Mouthwatering Coconut, Chocolate & Raspberry mini tartlets

You may have seen these beauty's on my Instagram or Facebook page.. Well today I am finally sharing my delicious recipe with you! 

I had a BBQ with my family last weekend and it always involves lots of meat. I'm not a big meat eater but I do love chicken. So we made a batch of healthy burgers, grilled chicken legs, chicken sate, some sausages for the guys and lots more. I always whip up at least 2 different kinds of salads, some veggies, some bread with dips and homemade herbed butter. Because desserts are always unhealthy at my parents place, but everybody loves them I decided it would be nice if I would created something delicious and healthier to the table. Also, because my little niece loooooves cakes. 

Ingredients

for the coconut macaroon tart crust

2 2/3 cups unsweetened coconut

3 egg whites (normal or 2 when you have large eggs)

2 tbsp stevia sugar

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

for the raspberry bottom

1 bag of deep frozen raspberries

for the chocolate layer (homemade nutella)

1 cup blanched hazelnuts

1/2 cup coconut milk

1/4 cup palm sugar

1/4 cup unsweetened (raw) cacao powder

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 tablespoons coconut oil

pinch of sea salt

Now I would suggest to make the homemade nutella first, store it in a jar it always comes in handy ;-) (If your lazy you can substitute for a store bought nutella or chocolate mousse but it will be less healthy). 

Step 1: Preheat the oven on 180 degrees and roast the hazelnuts in the oven for 10 minutes (you can also ask your organic nut store to dry roast them so you can skip this step).  If your hazelnuts still have skin, remove them (easy to do when they come out of the oven with a damp cloth and rub the nuts with it).  Add the hazelnuts to the bowl of a food processor and cut up the hazelnuts until it becomes a puree, it will take a few minutes until creamy and you may have to scrape down the sides of the bowl a couple of times. Add the coconut milk, coconut palm sugar, cocoa, vanilla and coconut oil and salt until it's all well mixed and becomes a good paste. Store the homemade nutella in the refrigerator. 

Step 2: For the crust: Preheat an oven on 180 degrees Celsius, in a food processor combine the coconut with the egg whites, vanilla and the stevia with the coconut until it's well combined. Lightly coat a muffin or cake pan with some oil and press down the coconut mixture until it makes a well shape as a tart crust. Bake until the coconut turns golden around the edges and is set in the centre, 15 to 20 minutes. Remove from oven and invert the tins immediately on a rack. 

Step 3: Let the raspberries thaw a bit and then smash them up in a bowl with a fork. This will be your first layer for the crusts. 

Coconut crusts with the smashed raspberries layer

 Step 4: Get your (homemade) Nutella out of the fridge and serve a big tablespoon of the chocolate cream in to the tarts. Garnish with some raspberries and there you go. Amazing delicious, healthier, homemade mini tartlets!

My little niece loving my tartlets, cuuuuute!!!!

Nutritional information: Approximately 140 calories a tart. 

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 =) 

Almost Easter Time!

Hey there!

It's almost Easter, that mean's time for a wonderful food party ;-)

Hereby some tips for your morning Easter Brunch

Try out the gluten free crackers for a wonderful bite snack, the pear & pecan treat and Carrot Cake Oats as a sweet side (make a big tray of both so everyone can spoon in) have a lovely healthy side salad so you won't be over eating the "bad" stuff. And for Easter it means it has to have some chocolate, so why not the healthy bounty's as a wonderful dessert?

Serve with, tea, fresh juices and/or my homemade Chocolate smoothie in small glasses for everyone!

Have a lovely Easter

 xoxo

My 5 Minutes Chocolate Bomb

Oh....My.....Gosh... I am tooooo excited about this tasty wonderful snack, dessert, chocolate bomb! It takes seriously 5 minutes and what you get is a warm, gooey, sweet, fluffy, chocolate rich, yummy treat.

Yesterday I had an important meeting about my accounting as a model and it stressed me out big time! I'm not that organised, so we soon found out I made some errors.. not a world problem but now I know how to do it better! After that long day with numbers I needed something comforting, a wonderful dinner was on the menu, recipe will follow soon, but a dessert was needed most. I whipped up this amazing dish and you would be crazy NOT to try it out. There is no fat, no sugar, no lactose and no grains or any kind of gluten. So suitable for everyone!

Ingredients

2 heaping tbsp almond meal

2 tbsp cacao

1 tbsp maple syrup

2 egg whites

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tbsp apple sauce (or you can use a tbsp coconut oil)

pinch of sea salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

4 tbsp almond milk

Now mix up all the ingredients, first the almond meal with the cacao, baking powder, extract, salt and mix to combine, than add the milk, apple sauce and egg whites and give it a good mixture. Place the mixture in a bowl that's deep enough, because this baby will rise like crazy! Place it on full power, 3 minutes in your microwave and done. 

Serve like it is, or with crushed pecan nuts, maple syrup and shredded coconut.

Nutritional Information: the entire recipe is about 260 kcal, if you have a bigger dessert appetite ;-) I divided it in 2 when used for a dessert.

Tip: I ate the same for breakfast again, 1/2 the recipe and added yogurt, banana, berries and shredded coconut with some Kasha. A yummy try out as well ;-) 

Healthy Cacao Smoothie in a Bowl

SORRY guys I'm uploading my easy Sunday so late on the day, has been busy. Had a brunch this morning at my boyfriends parent's place and baked a lovely carrot cake oatmeal for the occasion. After i went for a run in the sun, my lord it was such a beautiful spring day! After I went to visit my mom, sister and her 2 little kids. Love to sit there on a sunny day, their garden is on the south so perfect to chill a bit on a lazy Sunday afternoon!

