockpot, and pull tight and flat. Secure towel with the lid. (This will keep moisture from gathering and dripping onto your cake!)
- Cook on low for 3.5 hours.
- Once you can stick a knife into the cake and it comes out clean, it’s done! Remove pot from heat source, and allow to cool for 30 minutes before eating.
The best way to store this is pre-cut in storage containers. Once completely cool, you can slice it and use parchment or wax paper to separate the layers inside the container. It’s easy to grab on the go, and you aren’t using up that valuable crockpot or counter space to store. It refrigerates well, and also freezes well. You can eat it in the morning with your yummy lactation tea, or as a late-night nursing snack while you cuddle your tiny newborn/thermal nuclear reactor.
What’s in your CrockPot?
Carrie
*Note: It’s important to point out that most women aren’t going to need to eat food with the intention of upping their milk supply, if everything is working the way it is supposed to, your baby will know how to up your supply just fine themselves. Skin-to-skin and feeding on demand are the best ways to increase breastmilk supply to meet your baby’s needs. (Concerned you have low supply? Read this to help figure out if it is something you need to be concerned about.) For those women, galactalogues just happen and they don’t need to think about it. But some women, like me, do need a boost. As a mom who ended up exclusively pumping and indeed having low supply such that I ended up on medication solely to increase my milk production, I know what it’s like to look for anything, anything at all that would help my body make even just a little more milk to help feed my baby. With the support of my health care providers, we tried everything. It becomes “I will eat all the cookies, I will drink all the shakes, I will eat all the parfaits!” if it even just makes me feel like I’m doing something to address the low supply struggle, it is worth it.
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If you like this recipe, check out this Kale Waldorf Salad or Roasted Cauliflower Soup over on Our Stable Table.
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