Category Archives: dairy free

Fruit balls! (raw, dairy and gluten free :) )

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I’m back on the Pure Form Fitness Ultimate Fat Loss Programme so have cut out gluten, dairy and sweetners for the last 2 weeks (amongst other stuff!). It’s going great – I feel good and have lost body fat and kg already! You should definitely check it out 🙂 Whilst I’ve been on the programme I’ve been trying out a few healthy snack options and these two turned out pretty well so I thought I’d share!

 

Lime, apricot and pistachio balls

100g Pistachios

185g Dried apricots

1 tbsp freshly squeezed Lime juice

A few more pistachios and some dessicated coconut to roll them in

Finely chop the pistachios for rolling the balls in and mix with the coconut and place to one side. Put the apricots and lime juice in a processor and blend until it forms a smooth-ish paste. Add the nuts and pulse to combine. I like to leave the nuts so they’re not pulverised too much! Once mixed use damp hands to roll them into balls and then roll them in the pistachio-coconut mix. Can be eaten immediatley or place in the fridge to chill.

Cherry-almond fig balls

125g Almonds

125g Dried figs

40g dried Cherries

1/2 tsp Cinnamon

1 tbsp freshly squeezed Orange juice

a few Almonds and some dessicated coconut to roll them in

Finely chop the almonds for rolling the balls in and mix with the coconut and place to one side. Put the 125g almonds and cinnamon in a food processor and blitz until finely chopped. Add the figs and orange juice and blitz again until the mixture forms a sticky dough. Add the cherries and pulse until mixed. Once mixed use damp hands to roll them into balls and then roll them in the almond-coconut mix. Can be eaten immediatley or place in the fridge to chill.

They shouldn’t need it but if you REALLY wanted to you could add a squirt of sweet freedom or agave to the mix.

Dad’s Ginger Cake (dairy-free, low-gluten)

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Nine years ago today my dad passed away. There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t think about him, miss him and wish he was still here.  It may seem a little odd but I like to do something “nice” to remember him on this day and since baking is something I love (and the results are something he loved!) I baked a ginger cake this weekend in his honour! Ginger cake was one of his favourites, though being a bit odd 😉  whenever he was offered a slice  he would usually tell us he couldn’t possibly have it then and that he’d save it and have it for breakfast.. and he did! 🙂 We always used to take the mickey out of him for it and it still makes me chuckle to think about it. This cake is sticky and gooey and just gets better the longer you leave it in the tin (IF you can leave it alone that is!)

So, Dad, this cake’s for you! I’m sure you’d love it 🙂

1/2 cup Almond oil
1 cup Coconut sugar / unrefined raw sugar
1/2 cup Molasses
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Nutmeg
2 cups Spelt flour or gluten free flour mix
1 tsp Baking powder
1 tsp ground Ginger
1 tsp Bicarbonate of soda
2/3 cup boiling Water
6 tbsp pureed Apple
1/4 – 1/2 cup Crystallised ginger

Preheat the oven to 170 C and line a small cake tin with greaseproof paper (I used a square brownie tray approx 8 inch square).

Mix the sugar and oil together in a large bowl. Add the molasses, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg in to the mix and stir well. Sieve the flour with the baking powder and ginger into a large bowl and leave to one side. Put the bicarbonate of soda into a wet measuring cup and add the boiling water then immediately pour the mixture into the sugar/oil/molasses mix and stir to combine. Add the flour gradually and stir well until there are no lumps.
Add the apple and mix well. Finally stir in the crystallised ginger. Pour the batter into the tin and bake for 40 minutes. Allow the cake to cool for 10 minutes then turn out on to a wire rack to cool. Then enjoy!

Snack attack!

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I couldn’t decide if I wanted a savoury or sweet snack this afternoon so I made both!

