Tag Archives: home made snacks

Crunchy Granola Bars

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I’ve been needing a mid-afternoon pick me up lately and as I’m off the ‘Willies’ (chocolate, that is! :)) I thought I’d have a go at creating a crunchy, granola snack bar. My first attempt ended up as a chewy breakfast kinda bar (and although I don’t like it as much I will post the recipe as some of my tasters loved it even if I didn’t!). So I went back to the baking tray and came up with this little beauty 🙂 Totally detox friendly! 🙂

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500g Spelt porridge oats (the whole ones, not flakes) or Jumbo porridge oats

350g mixed nuts of your choice (I used almonds, pistachios and cashews)

100g Pumpkin seeds

100g Sunflower seeds

50g Chia seeds

50g Linseeds

200g dried fruit (I used blueberries, cranberries and banana chips this time)

1 tso cinnamon

250 – 350g Sweet Freedom (light or dark)

Preheat the oven to 150 C. Start by placing the spelt flakes in a baking tray and put in the oven to toast for approx 20 mins, until brown. Place the nuts in a dry frying pan and toast over a medium heat until they start to turn brown. Once the spelt and nuts are toasted add to a large bowl. Add in all the other ingredients, except the sweet freedom. Mix well and then start to drizzle in the sweet freedom. Keep going until you have a sticky mixture. It needs to start to hold together, but be careful not to add too much. Keep stirring well.

Turn the oven up to 200 C. Spread the sticky mixture out on to a baking tray covered in baking parchment. Arrange the mixture to the thickness you want for your bars, 1 – 2cm works well. Compress it down as much as you can. Place in the oven for up to 10 mins until it goes a lovely golden brown. Keep an eye on it as it can burn. As you take it out use the back of a spoon to compress the mixture again and leave to start to cool. It will not hold together at this point so don’t try to cut it! Keep an eye on it as it cools, once it starts to hold together you can divide it in to bars. It should be cool enough to snap. Peel it away from the baking parchment and put it upside down on a wire rack to cool. Keep an eye on it and move the pieces regularly or they will stick! Once totally cool it should be hard and crunchy. Pop it in an airtight tin and it will keep for ages! 🙂

 

Fruit and Nut Cookies – gluten, dairy, fat and sugar free! omg!

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I’m now mid week in to the first week of this amazing detox from Pure Form Fitness. I’ve done this programme before and I just love the energy it gives me and the results it achieves without leaving me feeling deprived or hungry. I also love the way it inspires me to create detox-friendly things to keep any rogue cravings at bay! These liitle cookies just sum up all of that! Fun and easy to make, delicious to eat and 100% detox friendly – just perfect with my afternoon cup of rooibos tea 🙂

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You can use any nuts and fruits you like but these are the ones I had in my cupboard and they seem to work well. If you substitute the fruit go for large, juice dried fruits like figs and dates, not things like blueberries etc.

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125g Almonds

75g Brazil nuts

40g Dried coconut flakes

85g Dried Prunes (or dates)

45g Dried apricots

20g Pumpkin seeds

15g Sunflower seeds

zest of 1/2 Lemon

1 tbsp freshly pressed Apple juice (or prune juice)

Preheat the oven to 150 C and line a baking tray with baking parchment.

Place everything in a food processor and pulse until the nuts and fruit are finely chopped and the mixture starts to come together. Add a little more juice if you find it’s too dry. You can either make small balls of the mixture and then flatten them on to a baking tray, or if you want pretty little shapes like my flower-shaped biccies then line a baking tray with baking parchment and tip the mixture in to it. Flatten the mixture down. I found the easiest way was to use a piece of baking parchment and then apply pressure with a palette knife or my hands. You want it to be about 5mm thick and well compressed. Use a biscuit cutter to cut out shapes and carefully transfer to another lined baking tray.

Bake in the oven for 15 minutes, or until firm, then cool on a wire rack. They will be a little pliable when removed, but as they cool they will harden.

Eat with a lovely cup of tea! 🙂

If you’re feeling decandent you can also add a layer of peanut butter and make a cookie sandwich! omg! 🙂

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Nothing says homemade like…. homemade dairy free shortbread hearts!

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Home is where the heart is and it’s certainly where these little hearts are going to stay!

