Chia Pudding with cacao and rasberries

Chocolate Chia Pudding

Chia seeds…..apparently they’re really good for you etc…BUT, did you know, you can also make delicious, low carb desserts with them!?  The consistency may appear alarming, but I assure you, this is a delicious and guilt free dessert or breakfast….so much so, that I’m now making them all the time!!  Yes, that’s right….and this is coming from someone who previously thought a Nutella Cronut constituted a super food (“you’ll always be super to me cronuts!”)

Chia seeds absorb liquid, and form a pudding like consistency if you leave them soaking for an hour or so.

Cocoa chia pudding

These are really easy to make!  Recipe below makes 2 servings!!

Ingredients:

  • 1/4 cup chia seeds
  • 2 teaspoons cocoa powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 2 teaspoons honey (you can add more or less honey depending on your desired sweetness)
  • 1 cup almond and coconut milk (or whatever milk you would like – I used Almond Breeze Coconut almond blend)
  • Raspberries and flaked almonds (or any fruit, nut etc) for topping

Method:  

  •  Combine chia seeds, cacao powder and cinnamon,, and pour into the bottom of an empty jar or glass
  • Pour in almond milk and stir to combine
  • Add in honey and continue stirring
  • Cover your container or jar, and leave to set in the fridge for at least one hour, or up to overnight
  • Remove from the fridge, stir, and top with your desired toppings!!

You can add any other flavour combination to this, such as vanilla bean paste, pureed mango or berries, banana etc.  You can also puree the entire pudding to make a smooth and creamy consistency if you’re not a fan of the seeds – keep in mind you may need to add some additional sweetener if you do this!!  Try dates, or additional honey or maple syrup!

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A simple, easy and guilt free dessert!!  A great option for when you’re craving some chocolately, but attempting to avoid actual CHOCOLATE!!  Are you on the chia seed bandwagon yet!?

Raspberry Coconut Cupcake

Raspberry Coconut Cupcakes

So I’m raspberry baked good addict now!!  For those of you that saw my raspberry tea cake recipe, I’ve shaken up my usual lemon and more lemon flavour pattern to introduce the humble raspberry, king of the berries!!  To make these cupcakes even better, comes the addition of delicious coconut, resulting in a truly delectable morning tea treat!!

Even better?  The recipe says “put all ingredients in a bowl and mix.”  You can have a batch of these babies in the oven in five minutes.  Yes, yes and yes.  Too easy….too delicious!!!

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I used this recipe from BBC Food network:

Ingredients

  • 175g self-raising flour
  • 140g caster sugar
  • 50g desiccated coconut
  • 140g butter, softened
  • ½ tsp vanilla extract
  • 2 large eggs
  • 4 tbsp milk
  • 140g raspberries, fresh or frozen

Method

  1. Heat oven to 190C/170C fan/gas 5. Line a 12-hole muffin tin with deep paper cases or a 15-hole bun tin with cake cases. Tip all the cake ingredients except the raspberries into a bowl and beat for 1-2 mins until light and fluffy. Gently fold in the raspberries.
  2. Divide the mixture between the cases and bake for 18-20 mins (add a couple of extra mins for deep cases), until golden brown and firm to the touch. Leave to cool

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Are you a raspberry lover? Do you have any raspberry recipes you’d like to share?

Rasberry tea cake

Raspberry Tea Cake

rasberry cake

So about 90% of the recipes on this blog seem to be lemon flavoured….lemon bars, lemon yoghurt cake, coconut lemon cake, lemon cupcakes etc etc etc 🙂  If we haven’t already established this, I do enjoy a lemon flavoured baked good!!

Today I was contemplating what other delicious cake I could attempt to bake, when I realise I had neglected the most wonderful fruit of all, the humble raspberry!  (p.s, although, at $8 a tub, I used frozen raspberries instead!!)

I did a search and couldn’t seem to find many raspberry cake recipes out there!!  I found this one, on the BBC food network, and gave it a whirl!! The only tweak I will make next time is….more raspberries!!  I will definitely be adding a second layer of raspberries to the top of the cake before baking next time I attempt this one.

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Here is the recipe (you can see above that I’ve already eaten a very large slice of this baby!!

Ingredients

  • 140g almond meal
  • 140g butter, softened
  • 140g golden caster sugar
  • 140g self-raising flour
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 250g raspberries
  • 2 tbsp flaked almonds
  • icing sugar, to serve

Method

  1. Heat oven to 180Cand base-line and grease a deep 20cm loose-bottomed cake tin. mix the almond meal, butter, sugar, flour, eggs and vanilla extract in a food processor until well combined.  I don’t have a food processor, and used a hand mixer instead, and it was fine.
  2. Spread half the mix over the cake tin and smooth over the top. Scatter the raspberries over, then dollop the remaining cake mixture on top and roughly spread – you might find this easier to do with your fingers. Scatter with flaked almonds and bake for 50 mins until golden. Cool, remove from the tin and dust with icing sugar to serve.

rasberries

This only took about 10 mins to prepare – you can mix it all in the one bowl (woohoo, less washing up!!)

rasberry cake

Serve with…..raspberries and cream!!  Yum!!  Do you enjoy a good raspberry!?