These are super quick and make great snacks to munch on while watching a movie on a rainy bank holiday afternoon…. 🙂

Sugar and Spice Almonds

1/3 cup Whole almonds

1 tsp ground Cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground Ginger

pinch ground Nutmeg

Squirt of Sweet Freedom or Agave

Heat a small frying pan over a high heat for a few minutes. Throw in the almonds (don’t use any oil), and keep tossing them to avoid buring. After a few minutes squirt in the sweet freedom/agave and sprinkle the spices. Remove from the heat and stir to coat the nuts. Once coated remove to a plate or greaseproof paper and allow to cool.

Spicy seeds

1 egg white (I’m yet to work out what I could use as a substitute here)

2 tsp Chinese five spice (a mix of cinnamon, fennel, star anise, ginger and clove)

1 tsp ground anniseed

pinch of nutmeg

pinch of ginger

More cinnamon (if you like your cinnamon!)

85g Sunflower seeds

85g Pumpkin seeds

This makes a lot so reduce the quantities if needed! I found it hard to get a decent spicy flavour and I still don’t think I’ve cracked it but it’s getting closer! You may want to experiment with the spice quantities. Preheat oven to 150 C. Whisk the egg white lightly, add the spices and then add in the seeds. Make sure they’re well coated, then spread out on a baking sheet covered with lightly oiled baking parchment. Place in the oven for 10 – 12 minutes. Allow to cool then break up and eat!

Now you just need a good movie to enjoy while you munch on these 🙂

Concious Chocolate – chocolate that’s easy on the conscience! :)

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Well I’ve been lucky enough to be sent some of Conscious’ fab raw chocolate products to review.

Conscious is a small UK company that makes handmade raw chocolate. They’re all organic, handmade and free from gluten, soya, dairy and refined sugars. They also happen to be delicious!

Raw chocolate has considerable health benefits as the cacao beans aren’t roasted so they retain more of the vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and theobromine which make chocolate “good” for you.  They only use agave syrup to sweeten them which is another bonus.

They have a range of different flavours but I was sent:

Plain
Pure – 65% cacao with vanilla
The nutty one – brazils, cashews, hazelnuts and walnuts
Chilli hot – cayenne pepper
Love Potion No. 9 – maca and essential oil of rose
Essential orange – essential oils of orange and tangerine
Wild at heart – maca, vanilla and wilde blue-green algae
Mint hint – essential oil of peppermint


The best thing about these bars is the texture – they’re so silky smooth and they just melt in the mouth. They’re more like a truffle in texture than a chocolate bar and they’re beautifully creamy and rich. They all taste amazing but my favourites were the essential orange and mint hint, closely followed by chilli hot. The pure and plain ones were very nice, and the nutty one had very generous chunks of nut in it which is always good. I’m not a huge fan of rose flavoured chocolate generally but this bar was actually ok. It wasn’t overly floral and the maca balanced out the flavour nicely. The wild at heart bar tasted very nice but I couldn’t really detect the blue-green algae (that may be a good thing!) so it’s presumably there as a health benefit that doesn’t impact on the flavour too much.

I gave my official taster, Colette some pieces for her and her hubby Rod to taste too and they were similarly impressed with it. I’ll let them tell you all what they thought of them themselves though 🙂

The really great thing about these bars is that they’re so rich you really don’t want to eat too much of them in one go. A few pieces after dinner is plenty. The fact that they’re free fom refined sugars as well is fab, so it means you can enjoy these treats even if you’re trying to control your sugar intake. They’re also suitable for diabetics which is handy.

You can get these from local health food shops of from Conscious direct. I highly recommend you treat yourself to a bar (or two!) 🙂

Raw Fruit and Nut Protein Bars

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I’m currently doing the amazing 28 day Ultimate Fat loss Programme from Pure Form Fitness. It’s a fantastic eating programme with natural supplements and education and involves eliminating various allergens from your diet for the first 14 days. So as a result there’s been no baking this weekend but I was inspired by Gabby’s recipe at the veggienook and decided to make a programme friendly snack. It’s a combination of my raw cocoa-orange balls and Gabby’s recipe and it’s delish! I was sort of making it up as I went along so I’m sorry for the measurements but to be honest you can just adjust these as you like until you get the texture and taste you like – if you like more apricots throw some more in, if you are a nut fan up the nuts! simple! 🙂

handful of raw cashews

handful of raw almonds (normal or blanched – your choice)

5 – 8 dried dates

small handful of raisins

small handful of dried, unsweetened apricots (the nice juicy ones!)

