Posts tagged dessert

I’ve been off sick for the past THREE DAYS from work and it’s driving me insane. I don’t do weel with resting, or doing nothing, but right now I’m at a stage where there is nothing else I can do. I got sick from running myself into the ground and giving too much over to my work, my OCD, perfectionism took over, and I needed my work to be perfect. I wasn’t even taking breaks at recess or lunch! And look where it got me, run down with a chest infection. So please, look after yourselves. When it comes down to fight-time, you are the only one in the ring, no one else, so look after the only body you have! Eat well, sleep and rest, exercise, omit positive energy, inspire others and drink lots of water! Everything else that stems from it is a bonus… Rant over…

Anywaaaaaaay, because I’ve been home for three days, I thought I’d play around with some healthy protein baking. It’s always nice to know there is a healthy ‘treat’ there for you, but it’s still following all the rules of clean eating. This recipe surprised me and turned out well. I used to make muffins all the time, but the normal, high-fat, sugary ones, so I combined my past knowledge with a few other recipes that I’d been reading around the traps and made my own flaves. The beauty about muffin recipes are, once you know the base recipe you can create any flavour! Oh, the power!! This recipe is clean, packed with protein, good fats, fibre and is paleo friendly (other than the protein powder!) I’ve been finding different brands of proteins cook better than others, so play with the recipe if you need to. Let me know how they turn out? Enjoy x x

Banana and Coconut Mini Protein Muffins

Makes 6

(I think it works out to around 120 cals a pop)

• 1/2 cup almond meal (flour or ground almonds)
• 1 scoop protein powder (I used unflavoured casein for this recipe, WPI works too)
• 1/4 cup dessicated coconut
• 1-2 egg whites
• 1/2 mashed banana
• 1 tbs stevia
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 1/4 cup macadamia nut oil
• 1/4 cup light coconut milk

Heat your oven to around 180C and grease a muffin-tin with a little bit of oil.

Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl, almond meal, protein, dessicated coconut and stevia and mix well

Add all wet ingredients to the same bowl, and fold through till well combined. (Here is the point you may need to add a little more wet ingredients, dependant on the protein powder. You want it to be moist.)

Divide the mix among 6 muffin holes.

Cook for around 25 minutes or until they are just golden and cooked. They should be bouncy on the top!

Then eat!! Yummmmm! x

Notes:

Macadamia Nut oil can just be bought from the supermarket.

Also try other flavours:

• Like Choc-tastic Muffins: omit the dessicated coconut, banana and coconut milk. Add 1/4 cup good quality cocoa or raw cacao powder and 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk, plus the whole 2 egg-whites.
• Chocolate, banana Muffins: omit the dessicated coconut and coconut milk. Add 1/4 cup good quality cocoa or raw cacao powder and 1/4 cup unsweetened almond milk.
• Cappuccino Muffins: omit the dessicated coconut, coconut milk and banana. Add 1-2 tbs instant espresso coffee powder. Add 1/4 cup unsweetened almond milk.

You get the picture?… here’s other ideas

• Energy Muffins: …with dried fruit and nuts
• Honey and cinnamon Muffins: …with, pretty self-explanatory…
• Blueberry Muffins: …with, you guessed it, blueberries! Yay!
• Apple Muffins: …you can find a good CLEAN apple puree for this one as well as fresh apple. Also add raisins or sultanas for an extra treat. (Watch the sugar though)

A healthy dessert creation and review

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope Santa was generous and kind and didn’t tempt you with too many sugary treats!

Today’s blog post is going to be a family Christmas affair. it is Christmas and I am going to involve my family; whether they like it or not! I’m so caring. For Christmas this year one of the awesome presents I received was a popsicle mould. Mum was a little sneaky and knew I had been searching for one for myself whilst Christmas shopping, and had managed to find me the coolest one of all; popsicle moulds shaped like little one eyed monsters!

So today’s blog is me taking my new popsicle moulds out for their first spin! But what flavours do I put in them? You can freeze anything! So which flavours are going to be the best kind of flavours both for health wise and taste reasons. As it is Christmas and I am spending time with my beautiful family, I am employing them to taste test my popsicles! It’s a tought job, but someones gotta do it.

I have divided them up into two categories: milky kinda popsicles and non-milky kinda popsicles. Sounds technical doesn’t it. Each popsicle is about 100ml so I have worked out the calorie count of each icy treat to that.

First there are the non-milky kinda popsicles:

1. Pepsi Max-icle (1cal)
2. Fizzy lemon, lime and bitters-icle (2cals)
3. Organic orange juice-icle (40cals)
4. Green tea-ice (0cal)

Then, there were the milky kinda popsicles:

1. Chocolate protein-icle (1 scoop BSC hydroxycut protein. 77cals)
2. Vanilla protein-icle (1 scoop BSC Womens protein. 82cals)
3. Homemade no-fat natural yoghurt with banana-icle (100cals)
4. Homemade no-fat natural yoghurt with almonds and honey-icle (216cals)

So please welcome to the Beautiful Fighta blog stage my Dad, Bob, my Mum, Lesley, and my sister, Steph.

Taste test time! Yew! Non-milky popsicles:

                                      Bob       Lesley       Steph       Me       PLACING

Pepsi Max-icle                        4              2               4              2                3

Lemon Lime, Bitters-icle    3.5            4.5            3              4.5             2

Orange Juice-icle                   4.5          4               4               4               1

Green tea-icle                          2             1               2               1               4

Final Result: our very scientific findings (haha) found that we all liked the OJ-icles the best, for texture and taste as it was almost like a sorbet. At only 40 calories they are not too much of a dint, but if you’re worried about you’re calorie count then the lemon, lime and bitters came a very close second as it was very refreshing and had a touch of nice sweetness. The pepsi max had good flavour but you need to like cola and the flavour disappears quite quickly. The green tea lost all it’s flavour when it froze.

Now for the Milky-kinda Popsicles:

                                     Bob      Lesley      Steph      Me     PLACING

Chocolate Protein-icle             3.5             1                3            3              3    

Vanilla Protein-icle                  3.5             1                3            2              4

Yoghurt and Banana-icle         4              2                3            3.5            2

Yoghurt, Almond, Honey-icle  5              4                4            4              1

Final result: hands-down the whole family enjoyed the Natural Yoghurt with Almond and honey the best but all were conscious of the calorie count. We all decided that if we were to do it again we would combine the recipe of the almond and banana popsicles by adding honey or sweetener (eg. Stevia) to the Yoghurt, Banana-icle. By adding honey to the Now-Fat Natural Yoghurt and Banana-icle it brings the calorie count to about 140cals, by adding just stevia it would stay around 100cals. Mum and Dad don’t eat protein powder and Mum hated it (hehe), she found it powdery and felt it tasted like raw flour, blah.

So I actually found these “scientific” results quite different to what I thought. I’m looking forward to making a batch at home and when I’m craving a cold, summery, sweet treat really bad I will pull out my OJ or Lemon, Lime and Bitters popsicle! Nom. What flavours can you create?

Kat x