The Ultimate Healthier Chocolate Cake

Wooooohpp wooop!  I'm really excited about this recipe. BUT I have to admit 2 things straight away before I start off with the recipe...
1: I like chocolate now for about half a year, before absolutely hated it.
2: I have never ever ever had a chocolate cake/pie in my entire life (due to the fact I have always hated chocolate).

I'm still not a fan of milky sugary chocolate, so you can give me as much as Easter eggs you like, I won't eat them.. just not my thing.. BUT this cake? Yeah, that was definitely my thing.

To celebrate Easter I went to my boyfriends parents place for the first day where we had a typical "gourmet" night. That means having a grill plate on the table to grill our mini hamburgers, beef, chicken skewers, prawns and salmon. With lots of salads, potato salads, bread dips and sides. When you know you will have too much food, you want a light and fluffy pie right? Well that's why I came up with this recipe, not too much sugar, and guess what... NO flour! Yup, no almond flour, spelt flour and a million nuts.. nothing! And yes it will turn out amazing with just 175 calories a serving!

The great part of this pie, is that it contains healthy ingredients only. The cacao in the dark chocolate is rich in iron, copper, magnesium and cacao has been scientifically linked to a reduced risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes. The eggs are obviously high in protein and even the butter is a good provider. It contains good amounts of fatty acids, which support immune function, boost metabolism! So I will just say, try out this recipe and enjoy your piece of chocolate pie without all the guilt.

Ingredients

200g good quality dark chocolate (I used half a 85% and half 70% cacao)

90g proper butter (grass half fat butter)

6 organic eggs 

50g palm sugar

10g stevia sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp sea salt

Preheat the oven on 140 degrees. Use a 20cm spring form and spray it with oil or butter so the pie will be easy to get out after baking. Melt the dark chocolate and the butter au bain marie (that means in a bowl with boiling water underneath without the bowl reaching the water). Stir the chocolate and butter well until it's 1 mixture. In the meanwhile your chocolate is melting mix the egg whites only until really, really fluffy. Add the egg yolks, with the sugar, salt and vanilla aroma with the chocolate until it's all combined. Then "fold" the egg white in to the chocolate mixture, reaaaallly gentle. This may take a while but you don't want to beat out all of the air. When everything is well combined you can pour the mixture in to the spring form and bake the cake for about 45-55 minutes in your oven. Check if your cake is cracked on top and when you press down on it with a finger, it should push back just a bit. Then your cake is set, for me it took 50 minutes. Let the cake completely cool down before removing it from the tin. Serve as it is, or sprinkle with cacao and raspberries like I did. 

Notes: 

- Really important to make fluffy egg whites and keep the fluffy texture

- To make it decadent, serve with a cream cheese frosting or serve it with a dollop if ice cream, cream or mascarpone and smashed berries.

- If you adore sweet sweet pies, add a bit more sugar. This cake will turn out sweet, but not super duper sweet as you will have when you buy a chocolate cake at the bakery. I would suggest to use 75 g of palm sugar or 100g of palm sugar and no stevia. But I would try out the cake like it is, it's yummy =) 

A Pear & Pecan Breakfast Treat

Good morning all,

I finally start to feel better again, yay! I just took my last antibiotic pill so I hope everything is back to normal again now. I was still really nauseous and tired the last few days, but it was probably from the antibiotics the doctor told me. Ah I certainly hope so!
But since I woke up feeling really energetic I can't wait to finally hit the gym again. Especially after having a perfect pre-workout delicious breakfast this morning, ooohhhh my that was finger licking good, I scraped out the entire jar haha. Anyyyyyway guess what kind of recipe I'm posting about today ;-) Hmm.. where I was I? Ah yeah gym.

After the gym I'm going to get me some Probiotics, I always do after having a week of antibiotics. I hate any kind of medications, in particular antibiotics because yeah it makes you better and kills all  the bad bacteria, but it also kills all the good ones that are so important for having a healthy well-functioning body.

