Flourless, sugar free chocolate mug-cake

First of all, I'm sorry that my presence on this blog is rather erratic. Weekly Wednesday updates - yeah right!!! Also, my apologies that I'm so slow to follow up on all your comments. I had this optimistic idea that since my job now involves less travelling, I'd have all this spare time and energy to spend on blogging. Only that my job still turned into a 6-days and 50-hour  a week scenario. And in my spare time, I've been fighting a never-ending respiratory infection (probably due to all the stress). Therefore, my Friday night snack yesterday was immune-boosting frozen blueberries.... with just a tiny bit of flourless chocolate cake on the side ;-) 

The recipe came from a blog that a friend of mine linked to on Facebook. She had made it more primal by changing a recipe that she found. I again made it LCHF and more blood-sugar-friendly by swapping honey for erythritol. 

Ingredients

1 Tbsp butter

1 egg

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp vanilla powder

1 1/2 Tbsp cocoa

1 Tbsp thickened cream

3 Tbsp erythritol 

Procedure

• Melt butter in a mug in the microwave. 
• Add the egg and beat with a fork. 
• Throw in rest of ingredients and stir. 
• Nuke for around 1.5 minute in your microwave oven and - voila -  a chocolate-miracle!  
• Serve with whipped cream and blueberries 

You may want to experiment with the cooking-time depending on your oven-type. Perhaps 1.5 minute will make it rubbery, then try a few less seconds next time. 

I know it doesn't look too delicious from the photo - but trust me, it is!

Rich low-carb chocolate cake

Father's Day is coming up on Sunday, so why not treat  Dad to some delicious chocolate cake? Best of all, it's healthy, and, if you don't tell him it's low-carb, he will never know. Once again, I've found the recipe in the fabulous baking book "Fristende Lavkarbo"

Ingredients
200 g 70% chocolate
200 g butter
50 ml strong coffee
100 ml erythritol (or another sweetener)
1 teaspoon vanilla powder
3 eggs
200 ml ground almonds

Procedure
Break the chocolate into pieces and melt in a pan together with butter and coffee. Remove from the heat and whisk in sweetener and vanilla. Let the chocolate mass cool down.

Meanwhile, whisk the eggs lightly in a different bowl. Then, add the eggs and ground almonds to the chocolate mixture and stir. Then, pour the batter into a  22 cm spring form that you have coated with butter/oil.

Bake on 180 degrees C in the middle of the oven for 20 minutes, and voila, you will make your Dad/father in the family very happy!

Serve for example with cream, berries, low-carb ice cream or some sugar-free jam, like I did here. 

LCHF raspberry ice cream cake

It was summer in the northern hemisphere when I visited, and summer is a perfect excuse for ice cream! Therefore I decided to bake this raspberry ice cream temptation one day. Despite my stack of new low carb cookbook, this one comes from my much-used "Fristende lavkarbo" (translation: Tempting low carb) by blogger Cecilie, who used to write a blog with the same name. 

Ingredients

Crust:

200 g hazelnuts

1 teaspoon psyllium husk fibre

1 teaspoon baking powder

3 egg whites

100 ml erythritol (the finely ground type)

50 g melted butter

Ice cream 

3 egg yolks

3 tablespoons (15 ml-kind) erythritol

300 ml cream

200 g raspberries

Procedure

Crust

Grind hazelnuts to a flour of medium-sized grains. Add psyllium husk and baking powder to the nut flour and mix well. Beat egg whites until stiff, then add the sweetener to the egg whites while whipping. Carefully fold in the hazelnut flour to the egg mixture. Now add melted butter that has cooled down a bit. 

Spread the mass onto a  a 22 cm spring form covered in baking paper. Bake for 20 minutes on 175 degrees C. Make the ice cream while the crust is cooling down. 

Ice cream

Whip egg yolks and the sweetener until fluffy and airy. Beat the cream in a separate bowl, then fold the beaten egg and sweetener into the cream. Finally add the raspberries and stir. 

Combining the cake

Spread the raspberry cream on top of the crust. Cover the cake with Glad wrap to avoid crystallization and put the cake in the freezer. Now it's time to be patient, and in half a day or so it's time to enjoy this divine treat. The cake is easier to cut if you take it out of the fridge around half an hour before you intend to serve it. Decorate with strawberries or other berries on top. 

Australia Day cake

I found this recipe on www.ingridsblogg.no a while ago, and I have been drooling over it ever since. When celebrating Christmas with my partner's family, I was in charge of desserts. So I thought I'd seize the opportunity and finally make this cake. And it really lived up to my expectations! I thought I'd share it with the heading "Australia Day cake", since this holiday is coming up soon, and you may be looking for a low carb treat. It's super easy to make, calls for no mysterious ingredients, and it's been approved by my low-carb-sceptic extended family! 


