Apple, cinnamon and sultana tart from Patisserie Valerie, Sheffield.
I’ve only ever ogled the pastires and cakes from outside the window of Patisserie Valerie before - but I decided to treat myself today. Unfortunately all it says on the counter is “Apple Tart” not “beware - filled with sultanas!” so I had to pick all of those out (raisins & sultanas are the devil’s food), but other than that it was scrumptious. :3
Baked sweet potato with natural almond butter, cinnamon and a drizzle of maple syrup.
(I think this is my new favourite food. It’s simply wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.)
Dark Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Cake Pops. (Vegan!!)
This is the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth - without a DOUBT. Do you ever get to that point where you’re super full, but you could always find room for that certain food that’s absolutely irresistible? These pops would be that food. Oh sweet Lord.
We (Rosie, Viv and myself) made a “peanut butter birthday cake” (we changed the egg replacer for flaxseed) and once cooled, crumbled it all up and mixed it together with a buttercream made from peanut butter, vanilla extract, icing sugar and some vegan margarine. Some of these pops even have a few dark chocolate chips inside, too. :3
After mixing the crumbs and cream together, we made lots of cake balls, dipped some sticks (and straws once we’d run out of sticks) in to melted chocolate, then in to the balls, and refrigerated for a little while until the sticks were firmly in the cake. After that, we coated each ball in melted chocolate and candy hearts or pink edible glitter!
They are a bit fiddly to make but so, so worth it. Ughhhh.
Sticky Toffee Pecan Pudding. (vegan!!)
This is one of the gooiest, most decadent, most DELICIOUS puddings I have ever had - vegan or not. I can’t get over how good this was. Every single family member loved it too. Traditionally this dessert is very heavy and incredibly unhealthy, but Angela has done it again and cut the fat and sugar without cutting the flavour. I used maple syrup in place of brown rice syrup and half the vanilla for the sticky, gooey sauce but it still worked perfectly.
Faultless. That’s how I’d describe this dessert. Faultless.
The recipe can be found here!
As mentioned in the post prior, today is my Ma’s birthday!
She asked for a tuna pizza for dinner and a pavlova for pudding. So this of course, is that pavlova. I’ve never made a meringue before and didn’t expect much as meringues are known for turning out horribly wrong due to the slightest mistake, but it came out perfectly!
I topped the beast of the meringue with vanilla and lemon rind whipped cream, chopped strawberries, raspberries and a dusting of icing sugar. My Ma loved it, so I think all in all, it went down pretty darn well. :D
“Banana Bowl with Peanut Butter Sauce.”
I don’t know what else to call it! Basically, I wanted a dessert after dinner, and normally a tangerine is fine, but I wanted something more substantial today. So I chopped up a banana and added;
- Blueberries;
- Slivered almonds;
- Brown rice puffs;
- Cacao nibs;
- Peanut butter sauce - a tsp of PB stirred into some hot almond milk, then poured over everything.
It was delicious! Somewhat random, but delicious. I have a feeling I’ll be making lots of banana bowl combinations in the future… ;D
Yup, you heard right. Isn’t it what you’ve always dreamed of? Or is that just me? Right, okay. Just me then.
Anyway. I love chocolate. Chocolate and I are romantically involved - it just gets me. Chocolate and peanut butter? Unf. But we’ll come to that another day.
So it’s vegetarian, vegan, easily made raw, soy free, refined sugar free and gluten free. And deeelicious.
What you will need;
- 1 avocado;
- 1 large banana, the riper the better;
- 3 tbsp cocoa powder;
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon;
- 1/2 tsp vanilla - to make raw, scrape a little bit out of a vanilla pod;
- And that’s it!
1. Mush the banana in a bowl with a fork until it’s like a puree, then add the avocado and do the same. Or, if you have a small food processor, whizz it all up in there. I was lazy and didn’t want to wash up the food processor so used a fork and pure woman power.
2. Add everything else and stir until combined. If it’s too thick, add a tiny amount of almond milk and stir again. This makes a very dark chocolate pudding, so add some agave to sweeten, or maple syrup, but maple syrup won’t make it sugar free! I added a tiny dash of agave and it was purrrfect. :D
3. Spoon in to two ramekins and chill for an hour or until you wish to serve them.
(As you can see, there are ~tiny clumps of unmushed fruit, due to the fork process. I’m cool with that, but if you’re fussy, definitely use a processor.)
4. Top with whatever you wish! I crumbled up some walnuts and added some cacao nibs, and that was awesome. I imagine dried fruit, more cinnamon, chocolate chips or even sprinkles would made good additions, too. :)
And voila! Two chocolate puddings. These come in at 230 calories each, with 4g protein, 44% of your dietary fibre, are high in vitamins C and B6, are packed with potassium and are also cholesterol free. Oh, and don’t forget cruelty free and environmentally friendly! ;D
Yum yum, in my tum.
EDIT: I just had a whole one (I’d only tried a few mouthfuls before) and chilling makes a huge difference. This is so decadent and rich and ugh. I want it all. Definitely my new favourite dessert. The walnuts add a great crunch, too. If I didn’t know what was in this, I wouldn’t believe it was healthy. Mmm.
A week later, and there’s still a little under a quarter of the Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheesecake left that I made for mother’s day. It’s so rich and heavy that you can only have a tiny slice at a time. I wish I’d captured a picture of the beast that it was before slices had been cut away!