A good handful of shelled hemp

I – 2 scoops of Pure Protein Powder (vanilla)

a squeeze of fresh lemon juice

Pop all the ingredients into a food processor and blitz until it forms a sticky dough/paste. Adjust the quantities if necessary – if it is too moist add some more nuts and shelled hemp, if too dry had a date or two, or an apricot. I tried to make this into bars – they’re a wee bit soft but they work ok! Line a tupperware box with clingfilm and then press the mixture in to it. Place in the fridge and then cut and eat whenever you need an extra protein boost, or just a nice yummy snack!

Lemon Chia seed cookies (dairy free, low gluten)

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I know I know – not ANOTHER lemon and chia seed recipe but I’m really loving this combo at the moment and having fun trying out some recipes with them 🙂

This cookie recipe is a departure from my normal suite of ingredients as I’m using some Soya yoghurt. I’ve seen it in recipes before but never used it so thought I’d have a go! It can be substituted for silken tofu if you can’t have soya though.

These need to be flattened out really thin before you bake them otherwise they end up cakey and not crispy (but if you like your cookies like that then go for it!)

1 1/4 cup Coconut palm sugar/ raw unrefined sugar
3/4 cup Olive oil
3/4 cup Soya yogurt (natural or lemon flavoured works best)
1 1/2 tsp Vanilla extract
2 1/2 Cups Spelt flour or gluten free flour blend
3/4 tsp Himalayan rock salt
3/4 tsp Bicarobonate of soda
Zest of 1 large Lemon (plus juice of half a lemon if desired)
1/3 cup Chia seeds

For decoration: Raw golden icing sugar and a few drops of lemon juice

Pre-heat oven to 175 degrees.

Mix the oil and sugar together until well combined. Add the Soya yoghurt and vanilla extract and stir well. Sieve in the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt and mix well. Finally stir in the lemon zest and chia seeds, and the lemon juice if you like your biscuits lemony!

The batter will be quite sticky and not like a traditional biscuit dough but don’t worry. Drop small spoonfuls onto a greased baking tray. Using the back of a fork flatten these out until they are only a few mm thick (unless you like your cookies cakey in which case don’t!). Bake in the oven for 10 – 15 minutes. Keep an eye on them, if they start to puff up then just flatten them a bit with a fork. Bake until they are golden brown. Remove and allow to cool on the tray for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool. Once cool you can ice them if you want to – just mix up the icing sugar with a few drops of lemon juice or water until you get a thick consistency then pipe over the biscuits 🙂

Raw gluten free, dairy free chili chocolates

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The Easter bunny was a bit late getting to my house this weekend but thankfully he did finally make it .. and look what he brought!

These are super easy and quick.

50g cacao butter

40g cacao  powder

1 – 2 tbsp sweet freedom/ Agave (to taste)

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (or more to taste)

Melt the cacao butter and then stir in the rest of the ingredients. Pour into a silicone chocolate mould and leave in the fridge to set. For the eggs you need to do each half separately then use a bit of melted mixture to glue the set halves together. These chocs don’t do well at warm temperatures so store them in the fridge until ready to eat!

