coconut lemon cupcakes

WINNER ! BANTING RECIPE

I have gotten quite bored with coconut, so wasn’t too excited about this recipe, but it is quite yummy, and soaking the cupcakes in the glaze keeps them so moist.

ingredients for cupcakes

• 1/2 cup coconut flour
• 1/4 cup finely shredded coconut
• 1/2 tsp bicarb
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2/3 cup xylitol
• 1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
• 4 large eggs
• 3/4 cup coconut milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 tsp of lemon juice

ingredients for glaze

• 1/4 cup xylitol – powdered to icing sugar consistency in a grinder if possible
• 3 T coconut milk
• Finely shredded coconut to sprinkle on top

directions

• Preheat oven to 180*
  
• Mix the dry ingredients together
  
• In a separate bowl, mix wet ingredients together
  
• Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix to combine
  
• Divide evenly into about 9 muffin tins lined with cupcake liners
  
• Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown and cooked through
  
• To make the glaze, combine all the ingredients in a bowl
  
• Once the cupcakes have cooled completely, remove the liners, poke holes all over the top of the cakes with a toothpick.
  
• Dip the cakes top side down into the glaze and allow to set.
  
• Re-dip the cakes for a second coat of glaze and sprinkle with coconut
• 

Sunflower seed crackers (salty and slightly sweet)

WINNER ! BANTING RECIPE!

These are slightly sweet and salty – you could always add in more salt or a little spice if you wanted.

ingredients

• 1 cup sunflower seeds blended up to flour consistency
•  ½ cup almonds blended up to flour consistency
• 1 teaspoon agar agar
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons honey

• Preheat oven to 170*
• In a blender combine sunflower seeds, almonds, agar agar, salt, and honey
• Process until dough forms
• Roll out between two pieces of wax paper to 1cm thick
• Cut dough into about 6/8 rectangles
• poke holes in the surface
• Bake at 170° for 6-9 minutes
• Cool for 1 hour, then serve (they will harden up when cool) 

Banting Bread that works!

WINNER WINNER WINNER! BANTING RECIPE

ingredients

• 1/4 cup coconut flour, sifted
• 1/3 cup almonds (ground up to flour like consistency)
• 1/3 cup sunflower seeds (ground up to flour like consistency)
• 1 cup ground flaxseed
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1+1/3 teaspoons bicarb
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/4 cup xylitol
• 4/5 large eggs (needs to equal 1 cup of eggs)
• 1/2 cup full fat yoghurt
• 1/3 cup milk
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
• pinch of salt and a sprinkle of seeds for top

Directions

• Preheat oven to 170*C.
• Lightly spray loaf pan with oil.
• In a medium bowl, mix first 8 dry ingredients together with a whisk to help break up any lumps.
• In a small bowl, beat eggs, yoghurt, milk and olive oil together; stir in vinegar.
• Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients and mix just until combined. Dough will be thick and slightly sticky and will become fluffy.
• Scoop dough into greased loaf pan.
• Top dough with some seeds and salt
• Bake for 55 minutes  (lightly cover with foil if top browns too quickly)
• Let sit in pan for 5 minutes; remove and cool completely on a wire rack.
• Slice using a bread knife or sharp serrated knife.

banting lemon cheesecake

WINNER! BANTING RECIPE

ingredients

• 3/4 cup cream
• 3T xyitol
• 125g creamed cheese
• 1t vanilla essence
• zest of 1 lemon
• juice of 1 lemon
• 1/2 cup walnuts
• 1/2t salt
• 1t xylitol

Directions

• Mix together walnuts, 1/2t salt and 1/2T xylitol and blend until flour like consistency
• Split between 4 small ramekins and press firmly into base
• Beat 1/4cup cream with 1/2 vanilla essence and 2T xylitol until stiff peaks form
• In a separate bowl, mix together the cream cheese, lemon juice and lemon juice
• Combine the cream with the cream cheese mixture gently
• Pour mixture over the base and shake to smooth out
• Whip together 1/2cup cream with 1/2vanilla and 1/2T xylitol and beat until stiff
• Spoon onto top of the cheesecake
• Top with a little lemon zest and serve

Pizza pie

This is based on a recipe on http://www.uplateanyway.com. We really enjoyed it, but it is a lot of cheese (which resulted in bad dreams for me!) I don’t have a microwave so I did all the melting over a double boiler, but you could just as easily melt the cheese in quick bursts in the microwave. This recipe makes 2 pizza pies (enough for 3 people). I would suggest serving it with a delicious salad.

