Simple Chocolate Cupcakes

It's been ages since I've shared a recipe with all of you, gee I need to get back into the swing of blogging..

With the holidays upon us and my girls at home, they always seem to be hungry or wanting something to eat.  Most of the time we are healthy eaters but I always figure a treat doesn't hurt and it's homemade so it's not as bad as the bought type.  So today I made them some chocolate cupcakes. This recipe is always a favourite with my girls so I thought you might like to give too.

3/4 cup plain flour

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1/2 cup caster sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

80g butter

1/2 cup milk

2 eggs

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees celsius. Prepare 12 hole muffin pan with papers.

2. Sift all dry ingredients into a mixing bowl.

3. Make a small well in the middle of the bowl and then add the remaining ingredients.

4. Beat on low speed with electric mixer until just combined.

5. Scrape down sides of bowl and beat on medium speed for a further two minutes.

6. Place tablespoons of the mixture into 12 hole muffin tray until holes are half full.  

7. Place tray into oven for 15-18 minutes for 12 hole muffin pan.

8. Stand for 5 minutes and then turn out onto wire rack to cool.

9. Iced or leave plain if preferred.

I use a simple icing for my cupcakes of 1 cup of icing sugar, a couple of teaspoons of butter, a teaspoon of vanilla essence, a bit of boiling water and a splash of milk to make it a spreadable consistency. Enjoy. 

256/365 Citrus Coconut Cake

It feels like ages since I've posted any recipes.  This week I tried a new one using two of my all time favourite ingredients, coconut and citrus, yum. So maybe if you feel like trying something new here is the recipe just for you.

125g of unsalted softened butter

1 cup caster sugar

1 tablespoon grated lemon rind

1 tablespoon grated lime rind

2 lightly beaten eggs

1 cup of sifted self raising flour

3/4 cup of coconut

1 cup of milk

Icing sugar for dusting or for making an icing

Preheat oven to 180℃. Lightly grease and line a 10x20 cm loaf pan. Place butter and caster sugar in a large bowl and beat with an electric beater until light and creamy. Add lemon and lime rind. Add eggs, one at a time, beating between each addition until the mixture is well combined. Fold flour and desiccated coconut into the mixture, alternating with milk, until just combined.  Spoon mixture into the lined pan and smooth the surface.  Bake for 45-50 minutes or until golden and a skewer inserted comes out clean. Dust with icing sugar or like me add a citrus butter icing when the cake is cool. You can also serve the cake warm or at room temperature with a spoonful of Greek style yoghurt. 

Enjoy!!

135/365

Lunch for me is one of those meals that I have to have but I'm not always very inventive so usually end up have a sandwich which is pretty boring to have most days.  Yesterday I decided I would make a tin of white beans into a dip using this recipe.  I spread it onto some corn thins, topped with some tomato and a glass of grape juice (it's got wonderful health benefits), you have a not so boring lunch.

Do you have any yummy lunch box recipes you enjoy instead of the sandwich option?

68-69/365

A card I made for my friend who just recently celebrated a birthday.

And chocolate macaroons I made for the lunch boxes, the recipe is out of my new cookbook.

Just in case you might want to make the recipe for yourself here is the recipe for you. Enjoy.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups desiccated coconut

1 cup almond meal

3 tablespoons coconut oil, melted

1/2 cup cacao powder

1/2 cup coconut nectar

pinch pink salt

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees celsius.

Place all ingredients in a food processor and blend (or you could mix by hand).

Use dampened hands to form teaspoon sized balls of the mixture and place them on a lined baking tray.

Press them down slightly (so they don't roll around) and bake them for 15 minutes.

Allow to cool, then enjoy with your fellow cooks!!

Makes about 24

Tips

These are delicious raw, too, but if you want some crunch, cook them as described above.  also feel free to tweak them by adding goji berries or even chilli.

Sultana and sunflower cookies

Last week I shared with you a yummy biscuit recipe full of goodness and today I have another one for you.  The cupboard was bare again after the weekend, so I headed into the kitchen and made these simple biscuits to fill the tummies and lunch boxes of my family.

1 egg

1/2 cup rice bran oil (I used warmed coconut oil)

1/3 cup honey

1/2 cup dessicated coconut

11/2 cups wholemeal self-raising flour

2 tablespoons water

3/4 cup sultanas

1/3 cup sunflower seeds

Preheat oven to 180℃ fan forced.

Mix egg, oil and honey together. Add coconut and flour and mix through. Add water.

Mix in sultanas and sunflower seeds.

Line two baking trays with baking paper. Shape mixture into small balls and flatten slightly with the palm of your hand.

Bake for 12 minutes or until golden.

Another  go to recipe for a lunch box treat, full of wholesome ingredients and no refined sugar, I always like a few of these so I can bake something quick and healthy.  I hope you enjoy trying these biscuits too. Have you tried any yummy lunch box recipes lately?

