Coconut and Muscovado Sugar Cookies

Hi everyone.

The days are getting shorter, the nights are longer so I am finding myself in need of serious comfort food. Only problem is, comfort food is usually very high in fat and calories so a definite no-no when you are watching your figure and you want to eat healthy.

This recipe is not my lowest in calories because it does contain sugar and fat, but due to the right ingredients, it's still healthier than store-bought cookies and due to the easiness of the recipe, you can whip these up in under 15 minutes...and that's including cooking time!

Ingredients:

 

100 gr muscovado sugar (donkerbruine basterdsuiker)
2 eggs
100 gr white flour
100 gr shredded coconut
2 tbsp soft coconut butter

Way to do it:

1. Add the sugar to the eggs and beat until the mixture starts to lightly foams. About a minute should do it.
2. Add the flour and shredded coconut. Mix again until combined.
3. Add the coconut butter, cut into small pieces and use your mixer to break down the pieces. if some remain, no worries, they will melt in the oven.
4. Line a baking tray with baking paper and design your cookies whichever way you want. You can just make one big cookie and then brake it into pieces, or you can use a spoon to make little scoops. Due to the coconut butter melting, the cookies will spread out substantially.
5. Bake for 12 minutes at 200 degrees C.

I made about 11 big cookies with my mixture and I simply love them.

The Health Benefits
Substituting white sugar by dark brown unrefined sugar means you forgo the 'bad' sugar. Unrefined sugar has no chemicals injected into it and therefore it still contains some nutrients such as calcium, iron, magnesium, & potassium. So you get the taste + a little extra your body can use.

When you choose coconut butter instead of normal butter, you get many benefits. Coconut can lower blood cholesterol, is full of lauric acid which kills bacteria and fatty acids boost brain functions. It's known as a superfood!

The same goes for the shredded coconut. It's high in fat, but high in the good fats, the ones your body does need.

Enjoy
xx

My version of a classical French Yogurt cake

Hello everyone, summer has arrived...oh yes it has! Pretty soon I'll be using this season's best fruit to make light and healthy desserts, but first a twist on the classical French Yogurt cake.

What's the twist you ask? Well, alcohol and soy yogurt. I like yogurt...but there's something about the plain yogurt Alpro soya makes that's just amazing. It has a gentle taste, very few fat and low sugar so all in all, it's pretty great. Healthy and tasty, that's what we're going for here.

Just like all my other recipes, this is so easy, a child could do it. The cake itself might look boring and simple, but trust me, this lovely thing will delight both your and your family's taste buds.

As I'm typing this, I'm starting to smell the batter turning into something amazing in the oven...so let's get on with the recipe.

 

Ingredients:

2 portions of 125ml plain yogurt (I used alpro soya)
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
3 tbsp Amaretto
2 cups op 125ml almond flour
liquid sweetner

About 10 crushed cookies (I used speculoos)

Way to do it:

1. Preheat the oven to 180degrees C and line the bottom of a round, spring-form cake tin with bakingpaper. Grease the sides with vegetable oil.
2. In a bowl mix yogurt with eggs, vanilla essence, amaretto and the sweetner. The sweetner is, as always, to your liking. I used about 2 tablespoons. Bear in mind that the ameretto is pretty sweet too so you might eveb omit the sweetner if you prefer.
3. Use your 125ml cups to measure the almond flour. Top both of them off with flour and add to the mix.
4. Mix till everything is well combined and allow yourself a little taste. Taste good doesn't it. Would it be wrong to just eat this as a sauce....
5. Enough daydreaming. Pour the batter into the baking tin and lightly sprinkle your crushed cookies over the top.

Bake in the oven for 20 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Let cool for about 5 minutes before you take it out the tin. The cookies will have been baked into the top, making for a lovely, crunchy, topping.

This doesn't make a very big cake, so feel free to double the portions to make a bigger cake.

For extra yumminess, you could slice the cake in two and add a thin layer of strawberry jelly. However, I don't really feel like it needs it. This cake a light, slightly boozy version of a classic French yogurt cake. And remember, no added sugar, no butter but bursting with flavor!


