Tag Archives: home made snacks

Yummy mummy! Dark choc and ginger cookies (low gluten and dairy free!)

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You may have noticed a certain penchant for cookies and biscuits lately? what can i say? I just love this simple recipe and how easy it is to customise it with whatever flavours you like 🙂

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So this weekend Mother’s Day and the return of my lovely friend from holiday inspired me to bake some more biscuits for both of them 🙂 Both are fans of the combo of ginger and dark chocolate and they work brilliantly with these cookies. I also had some fun with a cool set of letter cutters (I’m such a child!).

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You will need:

2 cups Spelt flour or gluten-free flour mix

1 cup Unrefined Icing sugar

6 oz Dairy-free margarine (get the best quality you can)

A handful of crystallised ginger

A handful of dairy free chocolate (I used Willie’s chef’s drops)

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Pre-heat the oven to 180 C. Put the margarine in a large mixing bowl, sieve the flour and icing sugar in and cream it together. Try not to over mix but make sure the margarine is properly mixed with the dry ingredients. Chop the ginger and chocolate into small pieces and add to the mix. Once it’s formed a dough wrap in cling film and chill for 30 mins (optional). If you find the dough is too sticky then add some more flour.

Roll the dough out and use cutters to cut your biscuit shapes and transfer to a greased baking tray. I found that this dough worked best as a thick biscuit (about half a cm). If you don’t want to roll it then take small balls and flatten on to the baking tray. Bake in the oven for 10 – 12 mins or until as brown as you like them (I like my biscuits bordering on burnt so I kept them in a little longer! 🙂 ).

If you have some letter cutters (or you’re handy with a knife and can freehand them) then you can have fun spelling stuff in biscuit form! 😉

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Lemon Drop Shortbread Biscuits (gluten and dairy free and oh so yummy!)

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As we move from winter in to spring my thoughts turn to lighter bakes and lemon always features highly in my list of spring and summer baking yumminess!Once again this is the result of a little seed planted in my head by my good friend Colette (anyone would think she had a bit of a thing for these biscuit recipes… 😉 ).

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This is super-easy and fun – perfect to make for the kids and can be done pretty quickly after school or on a sunday afternoon. Equally yummy for adults too though! 🙂

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You will need:

2 cups Spelt flour or gluten-free flour mix

1 cup Unrefined Icing sugar

6 oz Dairy-free margarine (get the best quality you can)

zest of 2 small Lemons

1 tbsp fresh Lemon juice

Dairy- free (or non dairy free if you want!) Lemon curd – it will depend how much you use but less than half a jar should do it 🙂

Pre-heat the oven to 180 C. Put the margarine in a large mixing bowl, sieve the flour and icing sugar in and cream it together. Try not to over mix but make sure the margarine is properly mixed with the dry ingredients. Add the zest and lemon juice and combine it well. Once it’s formed a dough wrap in cling film and chill for 30 mins (optional). If you find the dough is too sticky then add some more flour.  Once chilled, make small balls of dough (approx 1 inch diameter) and pop them on a greased baking tray. Push them down to flatten them and use your thumb to create a deep hollow in the centre. Prick the bottom of the hollow with a fork.

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Bake for 8 minutes. Then remove from the oven and spoon in a small amount of lemon curd in to each hollow.

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Bake for a further 2 minutes or so, or until golden. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the tray. Be very careful when you remove them from the oven as the curd will be molten! Avoid the temptation to eat them straight away (trust me on this one!), just allow them to cool a little before you tuck in! 🙂

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Simple Chocolate and Raspberry Pudding Recipe

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This is a simple dessert recipe marrying two of my favourite flavours – raspberry and chocolate! Tastes like it shouldn’t be as healthy as it is! 🙂

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The chocolate part of this recipe is this awesome chocolate pudding from Colette’s Fitness Kitchen. Check out the original recipe on her site, but I’ve copied it below for you for ease too (I’ve omitted the orange extract for this pud) 🙂

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Raspberry layer

17g fresh Raspberries

1 1/2 tbsp Cornflour

2 1/2 tbsp of raw unrefined Caster sugar

1 1/2 tbsp cold Water

Put all the ingredients in to a small pan. Stir well until the flour is dissolved whilst heating gently. Bring to a boil and then reduce the heat and allow it the mixture to thicken (probably about 5 minutes). Remove and pour straight in to ramekins and set to one side. Now on to the chocolate pud bit!