A very dear and thoughtful friend gave me some lovely biscuit cutters for christmas and I’ve been dying to try them out so I thought I’d have a go at a shortbread-type of biccie. My dairy free, spelt shortbread won’t work for this as it’s not “rollable” so I’ve had to come up with something else. I usually try to avoid dairy-free margarine but in this case I’ve compromised and used it… just this once! 🙂 These are not too sweet so if you have a very sweet tooth then you may want to add a bit more sugar, but I like them just as they are 🙂

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This makes LOADS so you may want to halve the recipe!

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. 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.  Enjoy!

Festive comfort pudding (or breakfast!) Apple and mincemeat compote

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I love a hot, comforting pudding on a cold night and one of my favourites is apple compote with nuts and yoghurt. I’m also a massive mincemeat fan soI thought I’d combine the two!

The apple compote is so simple to make it’s embarrassing! 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 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. Once cooled transfer to a jar and store in the fridge for up to a week (in fact mine never lasts that long!). You can also freeze it in batches too 🙂

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For the mincemeat I use my favourite home made mincemeat recipe which I use for my mincepies. It was originally featured on the Pure form fitness kitchen – here.

Once done simply combine the two! I heat mine in the microwave for a few mins then serve with some delicious Co Yo yoghurt and toasted almonds – yummo! 🙂

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Salt and Spice and all things nice! The smallest pumpkin in the world and a yummy pumpkin seed snack!

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Well, when I asked for a small pumpkin I wasn’t expecting something quite as small as this….

But anyone who knows me knows I love a challenge so not to be thwarted I decided I’d do my best with this little munchkin of a pumpkin and lo and behold look what I managed to create! Scary eh?

So there wasn’t much meat in this little pumpkin so rather than create the pumpkin-based hallowe’en cake I had planned I decided instead to do something funky with the seeds. It’s a sweet salty treat which sounds odd but combines some wonderful autumn flavours. I adapted it from the SNOG healthy treats book.

Salty and Spicey Sweet potato, raisin, pumpkin seed yumminess!

So I started off by creating some salted roasted seeds. Take your pumpkin seeds, remove all the stringy bits of pumpkin flesh and put in a pan. For every half cup of pumpkin seeds add 2 cups of water and 1 tablespoon of salt. Bring to the boil and then simmer for 10 minutes. Drain and allow to cool slightly.

Then spread them out in one layer on a baking tray and place in an oven at 200 degrees C for anything from 5 – 15 minutes. Just keep checking them as it will depend how big the seeds are. Mine took around 8 minutes 🙂

These are yummy as they are or you can hull (de-husk) them if you really want to (I couldn’t be bothered!). Eat them just like this or use them in the next bit of the recipe.

Take 1 sweet potato and cut it into 1cm cubes. Spread on a baking tray with 2 – 3 tablespoons of the salted roasted pumpkin seeds. Add a handful of raisins and then sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of coconut palm sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon. Finally drizzle over some coconut oil (approx 2 tablespoons) and place in the oven at 190 degrees C for about 20 – 25 minutes until the sweet potato is cooked through and the sugar is caramelised. Stir occasionally.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool. Then enjoy on it’s own or spoon it over some natural yoghurt (or ice cream!). It sounds odd but trust me – the sweetness of the sweet potato and raisins go really well with the salty roasted seeds and the cinnamon adds a lovely autumnal twist! Divine and healthy too! 🙂

Happy Hallowe’en!

Chocolate hazelnut Biscotti – Dairy Free, Gluten Free and yet more chocolate!

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As the end of chocolate week draws near I thought I’d finish with this little recipe which is another I’ve had for a while and not got round to posting. These do require double baking but it’s less of a faff than you think – honest! and it’s very much worth it!  I guarantee you won’t be able to tell these apart from “normal” (gluten filled, dairy filled) chocolate biscotti and they’re perfect with a cup of coffee over the weekend 🙂

I hope you enjoy it and do let me know if you try out this recipe and what you think of it (that goes for all my recipes!).

1/3 cup Almond milk
2 tbsp Ground linseed
3/4 cup and 2 tbsp Raw unrefined coconut palm sugar
1/2 cup Almond or Hazelnut oil
1/2 tsp Vanilla extract
1/2 tsp Almond extract
1 and 1/4 cups Spelt flour (wholewheat or white) or Gluten free flour blend
1/2 cup Quinoa flour (if you don’t have this add more spelt flour)
1/3 cup Raw cocoa Powder
2 tbsp Arrowroot powder or Cornflour (also known as cornstarch in the US)
2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Himalayan rock salt
1 cup Whole, Raw Hazelnuts (these can be toasted first if you want really crunchy nuts!)