Lemon and Chia seed biscuits / cookies (dairy free, low/no gluten)

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They say better late than never eh? well I do anyway, and that’s certainly the case with this post. As you’ll see from the shapes I cut these biscuits out in these were designed as Easter biscuits but with everything I had going on this weekend with my sponsored cycle I just didn’t manage to get this post up before Easter sunday! I don’t think it really matters though. These are a nice light, crispy, biscuit that is great for any occasion. The lemon and chia theme is running through from my last recipe (lemon and chia seed muffins) – I’m a huge fan of lemon flavoured bakes and I’m loving chia seeds right now so apologies for that! 🙂

These biscuits are super easy to make and you can cut out any shapes you like. The dough can be a bit crumbly but it is just about manageable. This would be a good thing to try with the children over the holidays and they can have lots of fun decorating them. You can use any nut butter you like. If I’d had it I would have used almond I think as it works well with lemon, but the cashew is also pretty good – you get a hint of cashew but it doesn’t over power the lemon flavour and i complements the chia seeds nicely. These could be modifed with other flavours too – ginger, almond (using almond extract and butter), cinnamon – the world is your flavour oyster!

1 1/4 cups White spelt flour / gluten-free flour blend / Rice Flour
1 tsp Baking powder
1/4 tsp Himalayan rock salt
2/3 cup Cashew butter (or almond butter)
3/4 cup Coconut palm sugar / raw unrefined sugar
1/4 cup Almond milk, or other non dairy milk (soya milk, rice milk, coconut milk)
1 – 2 tsp Natural lemon extract
Zest of 1 lemon
1/4 cup Chia seeds

If you are icing them – raw unrefined icing sugar and lemon juice

Preheat oven to 175 C. Sieve the flour, baking powder, and salt into a small bowl. Beat the cashew butter and sugar together until well combined (ideally use a hand beater, but if not then just stir a lot!). Beat in the milk until fluffy, followed by the chia seeds and lemon extract and zest. Stir in the dry mix with a spoon (or the beaters on a slow speed) until just combined. The dough will probably be quite crumbly. Gather it together with your hands and knead into a ball. At this point if the dough seems too dry then add a tablespoon of warm water. You don’t want the dough to be too moist, but it does need to be handleable. I found it best to leave the dough a bit crumbly and just roll out small amounts at a time. If your nut butter was very runny you may need to chill the dough before continuing. The dough can be kept in the fridge for up to 2 days if wrapped well so you can make this in advance if necessary.

Roll out the dough until it’s a few mm thick and then cut out using cutters of your choice. You will probably need to use a palette knife to carefully move the biscuits to a greased baking tray. Bake in the oven for 12 – 15 minutes. I like my biscuits very well done so I tend to leave them in as long as possible! 🙂 They will be a bit soft when you remove them so allow them to cool for 5 mins on the tray, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Once cool mix up some icing – use enough lemon juice to create a pipeable paste and then use a piping bag to decorate the biscuits. If you don’t have a piping bag just use a small plastic sandwich bag – out the icing in to one corner then snip the end of the corner off and you can use it as a piping bag. Allow to set and then enjoy with a cup of tea!

Lemon Chia Muffins (dairy-free, gluten free)

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I’ve got a bit of a busy weekend and my kitchen cupboards are woefully bare so I wanted to see what I could whip up that wouldn’t take long and used what I had left in the fridge and cupboard. These muffins are the result!  It’s been such lovely weather this week here that I was really in the mood for something light and refreshing and something lemony seemed to fit the bill. These muffins use courgette but don’t let that scare you – you really can’t taste the courgette. It gives them a lovely moistness though and quite a cool greenish hue! 🙂 Chia seeds are my egg replacer of choice here – they work really well in muffins and they’re packed full of goodness so there’s an added bonus there. These take only a few minutes to make so are perfect for a busy saturday afternoon and would be great for a picnic.

