Posts Tagged ‘cocoa powder’

Afternoon Delight

It has been soooo hot here in Portland (mid to high 90’s). In between camps, swimming pool runs, hikes, bike rides, gardening and work I often find myself needing a little afternoon pick me up. I went to my refrigerator today and found a huge containter of blueberries waiting for me (a common sight in our home during Portland berry season). I threw together this smoothie and it definitely did the trick! Blueberries and cacao are of course high in antioxidants and the coconut water is a great electrolyte replacer. In this particular smoothie I added coconut butter for a creamy consistency. You could also use almond butter or a banana and it would taste great! Enjoy!

Afternoon Delight Smoothie
2 cups coconut juice
1 cup blueberries
1-2 tablespoons raw cacao powder (or organic cocoa powder)
1 cup ice
1/2 vanilla bean or a dash of vanilla extract
1 1/2 tablespoons raw honey
1 tablespoon coconut butter or almond butter
pinch of cinnamon
pinch of cayenne
pinch of sea salt

Blend until smooth

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Bake your own Oreos cookies

Yep. You can bake your own Oreos. Seriously. And no, it’s not all that hard either. Trust me. If it’s difficult, I’ll be the first one NOT to try baking it. Okay, maybe not so since I am a real Oreos freak. I mean, who doesn’t love Oreos, right? What’s some mixing and sweat in order to bake your very own Oreos? I mean, once you can make your own, you can eat Oreos anytime you want!

Anyway, the recipe isn’t my own. I found it here. It was actually a recipe for chocolate cookies with vanilla-cream filling. That’s what Oreos are. And the results are…

Homemade Oreos

Homemade Oreos

Okay, so, they don’t look anything like the original Oreos but heck, these are homemade without any machines to shape it and put the logo on it. Still, the taste is absolutely spectacular…if I may say so myself. Ahem.

Mix the flour, cocoa and sugar together

The steps to making it are pretty easy too.

First, you need to mix the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, salt and sugar together.

Use a mixer to mix the dry ingredients

Then, you add the butter and the egg and continue mixing.

Add the butter and egg and mix

No need for elbow power. Just use the hand-mixer or stand-mixer or food processor to continue mixing the ingredients until you get this..

Mix till you get this dough

Then, you spoon out blobs of the dough and pat it into round shapes on the baking sheet like this:

Spoon out the dough and pat into shape

Of course, the sizes are a bit uneven but that’s messy me. You can be as precise as you want using a cookie cutter or your very precise hands. Me? I don’t bother. After all, they are ending up in my stomach anyway. Who cares if they are not perfectly round shapes,eh?

Then, you pop these darlings into the oven to bake for about 10 minutes or so.

the baked cookies

They are good to eat as it is without the vanilla cream filling. So, if you are not into cream fillings. You can just stop here. Okay, here’s the recipe for the chocolate cookies.

Homemade Oreos Cookies Recipe (Chocolate Cookies Recipe)

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 large egg

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 190 °C (or 375°F)

Set two racks in the middle of the oven. Preheat to 375 degrees.
In a food processor, or bowl of an electric mixer, thoroughly mix the flour, cocoa, baking soda and powder, salt, and sugar. While pulsing, or on low speed, add the butter, and then the egg. Continue processing or mixing until dough comes together in a mass.
Take rounded teaspoons of batter and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet approximately 2 inches apart. With moistened hands, slightly flatten the dough. Bake for 9 minutes, rotating once for even baking. Set baking sheets on a rack to cool.

2. Mix the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, salt and sugar in a mixing bowl using a mixer.

3. Add in the butter and then the egg while still using the mixer to mix it all together until you get a sticky dough.

4. Using a spoon, scoop up the dough and place on a baking sheet, about 2 inches apart (so that there’s room for it to spread) and flatten the dough using your hands.

5. Pop into the oven and bake for 9 minutes. Set aside to cool.

Easy, right?

Now, on to the vanilla cream filling which are even easier to make.

Place the butter, shortening, sugar and vanilla in a mixing bowl

Then, using the mixer (again), beat it all together until real creamy like this:

Using a mixer to beat till fluffy

And your vanilla cream filling is ready to be sandwiched! All you need to do is to add a dollop of it to the cookies and sandwich ‘em.

Place a dollop of the cream on the cookies and sandwich it

So, you then get these!

Homemade Oreos

I know, I know, the shapes are uneven and they are not perfectly round. But heck, like I said, they are going to the stomach, who cares what they look like? What’s important is what they taste like!

Anyway, here’s the recipe for the vanilla cream filling:

Vanilla Cream Filling Recipe

Ingredients

1/4 cup unsalted butter

1/4 cup vegetable shortening

2 cups sifted icing sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla essence

Instructions

1. Place the butter and shortening in the mixing bowl.

2. Using a mixer, beat in the sugar and vanilla.

3. Beat for about 3 mins until the mixture is light and fluffy.

4. Take a spoon and start helping yourself to the yummy sweet cream since there’s lots to go around (heheh..that is if you are into eating the cream from sandwich cookies)

After this, just simply start sandwiching your cookies with teaspoon blobs of the cream and pressing the cookies together. The cream is very light and fluffy in the beginning but will firm up later.

