Orange Custard Cups

This baked custard is infused with fresh orange and makes for a great year-round dessert. 

Peach Coconut Energy Bars

Looking for a lunchbox snack that is homemade, delicious, AND healthy? Then read on and have a go at these Peach Coconut Energy Bars!

Fruit 'n Nut Muffins

Berries, apple, almond, and oats combine beautifully into these moist and delicious sugar-free muffins.

Coconut Cake

I've always had a thing for Coconut Cake. And I can eat a great big chunk of this one, as it's completely sugar free, sweetened naturally with Norbu.

Buttermilk Chocolate Chip Scones

A simple, sweet buttermilk scone studded with chocolate - the perfect accompaniment to your tea or coffee break.

Coconut Passionfruit Cake

Coconut cake is by far my favorite kind of cake, but not only is it hard to come by (unless you make it yourself of course), but recipes for coconut cake usually have an overload of butter and sugar. I wanted to see what happened if I tried to make one without butter and greatly reduced sugar. Once again it was something I was quite nervous about. I was worried about the consistency of the final product. It was a pleasant surprise. It tasted exactly how a good coconut cake should, with hints of passionfruit just because passionfruit is also delicious.

Coconut Passionfruit Cake

Serves 8-12

1/2 Cup Caster sugar
1/2 Cup Stevia
150 g apple sauce
3 medium eggs
2 Cups dessicated coconut
2 Cups self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 Cup lite coconut milk (or coconut cream)
1/4 Cup Passionfruit curd

Icing:

30 g butter
2 Tbsp passionfruit curd
1.5 Cups icing sugar
1/2 Tbsp boiling water

1. Beat sugar, stevia and apple sauce in a large bowl until light and slightly creamy. Add in the eggs one at a time and beat well after each addition. Fold in the rest of the dry ingredients.

2. Mix the coconut milk and  passionfruit curd together in a small bowl. Add to the other ingredients and mix well.

3. Pour into a lined 25-28 cm cake tin and bake at 180°C for 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool in the tin.

4. Once cool, ice by mixing together all of the icing ingredients and spreading over top of the cake.

Nutritional Information:

Calories 158
Carbs     20 g
Fat         8 g
Protein   3 g
Fibre      2 g
Sodium  133 mg

Stuffed Mushrooms

When I was trying to decide what to make for dinner tonight I just had a complete mind blank. I couldn't think of anything. I broke it down and thought "OK, my boyfriend loves mushrooms let's make something with mushrooms as the main ingredient" so I wrote out a recipe for stuffed mushrooms, something I have never made before so I really didn't have a clue what I was doing.

I wanted to make them both healthy and filling so I included tomatoes and wholegrain rice as the bulk of the filling . I used some chorizo in the filling as well but these could easily be made vegetarian by omitting the chorizo or replacing it with something meat-free.

So from now on, I will try my hardest to call capsicum red pepper, because apparently capsicum is a made-up word if you aren't from NZ. Haha! =)

Stuffed Mushrooms

Serves 4

1 Chorizo, chopped
1 onion, finely diced
4 cloves garlic, finely diced
1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
1 red pepper, diced
400 g tin chopped tomatoes
1 250 g packet wholegrain 2 minute rice
8 large mushrooms (e.g. portobello)
1/4 cup breadcrumbs
1/4 cup grated parmesan or mozzarella
olive oil
salt and pepper to season

1. Preheat oven to 220°C. Heat a dash of olive oil in a fry pan over medium heat. 

2. Cook rice according to packet directions. Add the onion and garlic to the fry pan and fry for about 3 minutes. Add chorizo, chilli, and red pepper and fry for a couple more minutes.

3. Remove from the heat and stir through rice and tomatoes. Trim the stalks from the mushrooms, dice them up and add them to the filling too. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Place the mushrooms on a lined baking tray and fill with the mixture. Top with breadcrumbs and cheese and bake until mushrooms are tender and cheese is melted, about 15 minutes. 

Nutritional Information

Calories 313
Carbs    45 g
Fat        10 g
Protein  16 g
Fibre     5 g
Sodium  580 mg

White Chocolate, Raspberry and Macadamia Blondies

I have never made blondies before, or really tasted them, but I have been seeing them in cafes a lot lately and thought they looked pretty good and maybe I should give it a go but make it a bit healthier.

I couldn't really make up my mind what to put in them but then my friend asked if I could teach her to bake something. Of course I was more than up for that so I asked her what she wanted to make and she said something with raspberries (we are going to make raspberry white chocolate muffins). I then needed to pick up some raspberries from the store I thought I would add some to this recipe too.

