Grapefruit and Thyme Wholewheat Spelt Loaf Cake {Happy New Year} {Vegan}

Happy new year to the extraordinarily fab people reading this!! Long time no see, eh? Since my last blog post all those many months ago I have visited seven countries, moved in to the house of fun with my favourite gal pals (minus you, Ellen), made new friends and lost one and embarked upon my most intense academic year yet. It's been a wild five months. I don't usually go in for all the stuff that comes with the start of our next rotation around the sun like resolutions yada yada but the latter half of 2014 has been... I'm going do it, feel free to shoot me for what I am about to type... a ROLLER COASTER (hahahaha my sincerest apologies) to say the least so I figured a little reflection wouldn't go amiss. I'm not gonna share my resolutions with you cos they are super duper lame for the most part BUT one of them is to BLOG MORE. In addition to scrawling what I want out of this year in my notebook, and in order to avoid beating myself up come the end of 2015 I also decorated a jar in which I will put bits and pieces, photographs, journal entry type things etc that represent achievements and all the good, exciting, lovely things that happen that quite often get overlooked because lets face it most of us are prone to dwelling on the negative things! This way I can feel warm and fuzzy when I empty the contents of the jar a year from now even if I can't check all the things off my list of resolutions! I can't take credit for the idea though, ta v much BuzzFeed!

Anywhoooo on the foodie blog front I figured what better time to get my blog back up on its feet than the start of the first month of the year? I had forgotten how much I loved trailing the internet, putting a recipe together piece by piece. Once my recipe began to take shape I got all excited the way I used to, rather than feeling exhausted thinking about the blog posts I should be writing. 

I decided for my first post of 2015 I wanted something fruity, maybe even zesty, rather than chocolatey or spicy. I wanted to move away from flavours associated with the holidays. I also wanted to try something I had never done before; like pairing fruit and herbs in a baked good which I know is doable cos ya know Top With Cinnamon's BEST EVER chocolate chip cookies have basil in em and Local Milk sticks herbs in her baked goods left right and centre! (each of those four words takes you to a different sweet recipe with a herb cameo)

I eventually settled on the sharp combination of grapefruit and thyme and I knew I wanted the cake to be 'healthy' because I need to start treating this body more like a temple and less like a sugar-high kid at a birthday party so I adapted Izy's orange spelt and almond cake as it is a sensationally sound cake I've made ten thousand times before using various adaptations!

This cake is delightfully soft, the absolute opposite of dry (I know how many people just cannot handle the dreaded M word, but that it is!!) and FRUITY in the good ol' grapefruit kinda way (cos it's a grapefruit cake duh) and another adjective to describe the extra quality the use of thyme provides but that is not a word I know, ima science student ;) bake the cake and come back to me with a suitable descriptive word, gold stars will be handed out!

Added bonus: the recipe for grapefruit and thyme syrup makes a jars worth and is of duel functionality - it can be used to make pretty damn good cocktails (think syrup + vodka + grapefruit juice + ice).

Ingredients

For the cake:

1/2 cup light in colour olive oil
zest and juice of 1 red grapefruit
3/4 cup raw sugar (demerara sugar)
1 1/2 cups wholewheat spelt flour
1/2 cup ground almonds
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

For the grapefruit and thyme syrup:

zest of 2 red grapefruits
juice of 1 red grapefruit
6 sprigs of fresh thyme
2 cups granulated white sugar
pinch of salt

To make the glaze:

1 tbsp grapefruit and thyme syrup
1 tbsp warm water
1/2 cup icing sugar

Directions

To make the syrup combine the thyme, zest, juice, sugar and salt in a saucepan and bring to the boil over a medium heat, stirring intermittently. Once the mixture has come to the boil take it off the heat and leave it to cool. Pass the syrup through a sieve. Once cool, keep in a jar in the fridge.

To make the cake, pre head the oven to 180 degrees celsius then mix together the oil, juice, zest and sugar in a large mixing bowl. In another mixing bowl sieve together the flour, ground almonds, baking powder and salt then transfer this dry mixture into the wet mixture and mix until just incorporated. Transfer the mixture to a lined loaf tin and bake for 40-45 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Leave the cake to cool.

To make the glaze combine 2 tbsp of grapefruit and thyme syrup, 1 tbsp warm water and 1/2 cup icing sugar. Spread liberally over the top of the cooled loaf cake.