Enjoy
xx

Amazing Low Carb Waffles

Ingredients:

3 tbsp melted butter
2 large eggs
a pinch of salt
A teaspoon baking powder
50gr coconut flour
50gr almond flour
250 gr cream cheese
2 tbsp sweetner (or to your taste)

Way to do it:

Take the cream cheese and add the sweetener to your liking. I used about 2 tablespoons. The sweeter you make the chese, the sweeter your waffle will be.

Mix in the melted butter and whisk until smooth

Add the eggs and mix well.

Then you add both flours and the baking powder with the salt.

Grease your waffle iron with some left-over melted butter but not too much. Then bake your waffles. Spread out the batter to make sure the entire area is covered. The waffles need to bake longer than regular waffles do so have patience and check once in a while to see if they are done. I have quite a bad waffle iron so mine didn't cook regularly on both sides, but they are still so yummy!
Also be careful when you take them out. The waffles are very fragile when hot. Especially when they are under-cooked. Transfer to a plate and let cool.


I Hope you enjoy them as much as I did and working with the cream cheese gave me some great ideas. Next up, cream cheese cookies!


See you soon,
Enjoy
Xx

Ps: Feel free to adapt the recipe. I haven't tried it myself but I think that a few teaspoons of cocoa powder would make for some excellent chocolate waffles. Or leave out the sweetener for a waffle you can top with cheese.

Chocolate Birthday Cake

Hi Everyone,

I'm back with my first cake recipe so read on if you enjoy delicious jet low carb desserts!

It was my birthday on the 8th of march and for a dinner celebration on the 9th at my family's house, I really wanted to indulge in a nice dessert. One I could share with the entire family but that didn't leave me feeling like a cheater. Therefore, I took out my favorite cakes cookbook (this one, an old one but so good with many lovely and easy recipes) and adapted it to a low carb successful formula.

I hope you like it. This makes a very dense cake so you probably won't need to eat more than one piece.

Ingredients for 1 cake:

100gr almond flour
1 tbsp instant coffee powder
3 big eggs
2 tbsp sweetener (or to your taste)
60gr dark chocolate
60gr ground coconut
a couple of drops vanilla essence
1 tsp baking powder and salt to match it

175g cream cheese
15ml Amaretto
2 tbsp sweetener (or to your taste)
2 tbsp soft butter

How to do it:

Preheat over to 190 degrees C.

Separate the whites from the yolks and beat the whites stiff.

In the bowl with the yolks add the sweetener, melted chocolate, coffee powder, baking powder, vanilla essence, ground coconut and almond flour.

Gently fold in the egg whites. This will give the cake it's height and make your dough more moist.

Bake for about 25minutes at 190 C. Check while it's cooking because all ovens are different.

Afterwards let the cake cool and in the meantime we can make the filling.

Mix the cream cheese with the sweetener, soft butter and add the Amaretto.

I would suggest putting it in the fridge to harden. This will make the smearing a lot easier.

At this point you could add some extra topping. I didn't because the cake is moist enough. But anyways, here's the ceipe if you want to do it.
You'll need:
120gr soft butter
3 tbsp sweetener
3 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg yolk

Whisk the butter in a bowl to loosen it up and make it creamy.

Add the sweetener, vanilla extract and cocoa powder.

The egg yolk is optional but I would suggest you use it. It gives the topping a nice glaze.

Now it's time to assemble the cake.

Cut your cake in half horizontally, making two nice flat discs.

Generously add the cream cheese filling and put both halves back together. Don't push them down, you want the extra height.

Finish with the optional topping. You can decide wither you want a thick layer on top or if you want to wrap the entire cake in chocolaty goodness. It's your cake so do as you please.

And there you have it. A wonderful yet low carb choclate cake for the entire family to enjoy. The carb amount on this one is higher than my other recipes, but hey, It's my party and I'll indulge if I want to.