WINNER! BANTING RECIPE

ingredients

• 8T Almond Flour
• 6T Coconut Flour
• 1/4 cup butter (melted)
• 3 cups mozzarella cheese
• 1t garlic salt
• 1 cayenne pepper
• 2 eggs
• Fillings (1 cup cheese as a base) and others such as roasted butternut, tomatoes, garlic; olives; parma ham, jalapenos, etc

Directions

• Pre-heat the oven to 180*
• Using a double boiler, gently melt the cheese in a pot (like you would do with chocolate)
  
• Add the butter and stir to combine (it will look like it won’t mix together, but it will)
• Add the other ingredients and stir well (put it back on the double boiler to get it to mix well)
  
• Pour half the mix onto a silicone mat and put some clingwrap onto
  
• Roll out dough to about 0.5cm
• Slice up (as per pic)
  
• Put filling in centre, and gently fold the dough up around the centre (I used roasted tomatoes, roasted garlic, roasted butternut, olives and cheese)
  
• 
• Repeat for 2nd pizza pie
• Bake for 15 minutes
• Slice up and serve!

Nutty Cheesecake bites

This is from a recipe I found online – they used sweetener and hazelnut essence (which I’ve not found in Cape Town – let me know if you find it!) so I’ve switched things around and it is very yummy. It was inspired by my dear friend Justine, who is 7 months pregnant – we went out for lunch and ordered the hazelnut truffles, and when they arrived they were covered in coconut – she painstakingly picked off all the coconut, and I got the inspiration to make her some coconut free hazelnut truffles! She loves cheese – so I thought these would be a winner (I am still waiting on her feedback but I really enjoyed them!)

WINNER! BANTING RECIPE

Ingredients

• 1 tub Simonsberg plain cream cheese (leave it to warm up slightly on the counter to help soften for about 10 minutes)
• 1/4 cup coco powder
• 2T honey (or more to taste)
• 1T almond essence (or use 1t if you don’t like the almond flavour to be too strong)
• 50g hazelnut (about half a packet) – chopped up

Directions

• Mix the cream cheese, coco powder, honey and essence together
  
• Once it is all combined, spoon a heaped teaspoon onto the chopped hazelnut
  
• Roll the ball around in the hazelnuts
• Place on a plate, and pop into the fridge to set
  
• ENJOY@

Chocolate brownies

• 
• 1 cup almond flour
• 1/2 cup cocoa
• 3T xylitol
• 1t baking powder
• 1/2 t bicarb
• 1/2 cayenne pepper
• 3 eggs
• 100ml cream
• 60ml melted butter

1. Preheat the oven to 180*
2. mix all the dry ingredients together
3. stir in the wet ingredients 
4. spoon into cupcake dish
5. bake for 10-12 minutes

 

 

 

Banana Bread

WINNER! BANTING RECIPE 

Ingredients

• 2 ripe bananas
• 3 large eggs
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon honey
• ½ cup coconut oil
• 3T melted butter
• 2 cups flaxseed flour
• ½ T cinnamon
• ½ T mixed spice
• ½ teaspoon celtic sea salt
• 1 level teaspoon bicarb
• 1/4 c xylitol

Directions

• Preheat the oven to 170°C
• Place bananas, eggs, vanilla, honey, xylitol, butter and oil in a food processor and blend together
• Add in the flour, salt, spices and bicarb
• Pour/scoop in to a bread baking pan
• Bake for +- 35 minutes
• Remove from oven and allow to cool

Coconut shortbread

The recipe for coconut shortbread is up – click here.

Sweet potato chocolate cake

I’ve been baking up a storm today – being in the kitchen is so therapeutic. This is a sweet potato grain free chocolate cake with homemade (sugar free) custard and dark chocolate ganache. Now let’s hope it tastes as yummy as it looks! Click here for recipe.

The cake was inspired by leftover sweet potato mash from last night’s dinner of Seared tuna, steamed vegetables, mash and homemade yoghurt and coriander sauce (made with Greek yoghurt, fresh coriander, garlic, cashew nuts, pinch of chilli and a spoon of xylitol)