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. 

Zucchini (squash) carbonara

It's Wednesday again, and time to share a new recipe. This time I'll share another quick dinner suggestion for all you fellow  time-poor people out there:

Ingredients
2 large zucchinis
2 large chicken fillets
250 g bacon
1 tbsp butter
2 cloves of garlic
100 ml cream
3 egg yolks
5 tbsp grated parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper

Procedure
Grate the zucchini using a julienne peeler. Fry diced chicken fillets and bacon. Whisk the egg yolks and the cream in a bowl. Fry the zucchini with the butter and the garlic in a medium-sized pot. Add the egg mixture to the zucchini and stir well. Then add parmesan and the spice. Lastly, add the meat and stir well.  That's it! Dinner in less than thirty minutes!

Note to self: Next time I'll use three zucchinis instead of two, if I use small ones like this time, as I would have liked to have a bit more green in this dish. 

Inspiration came from the beautiful blog www.sprudlendesunn.no/blogg/

Low carb scones for breakfast

This morning I was enjoying a slow start, and I decided to treat myself to home made low carb scones for brekkie. The recipe came from one of my Norway-treasures: The cookbook "Frisk med lavkarbo - 100 oppskrifter" by Norwegian  doctor Sofie Hexeberg and Gunn-Karin Sakariassen , currently not available in English (that I know of). 

Ingredients

80 g butter

120 g cheese

4 large eggs

120 g almonds

120 g walnuts

1 teaspoon baking powder

Olive oil 

Procedure

Coat a muffin tray  or large muffin cups with olive oil. 

Melt the butter, grate the cheese and whip the eggs lightly. 

Grind almonds and walnuts in a food processor. 

Add butter, cheese, almonds, nuts and baking powder to the whipped eggs and mix. Add a bit of water, should the batter feel too dry. (I didn't need to). Spread the mixture in a tray or muffin cups. I used a tray as shown in the photo below, and got 12 scones. 

Bake on 180 degrees C for 15 minutes. Then let the scones cool down before removing from the tray or the muffin cups. 

According to the authors, the scones are well suited for freezing. They may be kept in the fridge for 2-3 days, but apparently taste best when freshly baked or when heated up after being frozen. I can foresee this recipe going on repeat in my kitchen: SO yummy, and the scones will work for both breakfast, lunches or as a snack on-the-go. Next time I'll double the recipe and freeze most of it. 

I had mine with a bit of sugar free jam this morning, but they are probably even better with butter and cheese. 

The authors suggest adding bits of bacon, cooked ham or some spice to the batter for a bit of variation, and I might try that next time. 

New update each Wednesday!

I've got a little more time on my hands now that my job doesn't involve so much travel! This coincides with me returning from Norway, loaded with low carb cookbooks and inspiration for many many recipes to try out. Some of my readers have requested more frequent updates, and I'll make your wish come true: I've decided to try for weekly updates of this blog from now on, and Wednesday will be the day! That way, if I make something tempting (a cake, a low carb treat etc.), you'll have time to shop for the ingredients and try it out on the weekend! So, from now on, make sure to stop by my blog (at least!) each Wednesday. 

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. 

Low carb Inspiration

I've just got back to Australia after a (much needed!) month of holidays in Norway. Apart from spending lots of time with my family and friends, I also did some shopping. Low carb eating, especially LCHF, is very popular in Scandinavia, and the result is that heaps of low carb cookbooks have been published over the last couple of years. I couldn't resist the temptation, and ended up with no less than 7 new cookbooks in my baggage! Needless to say, our suitcases were stuffed when we returned. I've felt like a child on Christmas Day browsing through all my new treasures. Now I can't wait to try out some of the recipes and share them on the blog.