Healthy chocolate crackles, with coconut oil

Phew, so I've fiiiinally put a new template in. 

Wow, it's like drawing blood, it takes me ages to find something that suits me, I don't go for bright ones, except on other people's blogs haha, I don't really want graphics, I want two columns, one of them being wider than average, I want a white background for posting, I want decent size headings on my sidebar and I 'spose I'm just extra fussy.

 No kidding, right?

This one's not perfect, the text is a bit light but overall it does not offend me, which is the main thing. 

We'll see how it goes.

Aaaanyway, gotta share a recipe.

Remember chocolate crackles? Oh yeah, mmm mmm mmmmm.

Well, the original recipe contains copha, correct? Or, if you're in New Zealand, it's kremelta.

What is copha/kremelta? 

According to Wiki', it's a form of vegetable fat shortening made from hydrogenated coconut oil.

And, it contains soy.

Both big no nos when it comes to me cooking for my family.
(The hydrogenated part of the coconut oil is what's bad, coconut oil itself is lovely stuff)

So I did some tweaking and here is my version.

Chocolate crackles, done my way.

4 cups of wholewheat puffed rice

 (just plain, puffed, wholewheat rice. Found this in my regular grocery store in the health food aisle)

3/4 cup of icing sugar

(this was cut down from 1 cup, next time I'll try 2/3 cup and use fine ground rapadura)

1 cup of desiccated coconut

5 tablespoons of good quality cocoa powder

250 grams of coconut oil, melted

(I like using coconut oil, you can read about coconut oil on the Weston A. Price foundation site)

Method

Mix all ingredients together and spoon into paper cupcake cases.

Refrigerate till hard.

Store in the fridge or freezer.

And oh my, they are GOOD!

Next time I'll spoon them into my silicone cupcake molds, which I can never get cupcakes out of but these little guys pop out of their papers once they're refrigerated, so I'll save the paper and dump them straight in a box from the silicone molds instead.

Wholegrain puffed rice gives this treat just a little more nutrition than usual, it's a couple of steps closer to a whole food than rice bubbles, that's for sure.

And one more tip, be careful adding extra rice if your mixture appears too 'wet'. I've made this twice now and the 'wetter' mix I had the first time gives a much more melt-in-the-mouth experience, such as that of traditional chocolate crackles.

The second batch I made drier and it's more chewy and also more prone to falling apart, which the first batch did not.

Enjoy!

Ok, wanna see my recipe for coconut oil chocolate? Just as yummy as these chocolate crackles but grain free, great if you're paleo, or primal.


There is a link to it it my side bar or you can find it here: Coconut oil chocolate.

Latest from my beloved Thermomix

Ok, I've decided to keep my blog mostly as is, there is just too much out there and I know most of it I'll get sick of shortly after I've changed it. I'm a bit of a Plain Jane when it comes to decorating. If you could see my house, ALL of the wall decorations are pics from the kids. So before that, it was just a tad bare. From a trained photographer, that is dismal I know...to be remedied one day in the distant future.....along with actually shooting more than happy snaps again....But for now, it's clouds and I need to shoot me a header pic.

I digress.

Now check out this drool worthy bowl of yum...

Oh my, was it good??

Well, the kids and I ate it straight from the thermomix bowl, despite the fact there is a dirty great sharp four pronged blade in the bottom of the bowl, if that tells you anything, feral mother that I am.

And yes, I made them use spoons so no one lost any digits.

I found this recipe on Quirky Cooking labeled Berry Foam, but the name does not do it justice. Foam reminds me of something scummy on the seashore and Mr 4 asked if he could paint with it in the shower.

He's thinking of, uh, shaving foam..

Which I cover the shower base in and tint blue to get a bit of relief from Mr 4's never ending energy and questioning on a rainy day. Thanks to my older sis, mother of three that she is for that idea.

I'll put the recipe here, as I changed it just a smidge from that which Jo on Quirky Cooking made, and she found it on a forum and changed it just a smidge from the original. (If you want a picture of how this recipe should be presented, please check out Quirky Cooking, Jo is much more civilised than I)

Berry Foam

• Whiz about 80 grams of rapadura on speed 9 for 20 seconds:

• Add 300-400 grams of frozen berries or other frozen fruit chopped up. Whiz for 30 secs, speed 9. (I found I had to insert the spatula and help it along as per making sorbet)

• Insert the butterfly, add 2 egg whites and 2 teaspoons of orange juice and whip for 3 mins on speed 4.

Done!

But none left now...

Trying out the rapadura

A short while ago I mentioned rapadura, which is a sweetener made from evaporated sugar cane juice.

I managed to order some online, funnily enough it was cheaper for four 250 gram bags than for one 1 kilo bag so I went with the four.

This is what Jo at Quirky Cooking has to say about rapadura...

"Rapadura is evaporated cane juice - it's also known as Sucanat. It is just the juice extracted from the cane in a press, which has then been evaporated to dry it into granules. It has not been heated and spun to change it into crystals, so it has a grainy texture.

Because Rapadura is not heated, the vitamins and minerals have been retained. It also still has the natural balance of sucrose, glucose, and fructose, and contains components essential for its' digestion. It is metabolized more slowly than white sugar, and therefore will not affect your blood sugar levels very much at all. Refined, crystallised sugars will raise blood sugar levels, and the more refined the sugar, the more it raises your blood sugar."