Chocolate pud

1oz Cocoa butter
3 tbsp Cocoa powder
2 tbsp Pure protein powder (vanilla)
½ Avocado
Agave syrup to taste

Melt the cocoa butter gently on the hob or in the microwave. Mix the cocoa in until well combined. Add the avocado and blend until smooth (a wand blender works best). Mix in the protein powder and agave to taste. When smooth transfer to the ramekins and spread a layer on top of the raspberry mixture. Place in the fridge to cool and then serve with a dusting of cocoa powder

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Cherry, macadamia, coconut and white chocolate shortbread biscuit recipe :)

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Ok, I think I need new friends, or maybe I need ones that don’t have such great ideas…. Once again I find myself in my kitchen, baking biscuits at nearly 11pm….Definitely worth it though (thank you my lovely friend Colette from Colette’s Fitness Kitchen for planting yet another seed in my head for some scrummy biscuits!).

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So it’s the same biscuit recipe as before but this time I’ve added in:

approximately 100g Dried cherries

approximately 75g Macadamia nuts

100g of good quality white chocolate (omit this if you want it dairy free – or better yet replace with dairy free dark chocolate! yummo!)

a handful of dessicated coconut!

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Chop the cherries, nuts and chocolate fairly small and then add all of the ingredients in to the dough at the end and ensure they’re mixed well throughout. You can just make little round dollops of these, or you can roll them out (gently!) and use a cutter as I’ve done.

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They will be bit thicker so may need longer in the oven. Enjoy! 🙂

Oh and I should say… they are also yummy with the raspberry icing on…! 🙂

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Give the gift of yumminess this valentine’s day – quick gift idea!

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These valentine’s biccies would make a fab present for the one you love 🙂 Whip up a batch of normal or coconut biccies, with or without icing and pop a load in a cellophane bag. Tie with a pretty ribbon and voila! One lovely home made gift of love! IF you can bear to give them away! 🙂

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Coconut Dairy-free Valentine’s day shortbread biccies! :)

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Apparently I’m very suggestable… which is why I found myself in my kitchen at 11pm on a Monday night making more biscuits! What, I hear you cry? has she not made enough biscuits already! Well no, apparently not! A very dear friend, who shall remain nameless (though her name begins with a C, has an o, two l’s and a couple of e’s and t’s in it…….) suggested to me this evening that those valentine biscuits would be even better with some dessicated coconut in them… now I’m a massive coconut fan and though it pains me to admit when she’s right… she was right, in fact she was damn right!

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I went straight home and whipped up a batch! (well after a trip to the local shops for some ingredients!)…. and wow are they good! Seriously you need to try this! I think they’ll work brilliantly with the raspberry icing too – I just ran out of icing sugar so couldn’t ice them tonight!

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So it’s the same recipe as before  ( i halved it this time) with some dessicated coconut added

2 cups Spelt flour or gluten-free flour mix

1 cups Unrefined Icing sugar

6 oz Dairy-free margarine (get the best quality you can)

Approx 1/2 cup (to be honest I just shook a load in from the tub but just try a little at a time and keep working it in until it’s evenly spread throughout the dough!)

Pre-heat the oven to 180 C. Put the margarine in a large mixing bowl, sieve the flour and icing sugar in and cream it together. Try not to over mix but make sure the margarine is properly mixed with the dry ingredients. Add the dessicated coconut as the dough starts to come together and ensure it’s evenly distributed throughout. Once it’s formed a dough wrap in cling film and chill for 30 mins. If you find the dough is too sticky then add some more flour.  Once chilled, roll out and use a biscuit cutter to cut whatever shape you have. Sprinkle with a little raw sugar if you like and place on a greased baking tray and bake for 8 – 10 mins, or until golden. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the tray.