200g Courgette (grated – you can peel it if you want but I don’t bother)

2 tbsp Chia seeds + 6 tbsp water

120g Unrefined golden caster sugar (you can substitute this for 100g honey/sweet freedom/agave)

Zest of 1 Lemon

150g Rice flour

50g Ground almonds

2 tsp Baking powder

1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of soda

1/4 tsp Himalayan rock salt

Golden icing sugar

a few drops of freshly squeezed lemon juice

Chia seeds for decoration

Preheat the oven to 180 C. Put the 2 tbsp of chia seeds and 6 tbsp water in a bowl, give them a good stir and leave to soak until the chia seeds have absorbed the water (this may take up to 10 mins and they will end up jelly-like). Put the sugar (or sugar substitute) in a bowl and add the soaked chia seeds and mix well. Add the lemon zest and grated courgette and mix with a fork. Add the flour, ground almonds, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt and mix well. If using sugar the mixture may be a bit dry, add 1 – 2 tbsp water if so. Spoon the mixture into muffin cases in a muffin tin (this should make approx 12 small muffins) and place in the oven for 30 – 40 mins until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out pretty much clean.These muffins are quite moist so there may still be some mixture on the skewer. Allow to cool in the tin for 5 mins then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

To make the icing mix the golden icing sugar with a few drops of lemon juice (to taste) and water until a smooth paste is formed. Wait until the muffins are totally cool before icing, then ice and sprinkle with chia seeds. These muffins can be frozon before being iced and will last a few weeks in the freezer (just ensure they’re inside a plastic bag or container to prevent freezer burn!).

Enjoy! 🙂

Fun Fairy No-dairy Cakes – for you and the kids (or just you..!)

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Everyone loves a fairy cake don’t they? And I bet you all remember the first time you made them with mum, or dad, or gran or the cat! 😉 I certainly do and whenever I see them now they take me right back to those days – the excitement of watching them rise in the oven, getting to lick the bowl, and the best bit – icing and decorating them! So I thought, as spring is in the air, Easter is coming up, and school holidays are on the horizon that it was about time to post a fun recipe for fairy cakes that’s dairy free and low gluten for you to make with the kids. It’s not just for kids though – I don’t have kids and I still loved making them (not sure what that says about me though 😉 ) and better yet they’re only about 125 kcals each!

These went down well with my tasters Colette (from Pure Form Fitness Kitchen) and her hubby Rod, “better than normal cupcakes” apparently :). My Gran (who is 97 and an amazing baker) told me it was the best cake she’d tried so I take that as a good thing 🙂 See what you all think 🙂

1 cup of non-dairy milk (I used Soya milk but you could use almond milk or coconut milk if you prefer)
1 tsp Cider apple vinegar
1 1/4 cups Spelt flour
2 Tbsp Cornflour
3/4 cup Raw unrefined sugar/ coconut palm sugar
3/4 tsp Baking powder
1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp Himalayan rock salt
1/3 cup Olive oil
2 1/4 tsp Vanilla extract
Raw golden icing sugar/normal icing sugar – enough to ice them!
Juice of half a lemon (if you want lemony icing)
Decorations – mini eggs, flake, smarties, your choice of non-dairy chocolate, sugar balls etc
Kids (optional 😉 )

Preheat oven to 350 F. Put the soya milk and vinegar together in bowl and whisk together, then leave to curdle for a few minutes. Add the soya milk mixture, oil, sugar and vanilla extract to a large bowl and mix together. Sieve the flour, cornflour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt into the liquid mixture and stir well until no large lumps remain. Pour into cupcake liners in a muffin pan – this should make approximately 15 cakes. Place in the oven for 20 – 25 minutes until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Once done place on a wire rack to cool.

Easter fairy cakes 🙂

Wait until they’re really cool to ice them. Mix up some icing using the icing sugar and a few drops of fresh lemon juice (if desired) and water until you get a paste-like consistency. Ice the cakes and then let the fun begin – decorating! The world is your oyster – you can do whatever you like. For Easter why not try making some little chocolate birds nests or flowers, or you can have a go at a little bunny. To make the ears slice the top off one of the cakes (inevitably you will have one that has risen too high so you can use that) and carve into ear shapes. Ice lightly and then stick on with more icing. They tend to flop a bit but I kinda like that! 🙂 Then eat!