Orange and fig biscuits

It seems like simply ages since I've shared a recipe, so long ago that I can't even remember when or what it was now but I did some baking today and thought it would be a nice change to see a recipe here on this little blog. On Sunday we headed back to the library for our monthly visit.  I walked around to my usual sections, craft; crochet; photography; gardening; simple living and cooking. Always on the lookout for healthy cookbooks for lunch treats I found the perfect book called 'have your cake - no butter no white flour no added sugar' There are so many great recipes in this book I know I will be trying more before I have to return it to the library. This was the recipe that I tried today.

Orange and fig biscuits

1 cup wholemeal self-raising flour

1/3 cup dessicated coconut

1/3 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup rice bran oil (I used warmed coconut oil)

1/3 cup honey

1/2 teaspoon finely grated orange rind

2 tablespoons orange juice

1/3 cup chopped dried figs

Preheat oven to 170℃ fan forced.

Mix flour, coconut and oats together.  In a separate bowl mix together oil, honey, orange rind and orange juice, then stir the mixture into the dry ingredients.  Add chopped figs.

Leave to stand for 10 minutes then roll into balls.  Press your thumb gently into the centre of each ball.

Bake for 15 minutes.

And I just had to show you my proud gardener moment.  Tonight we had Zesty Broccoli and Tomato Pasta for dinner and I didn't have to buy any of the vegetables, all I did was head into the garden and picked it fresh.  My gardening efforts are a bit hit and miss but this time I had great success with the broccoli and I'm feeling a bit chuffed, I'm ready to get some more seedlings in now!

I hope your day has been a lovely one.

Wholefood Baking

If I had to sum up the approach I like to take when it comes to our diet it would be to provide my family with foods that are organic and whole, as close to nature as possible.  When I choose a meal or a bakery item  I do my best to ensure that the ingredients I use have the least amount of processing possible.  I'm certainly not perfect and my family love sweets and cakes with icing on the top so I try not to be too strict all the time because long term I don't think it works. Food is for nourishing our bodies, as well as for enjoying and having fun with too. I wasn't always like that, over time through reading, courses and family health I have been guided along this path. I know not everyone feels the same about food and that's ok we are all different when it comes to our choices with food but for me it's something that I have become very passionate about. When I do come across people who hold the same values I love to follow  their journey and am always inspired to try new things and learn more about whole food cooking. Recently, through one of my favourite bloggers, Nikki, who is passionate about healthy food eating, I found Jude Blereau. When reading through her blog posts I discovered she was publishing a book on whole food cooking and I just knew I had to get one of them.  Just last month my local organic shop advertised her book and a book signing/information evening so I signed up straight away.  It was such a wonderful couple of hours being around like minded people, listening to Jude's food beliefs so similar to my own, eating delicious food from her book and having time just to myself was bliss.  I recently tried one of her biscuit recipes and it was delicious and I thought I would share it and perhaps you might like to try it too.

Almond, coconut and maple syrup biscuits

1 cup unbleached white spelt flour

1 cup wholemeal spelt flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

a pinch of fine sea salt

½ cup roasted almonds (skins on) or roasted hazelnuts (skins removed), finely ground but not too fine

100 g dark chocolate, finely chopped (optional)

125 ml maple syrup

125 ml coconut oil (must be liquid but not too cool or it will set)

2 teaspoons natural vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 180℃.  Line two baking trays with baking paper.

Place the flours, baking powder, salt, nuts and chocolate (if using) into a bowl and whisk together to evenly distribute the ingredients and break up any lumps - the nuts, especially, can tend to stick together due to their oil content.

Place the maple syrup, coconut oil and vanilla extract in a small bowl and whisk together.  Add to the dry ingredients and mix until it comes together.  

Scoop up 1 heaped teaspoon at a time, roll into a ball and place on a lined tray. Gently press to flatten slightly.

Bake for  12-15 minutes or until golden at the edges.  Remove from the oven and cool on the trays for 5 minutes before gently moving to a wire rack.  

Store in an airtight container in a cool, dark place for up to 2 weeks.  Be sure not to store them in the fridge as this will harden the coconut oil and damage the texture of the biscuit.

I hope you enjoy these biscuits too, perfect with a cup of tea on these cold nights.

Have a wonderful Wednesday.

Vanilla Banana Coconut Cake

I have to confess that I really love a good magazine, I've collected a quite a few lot in my day.  My tastes have changed over the years but once I enjoy a magazine I buy it for a while.  One of the magazines I've been enjoying recently is Peppermint, it's a locally based (to me) magazine and I love it's ethics.  The magazine is all about organics, natural products, being environmentally friendly, sustainability, free trade and also supports handmade. In the latest issue they share a delicious recipe that I tried and tasted and loved.  It uses coconut sugar which I had never tried before and for someone like me who loves coconut well I just had to give it a try.

