The secret recipe of our in-house nutritionist, Benoît Nave: a vegetarian, low GI, gluten-free, cow's milk-free cake, ideal before exercise, on the morning of a competition or a long session.
A very simple cake to make, with very simple ingredients too, an exercise cake that goes down well and will be well tolerated by the body.
Important note: this recipe is one that Ben recommends to EVERYONE, not just those who have problems with gluten and/or cow's milk.
RECIPE FOR PRE-RACE BREAKFAST CAKE (GLUTEN-FREE)
NUTRITION BEFORE EXERCISE
Managing nutrition before exercise is one of the major questions we get asked on social networks. So we cooked up our own homemade nutritionist and he agreed to give us his super-digestible recipe.
Your homemade recipe for effort breakfast cake (low GI)
🏁 Pre-race breakfast 🏁
❌ You need to avoid hard fibres (fruit), gluten (bread), quick sugars (fruit juice)...So what should you eat just before a race? Do you prefer to get up well before your race to have a fairly substantial meal?
- (4 hours before the start) A plate of rice, with a little fish. And if you've eaten early but not much, half a Baouw 30' before the start to ensure good blood sugar levels for the first hour of the race.
If you'd rather get a bit more sleep and your stomach's in a knot because of the stress (2 hours before the start), two soft-boiled eggs, with half a ripe banana🍌. (And you take the time to relax😉).
👉 Our nutritionist Benoit Nave offers you his ‘homemade’ cake recipe that's just right for a pre-race meal
- 400 ml coconut milk 🥥
- 1 ripe banana
- 60 g wholemeal sugar such as Rapadura or coconut blossom sugar
- 120 g wholegrain 1/2 rice flour
- 30 g coconut flour
- 2 eggs
- Mix well and place in a tin. Bake for 30' in an oven preheated to 180°.
- Two good slices before the race, with a cup of tea (black, for once!) or coffee if you've done the trick of going without for a few days beforehand, and you're ready to go 😉
A FEW TIPS FOR THIS EFFORT CAKE
- The right tin for this effort breakfast cake recipe: a cake tin type (round or rectangular but not too high, the pastry needs to be able to drain 3-4 cm high otherwise it won't bake). This doesn't make a quatre-quart consistency, it's more like a clafoutis.
- If you don't like bananas, you can add :
pear
apple
which are fruits that are well tolerated when cooked. - You can transform this recipe into a recuperation cake: you can then use a mixture of apples and plums, which is very tasty!
Si tu fais ce gâteau, n'hésite pas à poster une photo sur les réseaux sociaux en taguant @baouw et les #baouwers et #vajouerdehors pour nous remercier 😉
‘Preferably choose a ripe banana, which will be easily digested before exercise, when the digestive system needs to be preserved,’ explains Benoît Nave, coach and nutritionist to Xavier Thevenard. Louis Hansel Shotsoflouis
THE EXTRA TIP BAOUW
This cake is the home recipe of our nutritionist, who has been using it before exercise in his own competitions for 15 years. ‘In fact, the basis of this exercise cake is a fair balance between protein, fat and carbohydrate intake,’ explains Benoît Nave. ‘That's also the concept behind our Baouw recipes. Classic sports cakes are real carbohydrate bombs. They cause reactive hypoglycaemia. As a result, you'll need gels or other massive carbohydrate intake to counteract the hypoglycaemia. The trick here is to use energy that's much smoother, available and without harmful side-effects’.
‘If your stomach is a bit fragile and you don't feel like eating much as your race approaches, be happy with a small portion of this cake 2 1/2 to 3 hours before the start and a full half-bar half an hour before the start,’ recommends Benoît Nave. ‘Go for a blackcurrant or a Quinoa-Pistachio-Lime, for example.