Ingredients:
100 g almonds
75 g butter
150 ml erythritol
300 ml cream
300 g Philadelphia cream cheese

1 teaspoon vanilla powder
3 teaspoons cocoa
100 g 70% chocolate


Method:
Melt butter and grind the almonds. Mix almonds, 3/4 of the melted butter and 50 ml erythritol. This is the crust of the cake. Spread the mixture into a spring-form and place in the refrigerator to set. 

Then, whip the cream together with 50 ml erythritol. In another bowl, whip the cream cheese and the last 50 ml of erythritol. Combine the two mixtures and stir. 

Divide the batter into two bowls. In one bowl, add in the cocoa, while in another you add in the vanilla powder. (Now you've got one bowl of chocolate-cream and another with vanilla-cream)

Spread the chocolate-cream on top of the almond-base. Add the vanilla-cream layer on top of that. Put the cake back in the fridge while you prepare a final layer of melted chocolate:

Melt the chocolate together with the remainder of the butter. Let the chocolate cool a little, then spread it on top of the cake. Let stand to cool for a couple of hours before serving. 

Enjoy!

Here are some photos. Unfortunately, some of them turned out a bit blurry

Loving earth vanilla powder

Happy New Year, everyone!

I'd like to start the new year with  a recommendation for a brilliant product!
You may have noticed that several of my recipes call for something called vanilla powder. It is exactly what it sounds like: Pure, ground vanilla. Until now I have been unable to find it anywhere in Australia. I have probably asked about it in ten health food stores, and they have just looked at me weirdly. Iherb doesn't stock it either. I found it on a UK website called gojiking, but somehow I never got around to order it. I had just resigned myself to always having to bake with that icky, sugary-laden vanilla-paste from my local Woollies. I once found a vanilla essence that was just vanilla and alcohol (no sugar), but I wasn't too impressed. Of course, I could just use vanilla-pods, but firstly I'm too lazy to scrape out the seeds, and secondly, they cost a fortune in Australia. But, one morning I saw this Aussie supermodel on a TV-show sharing a cake-recipe where she used ground vanilla. She said it was from loving earth, which I found out was an internet store after some googling. VOILA! I ordered it, and a couple of days later I had the parcel at my door step.

This is how it looks like:

Now, it wasn't cheap: This 75 gram container was around 20 dollars (if I remember correctly). But, you only ever use a teaspoon, so it will last forever! What I like about baking with real, ground vanilla, is that you get these little black vanilla grains that makes your ice-cream etc look really gourmet-ish. Plus it tastes yum, and that it's organic doesn't hurt! Use in teas, coffees, smoothies - and of course all your low-carb treats.

I can not recommend this product highly enough for your low carb baking. 

Birthday cake

It was my birthday a few weeks ago, and naturally I wanted birthday cake! Last year I treated myself to some Cheesecake Factory, because those cakes used to be among (my MANY sugary) favourites. That birthday cake  must have been my one and only "sugar incidence" last year... Many people find that once they are off the sugar, the ''white poison'' doesn't quite taste the same. This wasn't the case for me though! I had one piece, then another one, and I was in heaven! However, those next few days was much less divine for me... I felt like I was climbing up the walls, desperately craving more sugar and cake, like a former drug addict thinking she'd have just ONE more shot of heroine, then totally falling off the wagon... I stayed strong though, knowing it would pass, and finally I got over it. But that incidence made me realise just how strong an effect sugar has on me, and that having sugary cakes just isn't worth it - not even once per year... This year, therefore, I baked a sugar-free LCHF cake. This way I can have my cake and eat it too, without the post-sugar blues and cravings.


Cecilie's pink low carb baking bible (www.fristendelavkarbo.no) once again came to my rescue, with this divine raspberry and chocolate mousse  creation. It took a few hours to make, but was so worth the wait!


Crust:
5 eggs
100 ml erythritol
5 tablespoons  cocoa
4 tablespoons coconut flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon psyllium husk
50 g melted butter


Use a spring form measuring about 22 cm, and grease it with butter or coconut oil.
Beat eggs and erythritol until very fluffy. Combine cocoa, coconut flour, baking powder and the psyllium husk in a baking bowl. Sift  the mixture into the eggs. Then stir in melted butter.
Bake in the middle of the oven on 175 degrees C for 25 minutes.
Let the crust cool while you make chocolate mousse and raspberry mousse as per the instructions below. Then add one layer of chocolate mousse and then a layer of raspberry mousse on top of that. Decorate with a tray of fresh raspberries.


