Sweet tooth

I suddenly found myself in acute need of something sweet.

1/2 ripe banana, mashed with a spoon
1,5 tbsp cashini butter (Artisana - cashew and sesame butter)
3 drops chocolate flavoured stevia
2 heaped tsp cocoa powder

Just mix it all together in a bowl. It tastes like chocolate icing. Yum!

Layered fudge

I came across Chocolate Covered Katie's blog via Hjertemat, and fell in love instantly. Her recipes are so tempting, so yummy! It truly encompasses all things chocolate-y and then some. One of the first recipes I tried from her blog was her chocolate fudge. I played around with it a bit, adding peanut butter amongst other things (which CCK actually did as well - a few weeks later) and it was absolutely delicious! Still is. And since I've played around with it a bit more, ending up with these pieces of layered fudge.



LAYERED FUDGE

5 tbsp coconut butter (I use Artisana)
3 tbsp cashew butter (Artisana)
1 very ripe banana
1 tbsp agave nectar
Pinch of salt

Place all ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth.


Then remove about 1/3 of the mixture. Add 3-5 tbsp cocoa powder (I use Navitas Naturals) and 2-3 drops chocolate flavoured or plain stevia to the 2/3 and blend until the cocoa is properly incorporated. If you want more stevia, then add according to taste. I prefer this part to be rather dark and not too sweet, as the vanilla/toffee mixture is quite the opposite.


Then add 2 drops vanilla flavoured stevia and 4 drops toffee flavoured stevia, plus a pinch of vanilla bean powder to the remaining 1/3, mixing by hand.

Spread out the chocolate mixture on some cling film and pop it in the freezer for 20-30 minutes, just enough for it to harden.


Spread the vanilla/toffee flavoured mixture over the chocolate and place in freezer or fridge until it hardens.


Then cut into pieces and enjoy! I suppose it lasts quite a few days in the fridge, but they tend to disappear rather too quickly here...



PS: As I mentioned in my previous post (in Norwegian), I've decided that this blog will be bilingual. Just like my head. ;)

Raw ice cream with chocolate sauce

Yum! Raw, healthy, dairy free, egg free (and gluten free) ice cream.



ICE CREAM

2 cups raw cashew nuts, soaked for a couple of hours
1 cup water
2/3 of a very ripe banana
8 drops liquid stevia (I use Sweet Leaf)
2 tbsp coconut oil (softened)
Pinch of salt
Peppermint extract to taste
Pinch of vanilla powder

Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. My blender isn't strong enough to get it quite as smooth as regular ice cream, but close enough. I presume you could get it smoother in a Vita-Mix or similar. But my ice cream loving (and slightly milk intolerant) husband really, really liked this! Next, place the mixture in an ice cream maker if you have, otherwise freeze it the old-fashioned, manual way. It needs to come out of the freezer 30-60 minutes before you plan to eat it.


CHOCOLATE SAUCE (well, chocolate sauce for lazy people)

3 tbsp soft coconut oil
Yacon syrup to taste
Raw cacao powder to taste
Pinch of salt

Stir together. I didn't even bother to stir until smooth; as I said, chocolate sauce for lazy people - like me.

Banana muffins

These were made today for our girl's packed afternoon meal for daycare. She's a bit of a fussy eater and so I try to be creative. These have already proved popular. They can easily be made gluten free by using gluten free oats, and can also be made without added sugar - the palm sugar isn't strictly necessary, but it tastes nice.

INGREDIENTS

A handful almonds
A handful sunflower kernels
2 handfuls rolled oats
1 dl coconut flour
1 tsp baking powder
Cocoa powder to taste
1 tbsp palm sugar
2 eggs
2 very ripe bananas
1,5 dl vanilla quark (I suppose regular quark, cottage cheese or fromage frais could be used instead, with a bit of vanilla essence)

Heat oven to 175 C. Place almonds, sunflower kernels and one handful of the rolled oats in a food processor and grind to flour. Place in a bowl along with the other dry ingredients. Mash the bananas with a fork and add to the dry mixture along with the eggs. Stir together, then add the quark and give it another stir. Distribute in muffin cases and bake for approx. 18 minutes. This recipe made 10 muffins.