Yup this delicious looking bowl is an easy Sunday, can you believe it? You just need 4 key ingredients and you can fancy it up if you'd like to. It's just a question of putting all the ingredients in a blender and top it off with some (off my) optional (favourite) toppings.

Without additional toppings

Ingredients

For the smoothie
1 banana
300ml almond milk
box of frozen strawberries of raspberries
2 tbsp cacao

Optional:
big hand of kale or spinach
protein powder

Optional toppings:
2 tbsp raw cacao nibs
10 raspberries
2 tbsp shredded coconut
 swirl of soy yogurt (about 100ml)

Add the banana, milk, frozen fruit and cacao and blend it in your blender until smooth. If you like your smoothies thicker add 200ml milk in stead of 300. I like to add kale or spinach for extra vitamins and the protein powder to be full longer.

Nutritional information for this recipe is without all toppings and add-ins, based on 2 servings. (With all add-ins and toppings is about 300 calories).

A healthy bounty? Yes, pleaaaase!

I mean, seriously, look at them.... and than you didn't even taste them yet, oh my! This recipe was one of my best ideas in life until now hahaha. 

I'm so happy now I like chocolate, you have probably noticed that, because I keep on experimenting with it ;-) So I wanted to create something new, it was Sunday evening and I just cleaned out my entire kitchen. So happy to have an organised kitchen now, you can actually find every ingredient now in a blink of an eye. 

So back to my bounty's, I have seen some blogs about healthy snickers and nutella but that never interested me. I still don't like mars and twix and kitkats remember? BUT I love coconut, so I technically should like bounty's? I looked around in my kitchen and found what I needed, I had shredded coconut, coconut milk, cacao.. basically that should be enough for a healthy bounty I guessed. So I tried and tasted, tried and tasted a whole lot more and then voila: The healthy bounty was born, please do try! 

Ingredients

For the chocolate layer

2 tbsp of organic coconut oil

3 tbsp of raw cacao powder

2 tbsp of maple syrup 

1 heaping heaaaping tbsp coconut milk

for the filling
75 gram shredded coconut
3 tbsp coconut milk
2 tbsp maple syrup
3 soaked medjoul dates in hot water for 5 minutes

Mix the ingredients for the filling together in a food processor. Make little balls of the mixture and pop them in the freezer for half an hour to harden up. After 25 minutes waiting you can start on your chocolate coating. Heat the oil in a sauce pan and once liquid, add all the remaining ingredients. Stir well until you have a thick chocolate sauce. Dip the coconut filling balls in the mixture and cover well, transfer them to a plate where the excess chocolate can drip of and place them back in the freezer for 15 more minutes. Pop them 5 minutes out before eating, and now you can go to food heaven while die while eating them ;-)

BONUS!!!!

You thought that was it, right? Well.. I got a lot of sauce left, just like you have now, probably.  And sure you can spoon it out and eat it just like that. OR you can add some dried cranberry's or goji berries, mix in, transfer the sauce on a piece of in transparent clean film and press until thin. That's what I did. Pop this mixture in the freezer as well, and the best part is this just take about 10 minutes to harden up.  After those quick 10 minutes you have the most amazing kind of chocolate - ice cream mixture in the world. Seriously, one of the best bonuses you can get!!
(sorry I forgot to make a picture and the chocolate didn't survive to remain long outside of my belly)

Chocolate?

Okay.. a looooooot of people will be really, really, reaaaallly surprised seeing me posting a recipe with chocolate.

Since I'm a little girl I have always hated chocolate. Milk, dark tablets, brownies, cakes, tarts, cookies.. everything with chocolate in it, you name it,  I hated it. Until recently then. WHAT happened was the question my friends and family immediately asked me, I mean I have been trying to eat chocolate a million times. But it all changed after my trip to Barcelona, I was there for a job and the client gave a piece of organic, good quality chocolate mini bar to me and I didn't want to be rude so I just ate it. And then the shock came, OMG, liked it. I actually, really, really liked it.

So my chocolate journey started, I mean.. I missed out!!! I tried my mom's homemade brownies, an organic chocolate bar in Dusseldorf and I came to the one and only conclusion: I like chocolate! I have to say and admit I'm still not a fan of milk chocolate and I still hate chocolate ice cream, mars, snickers and twix. But I can live with that ;-)

So, me being in the kitchen 90% of the time, of course I had to start experimenting in the kitchen with cacao. So I bought some good quality organic cacao and made some delicious truffles and home made chocolate bars.

Today it's time to share the recipe for the bars with you.. I'm sorry, not the truffles, they were gone before I could make a picture. My friend was just in time to safe the bar before it was finished as well and I couldn't make a picture anymore. So I still owe you the truffles ;-)

Homemade healthy chocolate bar

Ingredients
50 gram coconut oil
3 spoons of cacao powder
100 gram dates
a handful of goji berries
a handful of roughly chopped hazelnuts

Melt the coconut butter in a small sauce pan on low heat, when the coconut oil is liquid you can add the cacao and mix until you receive a smooth mixture. Transfer to a blender and add the dates. Mix until everything is well combined and the dates are completely shredded.  Add the goji berries and hazelnuts and combine.
Grab a piece of plastic col and spread the mixture until really thin. Transfer to your freezer until it's hard. Keep storing in the fridge and just break off a piece once and a while.. well, that means if you have some left to store ;-)