Chocolate mousse: 
200 ml cream
200 g 70 % Lindt chocolate
4 egg yolks
4 egg whites
4 tablespoons erythritol, the icing sugar kind


Melt the chocolate in a non-stick pan. Let cool a little.
Whip the cream and put it in the fridge.
Divide the eggs. Beat the egg whites stiff together with the "icing sugar" erythritol. Whip the egg yolks lightly and combine them with the melted chocolate.
Fold the chocolate mass carefully into the cream. Lastly, carefully fold the egg whites into the combined chocolate + cream mass.


Raspberry mousse: 
300 g frozen raspberries
5 tablespoons erythritol
300 ml cream
3 leaves of gelatin


Defrost berries, and combine with erythritol using a hand blender. Remove the seeds from the berry puree by pouring it through a sieve (using the back of a spoon to "force" it through, as the puree is quite thick). I repeated this a couple of times to get rid of as many as possible of the seeds.
Place the gelatin leaves in cold water. Heat up a small amount of raspberry puree in a pot, then squeeze the water from the gelatin leaves and dissolve them in the heated raspberry puree. Now add this into the rest of the raspberry puree (which is cool)
Whip the cream and carefully fold it into the raspberry puree, little by little.


Enjoy!


The tablespoon measure used is the 15 ml size

Blueberry muffins

Even though I'm normally happy with my three (large) main meals, it can be practical to have a snack handy. Last weekend I baked these yummy blueberry muffins:

4 eggs

4 dessert spoons erythritol

vanilla extract after taste (I use a sugar free brand)

1 tsp baking powder

100 ml coconut flour

100 ml cream 

100 ml of blueberries 

You can use any kind of berries, and change the quantity after taste. 

Whip eggs and erythritol fluffy. Then add coconut flour, vanilla and baking powder. Lastly, whip in the cream, then add the blueberries.Scoop into muffin trays using a spoon. 

Bake on 175 degrees C in the middle of the oven for 30 minutes. 

The recipe is from the delicious baking-book by Cecilie who has the blog  www.fristendelavkarbo.no  

I REALLY hope her book will be available in English soon! 

Chocolates with goji-berries

Goji-berries are super-healthy super foods, however with 65 grams of carbohydrates per 100 grams they aren't low carb. So if you are still in a weight-loss phase, you might want to skip these, or just have ONE...

Here is the recipe:

100 grams 70 % chocolate

2 tbsp liquid coconut oil

100 ml hazelnuts

100 ml goji-berries

Melt the chocolate and add coconut oil. Stir. Chop the hazelnuts and add to the melted chocolate. Add the goji-berries and stir. Spoon into ice-cube silicone moulds or special chocolate moulds. Keep them in the fridge, because the coconut fat makes them go runny in few minutes in room temperature. 

PS: I had to use peanuts, because I didn't have any hazelnuts.

Once again, this yummy recipe is from the delicious book Fristende Lavkarbo by Cecilie Theiste-Bratli who writes a blog with the same name: www.fristendelavkarbo.no   (Changed slightly)

Pecan chocolates

Sometimes I just love coming home on a Friday after a long work week, and lock myself in the kitchen - baking. An ice-cold glass of sauvignon blanc by my side and some Bon Iver songs playing on my laptop, and I'm relaxing.

Getting ready for a night of baking, with my low carb
baking book by my side 

Today I decided to make a few different things, and I started with this pecan nut chocolate recipe. It is easy to make and quick. I used 85 % chocolate (from Black and Gold's), but 70 % chocolate can also be used. Using 70 % chocolate makes the recipe more ''child-friendly''.

100 grams of dark chocolate
1 ∕ 2 cup pecan nuts

2 tbsp liquid coconut oil
1 ∕ 2 tsp sea salt

Melt chocolate and stir in coconut oil. Chop pecans roughly and add to the chocolate. Add sea salt that you have crushed in a mortar.  Spoon into confectionary cups\ paper cups or mini muffin cups. And that's it. Let cool in the fridge. Also, coconut oil plus room temperature is a bad idea, so make sure you store the chocolates in the fridge.

The recipe comes from the beautiful low carb baking book ''Fristende lavkarbo'' (Tempting low carb)by Cecilie who has the wonderful blog with the same name, www.fristendelavkarbo.no

Iced coffee

I love iced coffees, but I haven't had one since I started my new, sugarfree life over a year ago.  That was untill I came across this recipe on "lchf-bloggen" (the lchf blog) today:  http://lchf-bloggen.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/lavkarbo-iskaffe.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Lchf-bloggen+(LCHF-bloggen)
I can't believe I hadn't thought of this myself!