I don't have special weekend plans, though. We are cleaning up the house. I live here now for about a year and it's time everything is ready now, you know there are always things you say you will do but you never do. Recognizable? The balcony was one of those things. So yesterday we cleaned up our 2 balconies, so much work but amazing to see the difference, summer I'm ready for you haha! After cleaning all day we had a big Indonesian treat. I get take aways as well and that's kind of difficult with me not eating white pasta, pizza, bread and all. So Indonesian is something we often turn to, it's a lot of work to make your self and it's all authentic and not incredibly unhealthy. Although, the deep-snacks with the meal were not that healthy haha. But hey, I believe in the 80/20 % rule, for me that means I'm trying to eat completely clean and healthy 80% of the time and enjoying a bit too much cheese, wine, nuts or other treats for the rest of the time. That makes it much easier to live 80% of the time completely healthy as well.

SO back to my breakfast. The reason why I'm writing this blog for you. I woke up early and thought of what to make. I have been eating my Sugar free granola (link) for days in a row now, just to good. But it was time to eat something else. I looked in to the fruit basket and noticed a pear that had to be eaten, like now.

So I whipped up a little healthy treat for my boyfriend and I, a perfect Saturday breakfast treat under 300 calories and that takes just 10 minutes for prepping and about 20 minutes for baking while you can hit the shower ;-)

Ingredients

For 1 person

30 gram oats 

125 ml almond milk (unsweetened)

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

pinch of see salt

a big pinch of cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla

1 egg white

1 tbsp raisins

1/2 a ripe pear

a few pieces of pecan nuts

1,5 tbsp maple syrup

coconut/oil/butter for greasing 

Preheat an oven on 180 degrees Celsius. Lightly grease a small ovenproof bowl. Get a small bowl and combine the oats, milk, baking powder, spices, egg whites and 1 tbsp of maple syrup and combine until you have a very well combined mixture (this is very important otherwise your egg white can separate from the mixture and you are left out with baked egg white ;-)). Now add the pear, chopped in pieces, and the raisins and mix again. Sprinkle some pecans on top and bake this yummy breakfast treat for about 20 minutes.

Nutritional information: 245 calories.

Difficult: Not at all, takes about 30 minutes.  

My Coconut Cream Pie

Guys, I think you are going to love this one..

For my birthday last year, I came up with the recipe for this beauty. I was searching online and in my million cookbooks for a great recipe for a delicious healthy pie but none of the recipes I found were healthy enough or were exactly what I was looking for. I noticed that a lot of people stop using flour and are only using almond flour or soaked nuts in their recipes. You end up having a delicious pie, but it can definitely give you a lot of calories in return. So I looked around in my kitchen and grabbed the things I love, banana, coconut.. I had no idea if it was going to work, but damn.. I guess it did ;-)

My lactose and gluten free Coconut "cream" Pie

Ingredients
for the crust
4 spoons of unsweetened applesauce (for the dutch this is appelmoes)
2 spoons of coconut oil
200 gram coconut flour
2 eggs
2 spoons of honey
50 gram of shredded coconut
pinch of sea salt
1 spoon of water

stuffing
1 egg yolk
25 gram custard powder
100 ml almond milk
120 ml soy milk
2 spoons of stevia
1 whipped egg white

garnish
hand of shredded coconut
banana
some fresh raspberries

To make this delicious pie, preheat the oven on 180 degrees Celsius.
For the crust mix all the dry ingredients (flour, salt and shredded coconut) in a bowl and all the wet ingredients in a different bowl (coconut oil (heat up until liquid), applesauce, 2 eggs, honey and water). Then combine until you form a pastry, gather the dough into a ball, then pat into a greased pie pan. Bake for 20 minutes and let it completely cool down.
You can start with the filling when your crust is baking, place the custard powder in a medium-sized saucepan and add a little of the milk. Whisk until the powder is completely dissolved. Pour in the remaining milk and place the saucepan over medium heat. Heat, whisk frequently, until the mixture becomes visibly hot. Add stevia, then drizzle in the beaten egg yolks, still whisking. Cook over medium heat until thick - about 5 to 8 minutes. Fold in the whipped egg white and pour the mixture over the the crust, so it can cool down to room temperature. Then, move the pie over to the fridge so it can completely cool down. Let it sit for at least 2 hours. When serving the pie garnish with the shredded coconut, fresh raspberries and banana.

NOTE: When I use stevia, I often use a variation of stevia that looks like sugar. Sometimes I use liquid but then I will mention it as stevia drops. So make sure if you use a different kind you taste after adding a bit to make it not too sweet or not enough sweet to taste.