Preheat the oven to 350F/180C and grease a large baking tray very well.

In a large bowl, whisk together the milk and ground linseed for about 30 seconds. Add the sugar, oil and extracts and stir until smooth. Sieve in the flour, cocoa powder, arrowroot or cornstarch, baking powder and salt. Stir to mix and just as the dough starts to come together, knead in hazelnuts. Knead very briefly to form a stiff dough.

Transfer the dough to the baking sheet and form it into a rectangle (approx 12 inches long and 3 – 4 inches wide). Push in the nuts if they pop out! Bake for 20 – 25 minutes. It will rise and get a bit puffy and the top may start to crackle. Keep an eye on it from 20 minutes onwards as it can start to burn. Obviously remove if it starts to burn (this can be hard to see because of the chocolate colour so give it a good sniff if in doubt!) 🙂

Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 30 minutes until very firm.

Turn up the oven to 375F/190C. Carefully transfer the baked dough to chopping board and using a serrated knife, slice 1/2 inch slices. Push the knife down in one go, don’t use a sawing action as you will find the biscotti crumble. They are extremely delicate at this stage so you need to be gentle. I ended up with a fair bit of crumbling and breakage but that’s not the end of the world, it just meant I had lots of bits to taste! 🙂

Place the slices on the baking tray and bake for 12-15 minutes until brown and crispy. Don’t be tempted to over bake – they will still seem quite soft when you remove them from the oven but they will crisp up as they cool – I promise (Trust me, I’m a Dr 😉 ). Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet before transferring the slices to a cooling rack. When completely cool, store in an air tight container and enjoy with a cup of your favourite coffee 🙂

Spicy chocolate chewy cookies – dairy free, gluten free goodness

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It’s grey and windy here in the UK at the moment (well it is where I live!) so it just makes me want to have lots of warming, spicy foods and we all know how well chilli and chocolate go together so I thought it was time I wheeled out this recipe. I actually made these ages ago but just never got the chance to post the recipe. It’s modified from the amazing Isa Chandra’s recipe

1/2 cup Almond oil

1 cup Raw unrefined coconut palm sugar

1/4 cup Maple syrup

3 tbsp Almond or Soya milk

2 tsp Vanilla extract

1 and 2/3 cup Spelt or gluten free flour blend

1/2 Raw cacao powder

1/2 tsp Cinnamon

1/2 tsp Cayenne pepper

1 tsp Bicarbonate of soda

1/4 tsp Himalayan rock salt

For the topping:

1/3 cup Raw golden caster sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350 F and grease and line a baking tray (or 2!).

Put the oil, sugar, maple syrup and milk in a bowl and mix together using a fork. Add in the vanilla extract and mix well. Mix the rest of the ingredients in a large bowl and sieve in to the wet ingredients. Mix until you have a dough. The dough will be quite moist and sticky.

Put the topping ingredients on a plate and mix together.

Take small, walnut sized, balls of the dough and pat into the topping sugar to make discs about 2 inches across. Make sure they are well covered in sugar. Put them on to the baking tray with the sugar facing up. Cook for 10 – 12 minutes until they are crackly on the top and have spread a little. Allow to cool on the baking tray for 5 mins then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Enjoy! 🙂

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Super healthy chocolately goodness – dairy free, sugar free just not actually free!

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Continuing my chocolatey theme I thought today I’d leap in with my current favourite chocolate treat. I’ve shared this delight before but not in it’s chocolate form! This stuff is amazing and such a blessing for anyone trying to avoid dairy (for whatever reason) but still wanting something yoghurt/mousse-like in their diet.

It’s Coyo! the raw chocolate variety 🙂 It’s basically just coconut milk and raw chocolate! It’s great on it’s own or really good with some fresh berries 🙂

Chocolate week! the healthy (healthier) way… :)

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It’s “Chocolate week” this week apparently! Hurrah I hear you cry! 🙂

So in order to celebrate one of my favourite things I wanted to share some chocolatey goodness with you all. Sadly my kitchen is still in a state of disarray (tile dramas!) so I haven’t been able to create anything new but it offers the perfect chance to go back to some old favourites. So here, just for you all, are a few of my favourite chocolate creations:

These are naughty, but not too naughty…. They’re best served hot so the chocolate oozes out of them…. hmmmmmm

Chunky Cherry Chocolate Loaves

This has to come a close second. It was originally featured on the fab Pure Form Fitness Kitchen blog and it’s the Ultimate Chocolate Dessert. The spelt chocolate brownies (which are also used for the valentine Brownie Love Bites) are, in my humble opinion, out of this world, especially with the sauce on it (which you can make thicker and as more of an icing if you choose….)