See the rest of Jo's post about sweeteners here.

Now rapadura is a light brown colour, and in taste is vaguely reminiscent of brown sugar. It has some uneven sized grains so depending on what you want to use it for, you may want to grind it further. A thermomix is perfect for this but I'm sure any high powered blender will do.

So far I've used it to make lemonade syrup, a batch of snickerdoodle biscuits/cookies and just tonight I made a chocolate sorbet (in my Thermomix) with rapadura in it.

And oh my gosh, that sorbet was goooooood! I'm thinking the delightful writer of Gone Chocco might just appreciate this one and I will be sure to take a photo of it when I pull out the rest tomorrow and polish it off.

I digress.

Cooking with rapadura does not seem to be much different than cooking with regular sugar. The cookies turned out as expected, the sorbet as I said was sickeningly good and the lemonade syrup worked well too, the syrup gaining a beautiful deep brown hue and a bit of a brown sugar flavour. As I am a brown sugar fan, that's no problem for me.

Please excuse the manky tomato puree label left on my lemonade syrup bottle, I am generally too lazy to remove labels.




So in my quest to convert my family to a more whole food diet (um, a couple of the above foods notwithstanding...) the rapadura will stay. I just need to find somewhere to buy it in preferably larger and cheaper quantities.

If I find a decent supplier, I'll let ya all know.



Oh, and I'm taking delivery of some live kefir grains early next week, so that will be an interesting experiment too....watch this space.

Lets make a cake!

Hubby's birthday late last week so of course we needed a cake. To my kids, birthdays are all about the cake (apart from the presents of course) and "what cake should I have for my next birthday" is a topic brought up all too often.

So having exhausted my favourites due to father's day, mother-in-law's birthday and MY birthday, I was keeping my eyes open for something new.

What I came across on Lick the bowl good, was this blueberry lemon marble layer cake. Now, mine doesn't look quite like that, due to fact I made 2 layers instead of three, therefore had leftover blueberry preserve which I mixed into the icing. And I put a layer of sweetened whipped cream in the middle, 'cos I know hubby likes whipped cream. And the actual icing called for more butter than was in the cake, so I ditched that and just made a more simple one with a little butter. So true to form, it's not all that much like it's namesake.

The kids of course,were in on nearly every act:

It was delicious and not very difficult to make. Worth the effort.

Speaking of cakes and refined white sugar, I'm going to try some rapadura, which is apparently unrefined dried sugar cane (or sugar cane juice?), I need to find out some more about it. But it retains all it's nutrients and can (apparently) prevent the insulin swings brought on by consumption of refined sugar.

Jo at Quirky cooking gives a run down on different sweeteners including rapadura. It's something I want to look into in my quest to feed my family foods that are less refined......above cake excluded, obviously.

Watch this space.

Apple custard tea cakes

I made some of these yesterday...

Apple custard tea cakes

Don't they look great, all round and puffy, just promising to be moist and moreish underneath. And they were, mmmmmmm. Yes, were, because there are none left now, hehehe!

I found the recipe on sugarfishblog, posted by Ruth.

I did change a couple of things just to work with what I had around and what I know my family will eat. You'll notice no apple on top? I know kids (and hubby) would more than likely just peel it off. Yes, I am embarrassed to admit that....

I used wholemeal spelt flour, no custard powder (didn't have any) so just increased the flour by that amount, I only had one egg so added an amount of pureed apple approx equivalent to an egg, and used some leftover thick custard I'd made in the thermomix.
And mixed it all in the thermomix.
And I didn't do the butter and cinnamon sugar thing at the end either.

So really, they are probably only vaguely similar to Ruth's recipe
but gee they were droolingly good nonetheless.

Have a spare 10 minutes? 

Go and whip up a batch, then call me and I'll come over to help you devour them. 
See you soon!

Anzac biscuits -mmmmmm

This is another of mine and the kids favourite cookie recipes, so easy to make and very moreish. They also freeze well when cooked so you can make them in bulk. And, I have discovered I can make them in my thermomix, which I have to admit feels like the height of laziness, seeing as how they're super easy to make in the beginning.

Do you want to see my Squidoo page on thermomix? Check it out below...

Thermomix - Now you're Cooking!


As usual, I digress. Here's the recipe made the regular, stovetop way.


Anzac biscuits

1 cup rolled oats
1 cup plain flour
2/3 cup sugar/rapadura
3/4 cup dessicated coconut
2 tablespoons golden syrup
125grams butter
1 teaspoon baking (bicarb) soda
2 tablespoons hot water

• Preheat your oven to 160c (320f)
• Place golden syrup and butter in largish saucepan over low heat and melt.
• Dissolve baking soda in the hot water and add to the butter mixture.
• Add all dry ingredients and mix well.
• Place tablespoons of mixture onto greased baking trays and flatten slightly. Leave a little room for spreading.
• Bake for about 8-10 minutes until golden brown.
• Cool on tray for 10 minutes then transfer to baking rack to cool completely.

Now hide them away before the kids and hubby see them!