I was a little concerned when I got them out of the oven as they seemed a little dense, but after tasting one I realised that they actually had a lovely, soft texture.

White Chocolate, Raspberry and Macadamia Blondies

Makes 18 pieces

100 g white chocolate, broken up into small pieces
1 Tbsp vanilla essence
1/2 Cup apple sauce
1 1/4 Cup plain flour
2 eggs
1/4 Cup stevia
1/2 Cup white chocolate drops
3/4 Cup raspberries
1/2 Cup macadamia nuts

1. Preheat oven to 180°C, line a brownie pan with baking paper.

2. Melt white chocolate over a double boiler, stir in the apple sauce and set aside to cool.

3. Beat eggs, vanilla, and stevia until foamy. Fold in the white chocolate/apple sauce mixture and then fold in the choc chips, raspberries, and macadamia. Make sure you do this gently so that the raspberries don't get crushed up.

4. Spread mixture into the pan and bake for 25 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Cool in the pan before cutting into pieces.

Nutritional Information:

Calories 148
Carbs    17 g
Fat        8 g
Protein  3 g
Fibre     1 g
Sodium  22 mg 

Milo Chocolate Cookies

Today a friend gave me a challenge: bake something with Milo. I made cookies. Here's hoping that she likes them!

I used stevia, a natural sweetener from the Stevia plant, to replace most of the sugar. Stevia is A LOT sweeter than sugar so you only need to use a small amount. If I was using sugar, I would have used about 3/4 Cup, but I only used 2 Tbsp Stevia. If you are using this sweetner don't go overboard with it... too much will be far too sweet and also leave a weird aftertaste. 

Milo Chocolate Cookies

Makes 32

160 g apple sauce
2 Tbsp Stevia
1 Tbsp brown sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 1/2 Cup self raising flour
1 1/2 Cup Milo
150 g dark chocolate drops

1. Preheat oven to 180°C and line a couple of baking trays with baking paper.

2. Sift the flour into a large mixing bowl, add the stevia, brown sugar and Milo. Mix to combine. Add the apple sauce and egg and combine well. Add the chocolate drops and mix again.

3. Spoon teaspoonful amounts of the mixture onto the baking trays and bake for about 15 minutes.

4. Cool cookies on a wire rack and store in an airtight container.

Nutritional Information

Calories 59
Carbs    10 g
Fat        2 g
Protein  1 g

Blueberry and Lemon Curd Muffins

There is a cafe near the lab that has the most amazing blueberry lemon muffins, but as with any cafe brought muffin they are really expensive and absolutely loaded with sugar. So I decided to try and write a healthier version of  this muffin flavour and this is what I came up with, no sugar and no butter but full of flavour.

My friends got stuck right in almost as soon as they came out of the oven and their comments were very positive. I waited until after they had eaten their muffins to tell them that there was no sugar or butter and they said they would have never guessed and that it tasted better than most muffins they have brought in stores.

My boyfriend doesn't like blueberries so I set aside a quarter of the batter before adding blueberries and added raspberries to his instead. They look like they turned out well! Once he has tasted them I will let you know how that combination turned out.

Blueberry Lemon Curd Muffins

Makes 12


2 Cups self raising flour
1/4 Cup Stevia (or 1 Cup of sugar if you want)
1 egg
1/4 Cup apple sauce
1 1/4 Cup skim milk
1 tsp grated lemon rind
2 tsp lemon juice
1 1/4 Cup blueberries (fresh or frozen, if using frozen they don't need to be thawed)
12 tsp lemon curd

1. Preheat oven to 200°C and grease or line a 12 hole muffin tin

2. Mix all the ingredients except the lemon curd in a large bowl until just combined.

3. Place about a tablespoon full of mixture into each hole of the tin, add 1 tsp of lemon curd per hole:

4. Cover the lemon curd with the remaining batter and bake for about 15 minutes.

Nutritional Information

Calories 98
Carbs    18 g
Fat         1 g
Protein   3 g

Two Minute Chocolate Cake

Some of you have probably heard of "mug cakes." For those that haven't, the idea is simple: Chuck a few ingredients in a coffee mug, into the microwave and a minute or so later you have a single serve cake. basically the best idea ever.

Tonight just seemed to call for chocolate so I created this healthier version of a chocolate mug cake. Tastes great and definitely satisfies that chocolate craving.

And seriously... it literally takes two minutes from start to finish.