Of course I had to try it, and it was SOOO yummy! It will definately not be the last time I make this. I had a day of home-office today, so I enjoyed a huge glass of this on our front veranda during a break.
I changed the recipe slightly from the blog-recipe, adding 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla powder.

2 heaped tsp Nescafe espresso powder
3 tsp erythritol (the finely ground, icing sugar type)
1/2 tsp vanilla powder
50 ml boiling water
200 ml cold water
100 ml cream
lots of ice cubes

Dissolve the coffee powder and erythritol in the boiling water. Add vanilla powder and stir. Let cool a little, if you have the patience for it... Put plenty of ice cubes in a shaker. Pour the coffee mixture, cold water and cream in the shaker and shake well. Taste to check that it's sweet/strong enough for you and that the water/cream-balance is right.
Pour the iced coffee and the ice cubes into two glasses  - or 1 big glass, like I did (see picture)

Enjoy! 

Yummy cheesecake with lime and jelly

Well well... Turns out my second recipe will be a cake as well. I guess I just like baking better than cooking... :-) This cheesecake with nuts and chocolate base and a jello-coating is so yummy! And, best of all, you can serve it to your low carb-sceptic friends, because no-one can tell this is actually low carb. I baked it for Christmas for my Australian family, and they all loved it! The best thing about this cake is that it doesn't need baking!

Base:

100 grams of dark chocolate

125 grams of roughly chopped hazelnuts

1 dessertspoon liquid coconut oil

Fits a 22 cm springform 

Cheese-filling:

300 ml full fat cream

200 grams of full fat Philadelphia cream cheese

150 ml erythritol

Juice from one small lime

Jelly-coating:
1 packet of Sugar free jelly. Prepare after recipe on packet. 


Melt the chocolate in a teflon coated pan. Add fluid coconut oil. Chop the nuts roughly and stir them into the chocolate. Use a spatula and evenly spread it out inside the spring form. 


Put the spring form into fridge until the base has set. 


Whip the cream fluffy. 
Whip cream cheese and erythritol thoroughly in another bowl. Then, mix the cream and the cheese mass carefully. Add the juice from the lime and mix it quickly into the mix. 


Spread the mass onto the cake base.  
When the jello has cooled down, carefully pour it on top of the cheese cake. 


Enjoy :-) 


PS: The cake tastes even better if you make the jello from scratch. 


If you do, here is the jello recipe:

200 grams of raspberries
500 ml water
150 ml erythritol
6 plates of gelatine


Let the gelatine plates sit in cold water for 10 minutes. Bring water to a boil, and let berries boil for around 10 minutes. Use a sieve and pour the berry mixture into a bowl. Use a spoon to squeeze all the liquid out of the berries. (You use the liquid and throw out the berry-rests). Add erythritol.


Squeeze the water out of the gelatine and stir it into the raspberry-liquid until cool. Put in the fridge and cool a bit more. 

The recipe is from the delicious baking-book by Cecilie who has the blog  www.fristendelavkarbo.no  

PS: I'm happy to get constructive feedback on how to improve my "baking lingo". When trying to translate my recipes from Norwegian to English I realized that I was lacking the vocabulary for a few of the baking-related items. (Like I had to show my partner the spatula, spring form as well as the type of spoon I used for the coconut oil and have him tell me the name hahaha) 

Cupcakes

My first receipe here on the blog will be these yummy cupcakes:

4 eggs
4 dessert spoons of erythritol
1 teaspoon vanilla powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
100 ml coconut flour
100 ml full fat cream

Topping:
200 grams Philadelphia cheese
1 teaspoon vanilla powder
6 dessert spoons erythritol (the finely ground, icing sugar type)
100 grams of softened butter


Cupcakes:
Beat eggs and erythritol fluffy. Then add coconut flour, vanilla powder and baking powder. Finally, add the cream, whip lightly.

Put the muffins into silikon muffin shapes (approximately 12).

Bake on 175 degrees C for 18 minutes in the middle of the oven.

Add the topping and enjoy!


Topping:
Whip the Philadelphia cheese until fluffy. Then add the rest of the ingredients while stirring.

Bon appetite :-)

The recipe is from the delicious baking-book by Cecilie who has the blog  www.fristendelavkarbo.no  

NB: I have changed the recipe from saying "table spoons" to "dessert spoons". That's because a Norwegian table spoon is 15 ml, not 25 ml like here in Australia. What comes closest I guess is the dessert spoon size. But just try and see how sweet you like them, I find that too much erythritol gives a very "cold" taste.