Vanilla Banana Coconut Cake

2 mashed medium bananas
6 eggs separated
2 ½ cups desiccated coconut
4 tablespoons of coconut sugar
1 teaspoon OVViO Organic Vanilla Bean Powder (I just used vanilla extract)
3 tablespoons of course coconut shred
pinch natural salt

Mix egg yolks, coconut sugar, vanilla and salt in a mixer.  Add mashed banana and desiccated coconut and mix.  Put mixer bowl aside.  Stiffen egg whites in a separate bowl with mixer.  Fold stiffened egg whites into egg yolk and banana mixture.  Place mixture in a spring form cake tin lined with baking paper and oiled well with coconut oil.

Bake until golden brown at 120℃ for approximately 60 minutes.  Put a skewer in the middle of the cake to check whether it is cooked.  Sprinkle cake with shredded coconut.  ( I sliced banana and sprinkled coconut on the cake before I put it in the oven, checking occasionally to just make sure it didn't burn)

If you love coconut then you will love this cake too, enjoy.
♥

Menu Planning

Over the last couple of weeks while the girls have been on holidays I fell off the menu planning wagon, it's nice to have a bit of a break from the routine. I had a bit of a mental menu plan but I didn't make much of an effort to go out to the shops, it's not one of my favourite jobs at the best of times and not much fun for the girls to do on their holidays either but I do take them if we need to.  As part of my routine I sit down on a Sunday and work out what we'll be eating for the week, three meat dishes, three vegetarian dishes and two lunchbox snacks.  On our menu this week we'll be eating:

●Mince bolognaise with rice (a nice change from pasta)

●Satay chicken with rice and steamed vegetables

●Pizza

●Pumpkin and silverbeet penne

●Quinoa burgers with salad

●Twice baked spinach and broccoli potatoes

*Organic Anzac Biscuits

*Strawberry Banana Oat Muffins

Today I made these organic anzac biscuits for the girls to take to school. I really like using the maple syrup as an alternative to golden syrup, I also liked the fact that they had spelt flour, I like getting as much fibre as I can into our diets.  The website I got the recipe can be found here, and they have lots of other healthy recipes there worth giving a try.

Organic Anzac Biscuits

125g organic butter

2 tablespoons of organic maple syrup (or agave syrup)

1 cup organic spelt flour

1 cup organic rolled oats

1 cup organic desiccated coconut

3/4 cup organic rapadura sugar (I used coconut sugar)

2 tablespoons of water

1/2 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda

Options

½ cup organic raw macadamias or any raw nuts chopped

½ cup organic dried cranberries

Preheat oven to 175℃.  Grease or line two baking trays.  Melt the butter and maple syrup together in a saucepan over a low heat.  Mix together the flour, oats, coconut and sugar in a bowl.  Stir the water and the bicarbonate of soda into the butter and syrup mixture and then add it to the dry mixture, stir thoroughly.  Stir through macadamia nuts and cranberries if you are adding these (I just added cranberries).  Once combined, spoon mixture into balls.  Place them on the baking trays, spaced well apart.  Bake at 175℃ for about 15 minutes, or until golden.  Cool on wire racks. Enjoy!!

Are you a meal planner? Have you tried any new snack recipes lately?

Rhubarb Freeform Tart

When we went to the markets on the weekend I came home with a freshly picked bunch of rhubarb for the small sum of  $3.  My family doesn't mind rhubarb but I remember fondly having it as a child, stewed with homemade custard, so dessert was going to be a special treat for me. I went searching for a recipe and found this one and decided to give it a try.  It was good timing making this dessert because Miss 13 bought herself an ice-cream maker and wanted to try it out.  There was lots of people in the kitchen that night busily doing their bit for dessert.  It was nice little treat to have dessert during the week, usually dessert is reserved just for the weekend. I would recommend giving it a go, it was super easy and I loved the rustic look to it.

Pastry
1¼ cups plain flour
2 tablespoons sugar
80g butter chilled
Iced water
1 egg white, lightly beaten

Filling
1 orange, rind removed with a vegetable peeler (I used a zester)
1 bunch of rhubarb, washed trimmed and cut into 2cm lengths (make sure you discard the leaves as they are poisonous)
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1. Preheat the oven to 220℃.
2. To make the pastry, combine flour and sugar in a bowl.  Using your fingertips, rub in butter until mixture resembles bread crumbs.  Add enough iced water to mix to a dough.  Bring together with your fingertips and knead briefly on a lightly floured surface until smooth.  Shape the dough into a disc and cover completely in plastic wrap.  Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
3. To make the filling, remove any white pith from the rind using a small sharp knife and cut into thin strips. (You could grate it if you prefer or use a zester) Combine rind with rhubarb, 1 tablespoon of the sugar and the vanilla essence.
4. Roll out pastry to a 28cm round trimming edges if necessary.  Transfer to a baking tray and brush with some of the egg white.  Spread the rhubarb evenly over the pastry, leaving a 5cm border.  Fold the pastry border back over the fruit to cover slightly, pleating to fit. Brush pastry with remaining egg white and sprinkle with sugar.
5. Bake in a preheated oven for 30-35 minutes or until pastry is golden and rhubarb is tender.  Stand on tray for 5 minutes before serving with cream or homemade ice-cream.