It weighed just over 2kg in total. Who would’ve thought you could weight lift with cheesecakes? The photo probably doesn’t justify it’s enormity. This piece is about the size of my head. It’s one of the unhealthiest things I’ve ever made (if not the unhealthiest, haha) and according to my Ma, one of the best things I’ve ever made. So that’s all that matters. ;D
(vegan) PANCAKE DAY TIME!
I altered a few recipes to get to this one, and it made seven pancakes. They’re wholewheat, dairy-free and packed with banana. Oh, and they’re super gooey and awesome. When aren’t pancakes awesome?
I ate three and a half for dinner, and I’ll eat the rest for breakfast tomorrow. Recipe to come!
I used to really hate cooked fruit. I couldn’t understand why people would want to eat mushy, sour tasting fruit when they could eat it as it was meant to be eaten - crisp and sweet. I soon got over that. I love fruit pies and crumbles, especially my ma’s ginger pear and cranberry crumble, that just happens to be the inspiration of this recipe.
This recipe is very easy to adapt. If you don’t have frozen berries, use fresh ones and microwave for less time. Or use another fruit, like a pear or an apple. And if you don’t have a ginger nut, just use lots of oats and nuts and add some ginger in to the crumble mix.
Crumbles usually involve a ton of sugar and butter. Not this one! ;D
What you will need;
- A microwavable ramekin;
- Enough frozen berries to fill said ramekin;
- A ginger nut (or other hard biscuit/cookie the same size as the ramekin);
- Ginger and cinnamon;
- Cornstarch and brown sugar;
- Other toppings. I used shredded coconut and slivered almonds, but oats, other nuts or even more cookie crumbs would work too.
1. In your ramekin, fill it to the top with berries and microwave for a minute until they become like goo. As they heat in the microwave, they will decrease in size and so make room for the crumble topping.
2. Sprinkle in some cornstarch, brown sugar, cinnamon and ginger in to the berry goo. I used less than a 1/4 of a tsp of sugar because I like things sour, but if you don’t, you can always add more. You don’t need very much spice to really give it flavour.
3. In a separate dish, crumble up the ginger nut and add in your desired toppings and mix it all up.
4. Pour on to the berry mix and bake for 10 minutes at 200C/400F.
Pre oven…
And post-oven.
Look at that bubbling berry goodness, mmm. I’ve no idea of the calories in this, but it’s primarily fruit with other natural ingredients, so it can’t be bad for you. A cruelty free, hot, healthy dessert that tastes like it should be fat laden? Sign me up.
Ginger Berry Crumble.
Vegan, healthy and all done in 15 minutes. Recipe to come!
Packed with fruit, melt in the mouth goodness. As healthy as comfort food can get. Makes 16 brownies, 130 calories a serving.
What you will need;
- 1/6 cup virgin olive oil + 1 tbsp;
- 1 1/4 cup wholewheat flour;
- 1 tsp vanilla;
- 2 tbsp cocoa powder;
- 3 medium pears, chopped small;
- 2 tbsp maple syrup;
- 2 tsp PB;
- 1/2 tsp baking powder;
- 1/4 cup chopped almonds;
- 1/4 cup chopped walnuts;
- 1/3 cup dark chocolate chips (to make vegan, sub with vegan chips.)
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F and grease and line an 8x8 tin. In a large bowl, mix together the maple syrup, oil, vanilla and pear.
2. Sift in the flour, cocoa and baking powder. Mix all together, then add the remaining ingredients, so everything is combined. Pour in to the tin and bake for 22-27 minutes.
3. Leave to cool, as the pear provides a lot of moisture, as well as the melted chocolate chips, so it will fall apart if not left before putting in a Tupperware. But if you grab a dessert fork, eat away whilst it’s still hot and melty…
Positives -
- Very low in cholesterol and sodium.
- High in manganese.
- 12% of your dietary fibre in one brownie.
- Super tasty.
Go make ‘em.
All it is 1 large ripe banana, 8 tbsp shredded coconut, 4 tbsp cocoa powder, all blitzed up in the blender. That’s it! It tastes so good.
Oh, and put it in the fridge to cool/set overnight. Mine hasn’t set yet… as you can see.
I thought I’d need a sweetener because of the amount of cocoa in, but it tastes sweet enough already! It tastes like it should be unhealthy… but isn’t.
Snack; 1 scoop of honeycomb ice-cream (ugh, heaven), half a cup of frozen mixed berries, and half a cup of fresh red grapes and cherries.
Oh, and a few oat flakes because I wanted something crunchy. :)
I took the inspiration from Chocolate-Covered Katie. :)
She says it’s a breakfast recipe, but I needed to use up my blueberries, so made it for dinner. It was DELISH.
I altered the recipe slightly, as hers was for 2 portions, and there’s only 1 of me… but I was pretty hungry, so it’s more than just 1, but less than 2, ha.
- 1/3 cup all purpose wholemeal flour;
- 1 tsp baking powder;
- 1/2 a ripe medium banana, or the equivalent of applesauce;
- 1/3 cup water;
- 1 tsp cinnamon;
- Any additions you want! I added 1/2 cup of blueberries and a small handful of dark chocolate chips.
1.) Mix everything together, putting the additions in last, then pour onto a sprayed tray, so it doesn’t stick, and bake for 10 minutes at 420F, in an un-preheated oven.
Without the chocolate chips, this is a little under 150 calories, and ~super filling.
Before…
…After!
I put a scoop of homemade frozen berry yoghurt, a tbsp of low fat natural yoghurt and a little squirt of honey on top. If I wasn’t so full, I’d be making another one right now! :D
