Chocolate Clementine Cake
Plus, announcing the winners of the Official MIND Diet book
Hello, everyone. I hope this email finds you looking forward to a nice weekend whether you are celebrating Christmas or not. I know it’s a busy time so I’ll be brief, even though we are talking about one of my favorite things: cake.
Yesterday I popped into my local bookstore on my way to a book-signing event. A woman emerged from the back room with a stack of my books and said: “This is so embarrassing, I was just eating cake.”
I get this a lot. If I see someone enjoying a decadent dessert, or even a piece of cheese, he or she (usually she) feels the need to apologize. Or, explain themselves. Or, let me know that they know it’s bad for them but they just can’t help themselves. It’s like my presence triggers a brain-health guilt reaction. It’s almost exactly like the reaction I’d get as a practicing gynecologist when running into patients around town: “I know, it’s been forever since I’ve seen you.”
My immediate reaction to the woman in the bookstore was: “Cake! I LOVE cake! It’s the holidays, please enjoy yourself. I’ve already had two cookies today.” (You may recall how much I love Christmas cookies from this open thread.)
All of this is to say that I hope you are enjoying this holiday season and all the delicious food that comes with it. Eating for brain health doesn’t mean you have to be a perfect eater. It leaves room for small indulgences like cake and cookies and panettone, especially around the holidays. It’s what you eat most of the time in your dietary pattern that has an impact on your brain’s longevity.
If you are struggling with brain health guilt now or anytime, it may be helpful to revisit the guidelines I shared here:
There’s No Such Thing As Perfection When It Comes To Brain Health.
If you are baking a cake over the holidays, I hope you’ll consider this Chocolate Clementine Cake. The first step—boiling the clementines in a pot on the stove—is sure to invoke good holiday vibes as the intense aroma of citrus fills your kitchen.
Those of you who have been cooking from my recipes for a while may remember a Flourless Blood Orange and Chocolate Cake I shared a few years ago. That cake inspired the Glazed Citrus and Almond Olive Oil Cake in my book (sans chocolate). Now I’ve gone back to the recipe again to make it with the clementines that are so plentiful in the markets here in the Northern Hemisphere.
The formula for all these cakes rests on my brain-healthy approach to dessert:
Nutrient-dense flour. Avoid refined flours like all-purpose white. Instead, use more flavorful and nutrient-dense ones; here you’ll use a combination of almond and oat flour.
Fiber. A dessert that contains sugar should also include a hefty dose of fiber to make it brain healthier. This slows absorption of the sugar into the bloodstream, and helps you feel satiated with smaller portions. Besides fiber-rich almond and oat flour, this cake includes 3 whole clementines, boiled until soft and blitzed into a marmalade-like puree in a food processor.
Flavonoids. Ingredients rich in these bioactive plant pigments will infuse desserts with pretty colors, interesting flavors, and potent brain health nutrients. Here, the clementine peel is teeming with kaempferol, a flavonoid of interest in Alzheimers’ prevention. And the cacao powder is a rich source of cocoa flavanols. Other flavonoid-rich ingredients I like to use in baking: pears, figs, nuts, seeds, olive oil, and berries.
Looking to upgrade your own beloved holiday treats? Find tips in my post about brain-healthy ingredient swaps in this article: Make (Almost) Any Cookie or Treat Brain Healthy With These Tips.
RECIPE: CHOCOLATE CLEMENTINE CAKE
The most fun part of this recipe is that it starts by boiling whole clementines in a small pot. As they cook the kitchen with a citrusy, floral aroma. Once soft, you’ll use a food processor to pulse into a DIY marmalade that adds moisture and texture to the batter, along with a spectrum of flavors that range from sweet to tart to bitter. The whole fruit also provides a good boost of fiber to slow absorption of sugar and a potent dose of brain-healthy flavonoids.