Till next time,
Enjoy
xx

Almond Macadamia Cookies

Hi Everyone,

I'm back with a new recipe!
After my hazelnut cookies really did the trick of keeping my sweet cravings in check, I decided I needed more! I made another batch of cookies because I love how they are so low in carb and I don't have to feel bad for indulging.
My cookie routine: I have one in the morning before my meals with a nice cup of strong coffee and in the evening, I have another one (or two...) with some lemon tea and really, it doesn't even feel like I'm dieting.

Ingredients:

2 large Eggs
150 gr butter
a tsp vanilla extract
5 tbsp sweetener (or to your taste)
200 gr Almond flour
1 tsp baking powder
dash of salt
60gr Macadamia nuts, chopped

How to do it:

Preheat over to 190 degrees C.

Separate the whites from the yolks and beat the whites stiff.

In the bowl with the yolks add the vanilla extract and butter.

Add the sweetener and mix again.

Add the baking powder,salt and almond flour.

Gently fold in the egg whites. This will give your cookie it's height.

Finally, gently stir in the chopped nuts

Divide the dough evenly into about 15 little heaps of dough and place them on a cookie sheet. Make sure they are far enough apart because they will spread out a little. Bake for about 12 minutes at 190 C for soft cookies, go to about 17 minutes for crunchier ones.

Afterwards let them cool before you move them to a plate.


Depending on how big you make them and which ingredients you use, this entire recipe contains about 17gr of carbs. So that's about 1,2 gr of carb per cookie!

Leave them overnight because I found the taste and texture is better the next day.

Note: You can also add some white chocolate chunks but I couldn't find any with reduced calories. Now I found some on so I'll be back soon with some white chocolate creations :D

Note 2: For added yummyness, you could smear the top of the cookies with some low sugar jam. Only do so right before you're about to eat them because otherwise, they will make the cookie too mushy.


Enjoy
xx

Low Carb Red Velvet with icing

Hi everyone, here goes for my first recipe!

2 Weeks ago on friday, Me, my brother and my sister had a sibling day planned. We went to the museum and afterwards we played boardgames at my brother's house. Good ol' family bonding time.

However, I knew it would be hard for me to say no to delicious snacks sush as cookies and chips...so I made my own snacks. I adapted the red velvet recipe from my Hummingbird Bakery cookbook to make it very low in carb. Even with the added icing, it's only about 2 carbs per cupcake. So don't be shy and grab another one before they're all gone.

I wouldn't say they are as good as regular 'real' red velvet cupcakes, otherwise life wouldn't be fair. But my brother did eat about 5 of them so they couldn't be bad right :D

Ingredients:

for the cupcake
100ml almond milk
120g butter
About 3 tbsp sweetener
2 large eggs
20 g cocoa powder
40ml red food coloring (doesn't add to the taste but it can't be red velvet without adding a little red)
A few drops vanilla essence
300 g almond flour
Half a tsp of baking powder
A finch of salt to make the baking powder work
for the icing
250g cream cheese (try and look for the one with the least carbs. I used a bio non-fat one)
3 tbsp sweetener

Way to do it:

Pre-heat your oven to 190 C and place your cupcakes molds in a special cupcake tin. That makes them easier to carry and they will keep their lovely shape.
Use a mixer to mix the butter and sweetener. To this you add your eggs and mix again.
Add your coca, red food coloring and the vanilla essence.
Now you can add in the almond flour and the milk.
At the very end you add the baking powder with a pinch of salt. Mix everything very well for a couple of minutes.
Divide evenly over the cupcake papers and bake in the oven for about 18 to 20 minutes.
While they are baking, you can make the icing. Simply add the sweetener to the cream cheese and mix it till it's smooth.
When the cupcakes are done, let them cool completely and then add the icing. You can decorate with a dash of cocoa powder if you please.

Note: all sweetener is different so try as you go. Too much sweetener will make your creation taste too 'chemically' so I would advise you use my amounts as guidelines but see what works for your sweetener.

Enjoy
xx