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A host of Valentine’s treats! Dairy-free shortbread biccies with natural pink raspberry icing

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I got a little over-excited in the biscuit-cutter section of the cake shop and end up with a loast of new valentine’s cutters! So here, for you, is a feast of valentine’s biccies for the one you love (in my case, that’s me! ha ha!) 🙂

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All the biscuits are based on the same biscuit recipe which I’ve posted before – here but here it is again for ease. This makes LOADS of biscuits so you may want to halve the amount to start with.

4 cups Spelt flour or gluten-free flour mix

2 cups Unrefined Icing sugar

12 oz Dairy-free margarine (get the best quality you can)

Pre-heat the oven to 180 C. Put the margarine in a large mixing bowl, sieve the flour and icing sugar in and cream it together. Try not to over mix but make sure the margarine is properly mixed with the dry ingredients. Once it’s formed a dough wrap in cling film and chill for 30 mins. If you find the dough is too sticky then add some more flour.  Once chilled, roll out and use a biscuit cutter to cut whatever shape you have. Sprinkle with a little raw sugar if you like and place on a greased baking tray and bake for 8 – 10 mins, or until golden. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the tray.

Cutting and Decorating!

You can use any cutters you like but I had the pleasure of trying out all my new valentine’s ones! It was such fun! For most of the biccies I just sprinkled with raw sugar. I had a wonderful set of hearts that decrease in size so I had a lot of fun with those.

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Then I also had some with lovely little messages stamped in them.

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Those were all plain, but for other’s however I made some pink icing using raw icing sugar and raspberries. Simply pop a handful of raspberries into a fine mesh sieve and using the back of a spoon crush them through the sieve. You will end up with a lovely raspberry puree. Don’t throw away the seeds and pulp left in the sieve, you can whack this in to your next smoothie! 🙂 Use this, instead of water, to make your icing. I simply used raw icing sugar (you can use normal icing sugar if you prefer) and the raspberry puree. I added a little at a time until I had the consistency I wanted. If you want it runnier, add a little water, if you want it less pink then add more icing sugar and water down the puree a little and just experiment!

For these adorable ‘his and hers’ jigsaw hearts I used a piping bag to pipe a thin line of slightly darker icing around the edges and then filled the middle! You could use white icing to pipe names on each half. Allow to set and then share with the one you love 🙂

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I then had a go at just smothering the little hearts in icing – yum!

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And finally (for the icing fun) I had a go at filling in the messages on the shortbreads. This was super fiddly but I think it looks fab! I used a cake skewer dipped in the icing to fill the letters!

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Valentine’s day wouldn’t be valentine’s day without a bit of chocolate! So I had a go with that too! I just melted some high quality, dairy free chocolate and filled the letters with it in the same way as the icing. This was messy and didn’t work out quite so well but I think with a bit of practice it will! 🙂

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Finally I made some little double hearts. Once again I piped an icing border around them and then I filled the centre with chocolate.

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Scrummy Cinnamon Quinoa Porridge Recipe – Comfort brekkie :)

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I fancied something a bit different for brekkie this morning as I’ve been slightly overdosing on the homemade granola lately! I’ve had a real hankering for quinoa too so I thought I’d sort out both issues in one fell swoop and make some yummy quinoa porridge. It’s very simple and very delicious! If you don’t like cinnamon just leave it out 🙂

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1/2 cup Quinoa

1 cup coconut/almond/soya milk (I used coconut milk today because I happened to have it!)

1/2 tsp coconut oil (not essential but adds a nice smoothness)

1 tbsp nut butter (again, not essential but adds flavour and smoothness) – I used almond butter today

1 tso Cinnamon

Toppings of your choice (I used nuts, dried fruit, coconut and apple compote)

Drizzle of date syrup / sweet freedom if desired

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Put the quinoa and milk into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Add in the cinnamon and put a lid on it and simmer gently for 10 – 15 minutes (until the quinoa has absorbed the liquid and is tender – add more milk if necessary). Half way through stir in the coconut oil and nut butter. Once the quinoa is tender spoon into a bowl. This amount will do one large portion or two small ones. It keeps in the fridge for a few days so you can save some if you want ( I confess, I ate it all!).

