EASTER DESSERTS

After an intense spinning class with speed drills and lots of hills this morning, I found time to prepare some goodies for our Easter celebration with family tomorrow. Desserts are crucial on beautiful days like these... One of the things I have grown to like is dark chocolate.

I made a cake, following a recipe and got perfection. Dark chocolate Ganache Tart is an amazing treat - rich in flavor, creamy in texture and it has a crunchy crust with an edge of celtic sea salt. If a cake has ever been dense - it is this one, I feel like it will take weeks to finish it.

The recipe is made of Debbie Lee and goes something like this:

For the crust you need:

3/4 cup cocoa powder

3/4 cup fine nut flour (I used a mix of almonds and hazelnuts)

1/4 cup coconut butter

pinch of sea salt

In a standing mixer with an S-blade ix all the ingredients till it becomes a dough. Press the dough evenly into a 9-inch pan. Cover with plastic and let sit in the fridge to chill for 1 hour. 

For the Ganache filling:

2 1/4 cup cocoa powder

2 1/4 cup maple syrup

1 cup coconut butter

Blend all the filling ingredients in a blender until smooth. Pour into the chilled tart crust. place in the refrigerator for a few hours. 

Instead of the normal piece of cake - I cut my cake up in small squares and will serve it as a little nibble treat.

Another dessert I`m serving is a creamed citrus salad; blood oranges, some grapefruit and a couple of regular oranges cut up mixed with vanilla whipped cream. One bowl has the mixed version, another bowl has just the fruits. I will have a bowl of the citrus fruit as my appetizer. Becaus fruit is best eaten on an empty stomach.

Happy Easter everyone =)

-Kathrine-

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Raw Cake Goodness

My No-dairy-quest is forcing me to find other solutions for yummi creamy cakes. So earlier this week I made this raw vegan cake........

 

It`s a cake that keeps the best in the freezer - so I can eat one piece a day, without it going bad =)

It also goes well with different toppings like chocolate sauce, berry sauce (like in the picture on top) or mango puree (picture below). The crust is made of walnuts, sunflower seeds and dates. The filling is mostly soaked cashew nuts blended with vanilla beans.

-Kathrine-

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Chocolate chip cookies

When 7 bananas are getting too ripe, fully aware I cannot finish them all in just a couple of days - I start looking for a recipe. I always crave oats, something sweet and filling. So in my search today I found a "healthy chocolate chip cookie" recipe that called for ripe bananas (score!), amongst other things. So I jumped on it, tweaked it, made it gluten, egg, casein, sugar and dairy free (this is about as healthy as a chocolate cookie can get!), here is the result:

Super Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookies

3 ripe bananas

1/4 cup applesauce (I used unsweetened)

Egg replacer for 1egg

2 tbs honey

1tbs flax meal

1tbs warm water

Mix together in a blender of heavy duty kitchen machine

In a different bowl mix the dry:

2 cup oat flour (you can do half and half with oat flour and rolled oats)

2/3 cup shredded coconut

1/4 cup Amaranth flour

1/4 cup teff flour

1/4 cup brown rice

1/4 cup sorghum

1/2 tsp. Salt

1/2 tsp. Cinnamon

1 tsp. Baking powder 

Mix the wet and the dry ingredients then fold in some chocolate and nuts of choice. 

I used TJ`s unsweetened baking chocolate chips (super dark and chocolaty) and a handful of walnuts. 

Bake in the oven at 350F/170C for about 10-12 minutes. Make sure you don`t overcook the cookies, because bananas and gluten free baking has a tendency to get way to chewy. 

TIPS: Anytime you bake GF, DF etc, try to bake a couple of samples in the oven before you bake it all. You don`t want them to spread out too much, sometimes they don't spread out at all..... so then you have to form them with your hands. If you make a sample you will know how your dough will act in the oven and you can take it from there. If you notice that the dough spreads out too much - put the dough in muffin pans instead of a flat baking sheet.

These cookies I had to form with my hands before I put them in the oven, so they got the right "cookie" shape.

 

Nutritionally these cookies have a high value. Lots of fiber, whole grains, sweetened with fruit etc makes them a great treat for breakfast or as a mid-day snack. If you goal is weight-loss remember that these have allot of good carbohydrates in them, that your body needs and the amount is according to how active you are. 

-Kathrine-

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Sunny day!!

Wooh! I am so happy to see the sun today =)
I have been working allot at the gym lately and have not been a very good blogger, sad story - cause I LOVE posting fun recipes, pictures and such. But I will get back into the groove of it starting today!

Another thing I am starting with today is that I am going all dairy free, again. Again because a few years back I was dairy free for 2 years. When my digestive track got strong (being GF and DF) I introduced dairy, but as of late, maybe since being sick and taking antibiotics(?), I don't do dairy well at all. So here we go - no whipped cream goodness, no buttered anything. Good thing there are so many substitutes these days, rice cheese, nut milks, coconut etc.
This morning my breakfast consisted of a delicious fuji apple with raw almond butter, then a bowl of GF toasted granola with hemp milk. mm so satisfying =)

 

Have a beautiful morning

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