Winter comfort

Winter came early in Norway this year, and to the rest of Europe for that matter, which means that some winter favourites have been recreated - without sugar. My husband and I love a cup of cocoa on cold winter nights. Here's the recipe for the one we've been making a lot of in the past few weeks. The recipe gives two large cups.

COCOA

1 tbsp cacao butter
2 tbsp coconut oil
1,5 tbsp yacon syrup
1 tsp agave nectar (or other sweeteners if you please - agave isn't all that much better than regular refined sugar)
2 heaped tbsp cacao powder
1 tbsb carob powder
A pinch of Himalaya salt
Almond milk - about 7 dl

Melt the fats over low heat, mix in the sweeteners, add the cacao and carob and whisk until smooth. Add the almond milk and gently heat. If you want to keep the ingredients raw, stop at 40C. We usually leave it a bit longer, I would guess around 60C.

More truffles

We've been away on holiday, which is why it's been quiet here the past few weeks. Now we're back, and I'm making Christmas sweets! Today's truffles were particularly good, so here's the recipe (roughly, at least).

DARK CHOCOLATE TRUFFLES

12 dates, pitted
8 unsulphured dried apricots
2 tbsp almond butter (I make my own according to this Norwegian tutorial)
A handful walnuts
A sprinkle of Himalaya salt
3 tsp yacon powder
1-2 tbsp carob powder
4 heaped tbsp cocoa powder
Coconut oil to the right consistency

As before - place all ingredients in a food processor and process until you have a smooth mixture. Roll into balls and cover with dessicated coconut, nuts or cocoa powder.

These truffles are not very sweet, but nice and chocolaty.

Chocolate truffles

Inspired by this blog post (in Norwegian), I made chocolate truffles at the weekend. They were absolutely delicious!

CHOCOLATE TRUFFLES

125 g dates
3 tbsp ground almonds (I used oven-dried leftovers from making almond milk)
1 tbsp yacon syrup
1 tbsp yacon powder
3-4 tbsp raw cocoa powder
1 heaped tsp maca powder
2-3 tbsp virgin coconut oil (start with 2 and add more if necessary)
1 tsp cinnamon

Place all the ingredients in a food processor and combine until you have an even, sticky mixture. Add a bit more coconut oil (if too dry) or cocoa powder (if too moist) to get the right consistency if necessary. I also added a splash of agave syrup to get the taste exactly right. Roll into balls.

Lastly I rolled them in more of the almond milk leftovers.

Semi-raw chocolate mousse

I experimented a bit in the kitchen yesterday, and the Saturday night treat we ended up with was a semi-raw chocolate mousse. Here's the recipe!

SEMI-RAW CHOCOLATE MOUSSE

1 tin coconut cream (Kara for preference)
Raw cocoa powder to taste
1 tbsp carob powder (or use more cocoa if you don't have carob)
Sweeteners of choice (I used 2 tsp yacon syrup, 1 tsp yacon powder and a dash of agave nectar)
1 tsp maca powder (may easily be skipped if you don't have or don't like)

Gently melt/heat the coconut cream. If you want to keep this as raw as possible, keep the temperature at under 40 C. When the coconut cream is liquid, add the rest of the ingredients and whisk until the mixture is smooth. Then pour into a serving dish and leave to cool a bit before you refrigerate. Leave for a few hours to set.

Nut bars with raw chocolate topping

I've been missing granola bars. They're quite brilliant when it's a bit too long until your next meal. However, my old recipe was chuck-full of sugar and not all that healthy. So today I just did it!