Add your desired toppings. I added a dollop of apple compote, toasted almonds and pistachios, dessicated coconut and some dried mixed berries (goji, blueberry, cranberry and golden raisins). Finally add a drizzle of date syrup if you like. Then enjoy! 🙂 This will definitely set you up for the day! Healthy and filling and absolutely scrummy 🙂

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Bananarama! Banana bread recipes :)

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A glut of over-ripe bananas led to a bit of banana bread making so I thought I would re-post these two recipes. I’ve had a bit of fun with banana bread recently and a very good friend and I have done a blind banana bread tasting – 4 banana breads (hers and mine) so I’ll be posting the results of that soon! In the meantime though here are my two recipes 🙂

The first recipe is a dairy free, low gluten (spelt) banana bread and the second one is a modification of my  friend Colette’s mum’s recipe (modified to replace butter with oil and a few other little additions of my own) which does contain eggs (but these could be substituted out for apple puree).  Either of these recipes could have nuts added to them – walnuts would work particularly well, and if you’re feeling naughty you could throw in some dark chocolate chunks too!

Dairy free Banana Bread:

2 cups wholemeal spelt flour
1 cup coconut palm (or any unrefined) sugar
1/4 cup and 2 tbsps almond oil or olive oil
3 ripe bananas, mashed
1/4 cup soya milk mixed with 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp himalayan rock salt

Preheat oven to 350 F / 175 C. Line and grease a small loaf tin (approximately 8 inches x 4 inches).

Mix the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, allspice and salt together in a large bowl. In a separate bowl mix the oil and sugar together until well combined. Add the mashed bananas and the soya milk (to which vinegar has been added) and the vanilla extract. Add this mix to the flour mixture and stir well. Pour into the loaf tin and place in the oven for an hour, or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Once cooked remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin for 5 mins then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Colette’s mum’s modified banana bread:

2 cups white spelt flour
1 cup coconut palm (or any unrefined) sugar
1/4 cup and 2 tbsps almond oil or olive oil
4 ripe bananas, mashed
2 large eggs
1 tsp baking soda                                                                                                                      1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice
1 tsp himalayan rock salt

Preheat oven to 350 F / 175 C. Line and grease a small loaf tin (approximately 8 inches x 4 inches).

In a large bowl mix the oil and sugar together until well combined, then add the mashed bananas and vanila extract. In a separate bowl mix the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, allspice and salt together.  Add half of this mix to the wet ingredients and mix well. Then add one egg and mix until combined. Add the rest of the flour mixture, stir well and add the final egg. Mix until well combined. Mix the bicarbonate of soda in 1/4 cup of hot water and stir in to the mixture. Pour into the loaf tin, sprinkle some unrefined coconut sugar over the top and place in the oven for an hour, or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Once cooked remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin for 5 mins then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

 

Oh So Simple Apple Compote Recipe

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I confess, I have a problem. I am utterly addicted to apple compote. I have it with my homemade granola for brekkie, I have it with co yo for a lovely comforting dessert and I have it cold out the fridge for a mid-arvo snack!  I have posted this before when I posted my mincemeat and apple festive compote but I thought it was worth a post in it’s own right!

Never, ever, buy a store bought compote unless you can help it. They’re so simple to make and unless you’re careful about what you buy you are basically just buying pure unrefined sugar!

The apple compote is super simple! Just peel and core some bramley apples (as many as you want to eat!), chop small and put in a saucepan with a tablespoon of water. Gently bring to the boil, add a lid and simmer on a low heat until the apple is all mushy! I like it just like this, but if you want it sweeter then add some raw sugar while you cook them. Stir occasionally to stop the apple sticking and make sure it doesn’t boil dry (just add a little more water if it does). Once cooled transfer to a jar and store in the fridge for up to a week (mine never lasts that long!). You can also freeze it in batches too :)

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