Wishing all of you a sunny Saturday.  I'm off to catch up with a friend tomorrow, I can't wait.  It's been 2 years since we've seen each other, she's been my friend since we were both 15 years old, wow has time flown by.....

Maple Syrup Roasted Almonds

A couple of weeks ago I was out doing some shopping for the birthday girl when I realised it was lunch time, not wanting to stay shopping too much longer I went into the health food shop to buy myself a little snack to keep me going till lunch.  When I was in there I discovered this delicious and very moreish snack of maple roasted almonds by the Unexpected Guest. I hadn't intended on eating them all but they tasted rather good so they disappeared without me even sharing them.  I haven't seen them in any of my local stores so I did a bit of a search to see if I could make some myself.  So yesterday I made some, not quite the same but still very moreish if I do say so myself.  Here is my version of maple syrup roasted almonds.

1 cup of almonds

1½ tablespoons of maple syrup

½ - 1 tablespoon of oil (I used coconut oil)

●Preheat oven to 150℃.

●Place ingredients into a bowl to mix and then spread onto a lined baking tray.

●Bake in the oven for approximately 25 minutes depending on your oven, stirring several times.

●Let them cool for 10 minutes before putting onto a plate with some paper towels as they were a little oily.  

●Put nuts into a sealable container and enjoy.  Great for a snack or even Christmas gift for nut lovers.

Little Apple Cakes

Monday is my shopping day and Tuesday is my cooking day it's been that way for a while, some days they are swapped around but I seem to work better keeping to this routine. This Monday I did the cooking instead, my big girl had the day at home with a heavy cold.  The rule here is if you're sick you need to lie down and rest, no playing and get yourself better.  So while she rested, watching a bit of tv, a bit of reading and listening to a talking book, I did some baking in the kitchen.  On the menu for this week's lunch box treats were Carrot Oatmeal Cookies, recipe found here, and Little Apple Cakes. This recipe can be found in one of my favourite go to books, Feeding Fussy Kids.

Little Apple Cakes
1 cup wholemeal self raising flour
1 cup while self raising flour
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
⅔ cup raw sugar
2 tablespoons wheat germ
1 cup coarsely grated apple
1 egg, lightly beaten
¾ cup milk (cow or soy)
½ cup vegetable oil (I used coconut oil)

Preheat the oven to 180℃.  Line 12 patty pans with paper cases.
Sift the flours and cinnamon into a mixing bowl, and add the husks.
Stir in the sugar and wheat germ; combine then make a well in the centre.
Add the apple, egg, milk and oil.  Stir to combine; do no over beat.

Spoon mixture into the prepared pans.  Bake for 20 minutes or until cakes are springy to a gentle touch.  Lift out onto wire racks to cool.

What healthy treats have you been making lately?

♥

What to cook for dinner?

Over the last twelve months our diet has been evolving to include meat free nights.  These nights have increased to three most weeks and since starting the whole food workshop, I have been very conscious of the ingredients that are going into our meals, that they have very little processing if any.  After the recent diagnosis of my father I have become more and more aware of the fibre that we consume and also the amount of red meat too.  We love meat, my husband loves red meat so it is difficult to eliminate it completely but we do limit our intake.  So as a change to the usual red meat I would normally use when making a bolognese I used chicken instead.  I found a very simple and tasty recipe on the internet and thought you might like to give it a go too.

Chicken Bolognese
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 small carrot, grated
2 sticks celery, finely sliced (I replaced this with some peas instead)
2 garlic cloves, crushed
500g chicken mince
410g can tomato puree or tomato pasta sauce (I used tinned tomatoes)
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 cup of flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped
500g spaghetti

1. Heat oil in a frying pan over medium heat.  Add onion, carrot, celery and garlic and cook, stirring often, for 8 minutes or until vegetables are tender.  Add chicken mince and cook, stirring for 8-10 minutes or until browned.
2. Add tomato puree, basil, thyme and half the parsley.  Stir until well combined and mixture comes to the boil.  Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes.
3. Cook pasta in a large pan of boiling water according to packet directions.  Serve pasta topped with bolognese and remaining parsley.

Both of the girls enjoyed this even telling their Dad when he got home from work how nice dinner was, so it will definitely go back on the menu plan again. Enjoy.
♥