You can’t beat a bit of simplicity and these Raw Chilli Chocolates certainly fit the bill. They’re so easy and quick to make, full of antioxidants and simply divine!

Another recipe featured on Pure Form Fitness Kitchen, is my Chocolate Treat Bar. These are fab – full of goodness, full of chocolate but still healthy! These are my go to bar if I’ve had a big work out day or if I’m just having a chocolate craving! 100 times better than any pre-packaged cereal bar and you can use whatever seeds (or nuts) and dried fruit you like in them.

I’m going to leave it at that for now, before we all pass out from a chocolate induced high! But as it’s chocolate week ALL week I’m going to keep on posting a few more chocolatey delights as the week goes on so watch this space! 🙂

Chocolate Buckwheat Crispies – gluten and dairy free

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This will probably be my last ‘baking’ blog for a while as I’m now in Indonesia for 2 months working on my primate conservation project (to find out what I’m doing check out www.nancypriston.com). There may be some food posts but I definitely won’t be cake making! 🙂 I meant to post his before I left but ran out of time, so here goes!

I’ve been having a play with buckwheat lately! I haven’t had much success cooking it so was looking for other ways to use it. My friend Colette gave me a recipe for making buckwheat crunchies so I thought I’d use them in a chocolate-based snack recipe! I’m pleasantly surprised with the results! I’m still not too sure about the buckwheat but so far it’s the best I’ve come up with!

It’s fairly straightforward but first off you need to make your buckwheat crunchies. Purchase some raw buckwheat groats (grains/kernels/whatever they’re called!) from the local health food store. You need to soak these over night – use 3 times as much water as buckwheat. Rinse really well in the morning and drain. Then spread them out on greaseproof paper and either pop them in your dehydrator if you have one, or in the oven on low heat. They will need a couple of hours. When they’re done they will be crispy and crunchy.

You can eat these as they are (in fact I quite like them sprinkled on fruit and soya yoghurt for brekkie to give some crunch) but you can also use them to create these yummy chocolate treats!

I made two versions:

Chocolate topped crispie

1/2 cup Coconut butter (you need the proper butter, not the oil – you can get it here. Nb other brands call themselves butter but are actually the oil – you need one that uses the coconut flesh)

1/2 cup raw Cacao powder

2 cups Buckwheat crunchies

1/4 cup Cacao nibs

1/8 cup Chia seeds

squirt of Sweet freedom (adjust to taste)

For the topping:

equal quantities of cacao powder and coconut butter (to make enough to cover the crispies to whatever depth you want!)

squirt of sweet freedom (adjust to taste)

Gently melt the coconut butter in the microwave or in a pan until it is runny. Mix all the ingredients in together and stir well. Line a tin or tupperware box with greaseproof paper and push the mixture in to it to the desired thickness. Then in another bowl melt the coconut butter for the topping and mix with the cocoa powder and sweet freedom. Pour on to the top. Chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Almond Cherry Chocolate Crunchies

1 cup Buckwheat crunchies
1 cup raw Cacao powder
1 cup soaked Almonds (soak in water for as long as you gave time for – ideally overnight)
1/2 – 1 cup Coconut butter (not oil)
1/4 Sweet freedom (or less – to taste)
2 tbsp Pure protein powder (vanilla)
1/2 cup dried Cherries/cranberries/goji berries

Once you have the buckwheat crunches and soaked almonds ready it only takes a few minutes to make these. First blitz the almonds in a food processor – just a few pulses to chop them up a bit and place to one side. Then gently melt the coconut butter and add the cacao powder and sweet freedom. Mix to a paste and stir in the protein powder, buckwheat and almonds, finally gently stir in whatever fruit you are using. Line a tin or tupperware box with greaseproof paper and push the mixture in to it to the desired thickness. If you find the mixture isn’t holding together melt a little more coconut butter and pour over the top. Chill for 30 mins then slice and enjoy!

🙂