NUT BARS

2 dl raw cashews
1 dl raw peanuts
1 dl raw Brazil nuts (paranuts)
1 dl dessicated coconut
0,75-1 dl flax seeds
A handfull sunflower kernels

3 tbsp virgin coconut oil
3 tbsp organic peanut butter (I used the creamy variety)
12 drops SweetLeaf Liquid Stevia with Vanilla Crème flavour
Agave nectar to taste (or other sweeteners)

Roast the nuts lightly. (This step can be skipped if you want raw bars. I'm allergic to many nuts unless they're heat treated.) I also added the coconut towards the end of the roasting process.



Then pulse the nuts in a food processor. That should leave you with something looking like this:



Now mix coconut oil, peanut butter and sweeteners. You may need to place your bowl in a bain-marie to get a smooth mixture.



Pour into the crushed nuts and coconut, then mix.



Press into a pan and refrigerate.



Make raw chocolate as you like it, or melt dark chocolate (70-85% cocoa solids) with a bit of coconut oil and sweeteners of your choice. Pour over the refrigerated nut mixture and leave to set. Then cut into bars or squares. Voila!



(By the time I took the last picture my husband had already run off with a bar. He likes them.)

Christmas sweets

No, I haven't started making them quite yet. But I'm making plans! These are some of the sweets I want to try making this year:

- Candied orange slices
- Raw chocolate with coconut-peanut filling
- Raw chocalte with mint filling
- These (give me a shout if translation is needed)
- Homemade marzipan with raw chocolate coating
- Toffee with "polkagris"

Mmmmm... Raw chocolate with peanut butter filling

I'm trying to cut back on sugar, and am thus making chocolate myself. Sweetened with agave nectar, yacon syrup and Sukrin (erythritol). Today I filled my chocolates with peanut butter mixed with a bit of virgin coconut oil and yacon syrup, in order to avoid the "dryness" of pure peanut butter. And it turned out to be an excellent combination!

My raw chocolate recipe at the moment is as follows:

3-4 tbsp cacao butter
1 large tbsp virgin coconut oil
1 large tsp yacon syrup
1 large tsp agave nectar
3 tsp powdered Sukrin
Approx. 3 tbsp raw cacao powder
A pinch of salt
A pinch of vanilla powder

For the filling I simply mixed 3 tbsp home made peanut butter (place peanuts in a blender with a few tbsp peanut oil, a pinch of salt and some sort of sweetener if you like it sweetened) with about a tablespoon coconut oil (melted) and a large teaspoon yacon syrup.

Scandinavian style wholemeal waffles

Being home with a feverish child, I wanted something yummy for lunch. So I finally managed to put together a wholemeal waffle recipe I'm happy with.



WAFFLES

3 eggs
5 tbsp Sukrin (erythritol)
2 dl wholemeal wheat flour
2 dl wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cardamom
approx. 2 dl milk
100 g butter, melted

Beat the eggs and Sukrin until fluffy. Mix in half the flour, the baking powder and the cardamom. Then add half the milk. Repeat with the rest of the flour and milk. Lastly add the melted butter. You should end up with a slightly runny batter. Bake in waffle iron.

Chocolate banana cupcakes

These are based on Julie Goodwin's Lemon Diva Cupcakes, but with cocoa powder and banana instead of lemon zest.

CUPCAKES
100 g butter
165 g sugar (I use Tate&Lyle caster sugar)
A splash vanilla extract (e.g. Nielsen-Massey)
2 eggs
200 g flour
1,5 tsp baking powder
3-4 tbsp cocoa powder
100 ml milk
2 very ripe bananas, mashed

Beat butter, sugar and vanilla extract. Add the eggs one by one and mix well. Mix flour, baking powder and cocoa, then stir in about half into the egg and butter mixture. Add half the milk, then the rest of the flour mix and the rest of the milk. Lastly stir in the mashed bananas. Divide mixture into lined muffin pan. I got 10 cupcakes out of this recipe. Bake at 180C for 18-20 mins.

ICING
60-70 g chocolate, 70% cocoa solids
25 g butter
2-3 tbsp icing sugar
50-100 ml single cream

Melt chocolate, butter and icing sugar together over low heat, then add cream until the mixture emulsifies. Leave to cool.