Now, didn’t I say it’s pretty easy to make your very own Oreos at home? Just don’t blame me when you can’t fit into your clothes. I can’t fit into my old clothes either.

Home-baked Oreos

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Very Low Fat Brownies

Whoever said that if you are on a strict diet, you can never have dessert? Especially chocolate brownies. Well, I absolutely LOVE love love brownies. So, now that I am trying to lose a few kgs (ok, ok, I have about 10kg to shed, not only a few!), having to cut out dessert and sweet stuffs will be especially torturous.

Imagine my delight when I found a low fat brownie recipe. OMG. I can be on a diet and still eat brownies. It is a life saver, I tell you. Now, this recipe may be low fat, it is not exactly healthy either. It still has sugar and flour and calories. So, do enjoy it but don’t sit right down and eat the whole pan of brownies no matter how tempting it is and no matter how long you’ve been on a diet. Trust me. It is damn tempting but will-power, please. If you finish it in one go, then there won’t be any left tomorrow, right? So, here it is. Just salivate over it.

low fat chocolate brownies

The low fat chocolate brownies are low fat but the topping is not. It is very simple to make. Really.

flour and cocoa powder

Just sift the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder into the mixing bowl.

two eggs

We need two eggs.

Use brown sugar

I used brown sugar instead of white sugar.

Add yogurt, egg, vegetable oil and vanilla essence to the dry mixture

Then, add the yogurt, vegetable oil, vanilla and eggs (lightly beaten) to the flour and sugar mixture. Stir till very well mixed.

pour the mixture into the prelined pan to bake

Pour the mixture into a prepared pan for baking. After about 20 minutes….

very low fat chocolate brownies

You get this!

Here’s the recipe proper:

Very Low Fat Brownies Recipe

low fat brownies

Ingredients

1 cup flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

4 tbsp cocoa powder

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup plain yogurt (I used blueberry yogurt)

2 eggs, beaten

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 1/2 tbsp vegetable oil

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Line the baking pan with baking paper.

2. Sift the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder into the mixing bowl. Add in the sugar.

3. Then mix in the yogurt, eggs, vanilla and vegetable oil. Combine well.

4. Pour the mixture into the baking pan and bake for about 20 minutes.

5. Leave in the pan to cool.

Now, for the icing / topping. It is NOT low fat but damn good. If you are really on a diet, don’t use this!

Rich Peanut Butter Chocolate Icing

Ingredients

6 tbsp dark chocolate, broken into small pieces

2 tbsp butter

2 tbsp low fat milk

3 tbsp peanut butter

3 tbsp icing sugar

Instructions

1. Melt the dark chocolate and butter in the microwave for about a minute.

2. Stir and mix the dark chocolate and butter. Add the peanut butter, milk and sugar.

3. Combine well and you will get a smooth, chocolate paste.

4. Scoop onto the brownies and serve.

low fat brownies with rich chocolate peanut butter icing

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Sweet Cashew Hempseed Treats

Raw food recipes have a reputation of taking forever to make (and honestly some do take a lot of prep time, forethought and dehydration, soaking, etc). My goal for these blog recipes is to make them suuuuper easy for you throw together. There will be a few that take some time but here is one that is very easy, delicious, healthy and kids love it! Enjoy…


Sweet Cashew Hempseed Treats

1 1/2 cups cashews
10 dried figs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla or 1/2 vanilla bean seeded
1 tablespoon raw honey (or agave)
1/4 cup hemp seeds
1 tablespoon raw cacao powder or cocoa powder(optional)
Pinch of sea salt

Pulse Cashews in a food processor until finely ground. Add the figs one at a time until the mixture holds together when you squeeze it between your fingers. Next pulse in the vanilla, honey and last the hemp seeds, salt, and cacao until all is combined well. I like to roll mine into little balls or you could press the mixture flat in a small pan and make bars out of it.

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Truffles mmmmm….

Every year in our neighborhood families get together and create a Halloween celebration without the added corn syrup, hydrogenated oils and FD&C reds, blues, etc. We make home made treats or crafts and our kids go from house to house gathering their treats. This year I had a request for these chocolate truffles. You can make them in a food processor or a high speed blender. They are easy, I promise! I added cacao/cocoa powder to make chocolate truffles but you could omit the chocolate, add more coconut, dried fruit, nuts, cinnamon, anything you might like. Its hard to mess it up with this base of ingredients here. Enjoy!
P.S. I notice a number of my posts are on chocolate (must be getting towards the holiday season). Don’t get me wrong, I love it and there are numerous health benefits. I do however limit my consumption of it and try not to feast on it everyday!

Raw Truffles

1/4 cup coconut butter softened (I put mine in my dehydrator at 115 for 30 minutes or so, you could do it on the stove or rest the jar in a bowl of hot water)
1/2 cup agave or to taste
2-3 tsp maple sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 vanilla bean seeded
pinch of sea salt

Combine all ingredients in a vitamix, blendtec, or food processor. Once combined and as smooth as you can get it transfer to a bowl and add:
1 cup of cocoa/cacao powder
and/or
Any chopped dried fruits, nuts, spices you might like.
Place bowl in refrigerator for about 30 minutes until the mixture has set and can be easily formed in to balls. Using a 1/2 teaspoon measure out and roll into small truffles. I like to roll mine in extra cocoa/cacao powder or coconut. Yum.