Two Minute Chocolate Cake

Serves One

1 Tbsp + 2 tsp cocoa powder
3 Tbsp plain flour
1/8 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar or stevia
1/4 tsp baking powder
3 tsp apple sauce
3 Tbsp milk
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

1. Mix the dry ingredients together in a small bowl, throughly.

2. Add the liquid ingredients and stir. Transfer the mixture to a ramekin, coffee cup, or some other kind of small dish.

3.  Microwave for 1 minute.

If you don't want to eat it straight out of the dish it was cooked in then spray the dish with a little oil before adding the cake mix.

Nutritional Information

Calories 137
Carbs    27 g
Fat        1 g
Protein  8 g

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Cookies

Peanut butter is always awesome in baking and I just couldn't resist not baking again until the weekend (to be honest, I already have my recipes planned for the weekend!) ...

So I made cookies, again. Just using stuff I had laying around in the pantry. But they are totally different to the ones I posted last week, promise.

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Cookies

Makes approx 16 cookies

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
45 g brown sugar
3 Tbsp plain flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
50 g Chocolate, cut into chunks (I used Cadbury Dairy Milk)
110 g peanut butter (I used no added salt or sugar PB)
2 Tbsp apple sauce
1 tsp vanilla essence

1. Put all the dry ingredients into a bowl and combine.

2. Put the peanut butter, apple sauce, and vanilla in another bowl and mix well. Add this to the dry ingredients and mix to combine into a dough

3. Roll the dough into teaspoon size balls and put into the fridge for about half an hour.

4. While the cookie dough is in the fridge, preheat the oven to 180°C. 

5. Place the cookies onto a baking tray lined with baking paper and bake for about 10 minutes. After you take them out of the oven leave them alone for ten minutes to get as they will be VERY soft and delicate straight from the oven. 

6. Store in an airtight container (glass for crisp cookies, plastic for a softer cookie)

Nutritional Information (based on 16 cookies)

Calories 76
Carbs    7 g
Protein  2 g
Fat        4 g

Berry Crumble Muffins

I had some left over apple sauce from the cookies the other day so I decided to make some muffins with it. This is what I came up with. Berry muffins with a crumble topping.

I used raspberries but they would be awesome with mixed berries.

Berry Crumble Muffins

Makes 15

1 Cup berries (blueberries, raspberries, blackberries...) Fresh or frozen
1/2 C brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 Cup wholemeal flour
4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
100 g apple sauce
2 eggs, beaten
1 Cup trim milk

2 Tbsp brown sugar
2 Tbsp rolled oats

1. Preheat oven to 220°C and grease a muffin tin.

2. Combine all the ingredients from the top list in a large mixing bowl and mix until just combined. Don't over mix of the muffins will be tough.

3. Spoon into the muffin tin.

4.  Combine the 2 Tbsp brown sugar and oats in a small bowl and sprinkle a little bit over the top of each muffin.

5. Bake for about 15 minutes, until the muffins spring back when pressed lightly.

Nutritional Information:

Calories 110
Carbs    20 g
Fat         1 g
Protein   4 g
Fibre      2 g 

Butterless Chocolate Chip Cookies

Everyone loves a good chocolate chip cookie. But there is soooo much butter in them that the energy and fat content are through the roof. As I was sitting in a seminar this afternoon (that was completely over my head so it was hard to concentrate) I was thinking about how I could make some choc chip cookies, healthy style.

I was pretty nervous about completely inventing a baking recipe. It's one thing to create a breakfast, lunch, or dinner recipe but baking is all about correct volumes and measures. Had no idea how this was going to turn out. 

This is what I came up with. No butter. Reduced sugar. Surprisingly delicious. Seriously, they turned out soooo much better than I could have ever imaged. Think I prefer these to normal, butter containing cookies! YAY!

My handsome taste tester and everyone in the office approved =)

Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes 25 cookies

180 g apple sauce (I used Barkers Apple Sauce)
3/4 Cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 1/4 Cup plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
200 g dark chocolate chips (I used Cadbury Dark Chocolate Baking Chips)

1. Preheat oven to 180°C and line a couple of baking trays with baking paper (if you just have one tray just cook in a couple of batches).

2.  Place the apple sauce and sugar in a large bowl and mix thoroughly. Stir in the egg and vanilla.

3.  Sift the flour and baking powder over the sugar mixture, add the chocolate chips and mix well to combine.

4. Scoop out tablespoon volumes of mixture, roll into balls, press down slightly and place on baking tray.

5. Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes.

Nutritional information per cookie

Calories 115
Carbs    20 g
Protein   2 g
Fat        3 g

(I also calculated what the info would have been with butter instead of apple sauce: 170 calories, 9 g of fat per cookie!)