Harmony Cake

Today I ran my first raw vegan chakra cake class. I really, really enjoyed it! I’ve done enough experimenting now that I can make things up on the spot and they generally come together just fine. I’ve always loved teaching in a spontaneous manner, because it allows space for Spirit to enter into the place between my heart and the heart of the students, and this is exactly the kind of cake me concocted today: a harmony cake.

After explaining the cake making basics, with a smorgasbord of ingredients on display, we then got down to business, with each of us drawing a card from one of my various home-made decks. These cards would guide us through the process of concocting a cake around specific ingredients that would suit all of us, in one way or another. We know from experience in the healing classes that the cards drawn are relevant to all of us, because we are all connected, sharing space and drawn together for a reason.

From my gem and flower essence deck: FRANGIPANI FLOWER ESSENCE

From the Aura Card deck: CONFUSION BROWN and RUMINATION YELLOW

From the food deck: NUTMEG

From the herb deck: SAGE

Planning

Then we spent a bit of time talking about what these cards might mean, and how we could pull it all together and make a story about it. The main chakra referenced was the heart chakra, because frangipani is a powerful heart chakra remedy. But there were also suggestions that there might be some auric muck that needed clearing because the Rumination and Confusion colours are congestion/detox colours. Sage is obviously clearing, so that fitted in nicely, but what was nutmeg about? We all had a smell and found it seemed to calm and ground us. It felt nurturing. I also loved that sage is a wisdom herb.

It felt as though we were about to lift our heart chakras out of our overly-busy congested heads (picture the heart chakra sunk into a messy congested solar plexus chakra), and raise its frequency by giving it a cleanse. The heart chakra is in the centre of the chest and is all about love and relationships. Its colours are pink and green. The solar plexus is in the upper abdomen and is yellow. It governs the digestion of ideas and experiences, and when it is healthy, we are positive and wise. Frangipani resolves conflict in relationships, helping us move beyond jealous, competition, resentment and frustration between ourselves and loved ones, where each person is pressing buttons in the other, even though they don’t want it to be this way.

We planned part of the recipe in advance, and then made the rest up as we went along based on tastings, making adjustments to flavour, texture and colour with additional ingredients. I love making three tied cakes, but any one of these layers could be used on its own as a sweet.

FIRST LAYER

1 Cup Almonds

1 or 2 Sage leaves

14 Dates (pips removed)

1/4 cup of Walnuts

Process all ingredients until the mix is crumbly but starting to clump together. Form small balls (as per the photo below) and then press these into the bottom of a patty pan to make a flat base. You could use sage powder instead. We used 1 sage leaf and some herbal sage tincture from my dispensary.

 SECOND LAYER (Solar Plexus Chakra)

1/2 cup of custard apple

1 Large banana

1 teaspoon of nutmeg powder

1 tablespoon coconut oil

2 dates

1/2 cup of macadamia nuts

1/2 teaspoon tumeric powder (or the equivalent fresh)

1 tablespoon of yellow marigold petals.

(The last two ingredients are optional, but they do help with the yellow colour)

Process these ingredients and then spoon it into your cupcake holders, on top of your base layer. Put this in the freezer to firm up while you work on the next layer. I prefer using frozen bananas. Don’t forget to remove pips from dates! My marigold petals are fresh from my garden, but dried is fine. 

 THIRD LAYER (Heart Chakra)

3/4 cup macedamia nuts

1 cup organic beetroot

2 strawberries

2 dates

1 tablespoons of rose petals

1/4 cup raspberries

1/4 cup cherries

1 tablespoon coconut oil

1 cup of custard apple

a dash of frangipani essence

Process/blend and add to your cupcakes, as the topmost layer. We were trying to make a pink layer and this is probably a bit too red, so you could try reducing the raspberries and beetroot content. A lot of these ingredients are optional; it’s really just about tasting as you go and making adjustments. 

While we were creating, Jenni took photos (Thank you Jenni!), Carol told us about how a local business called Wicked Energy (where she works), stocks a lot of really great ingredients that could be used for cakes. We talked about the value of plant based whole foods and how important it is to source your sweets from whole foods, rather than isolating and concentrating the sugar.