Tag: baking

Chocolate peanut butter banana bread

 

Sometimes all you are craving is chocolate, bread and bananas…. so why not combine all 3 into one and add some peanut butter as well?

In the past i have made banana bread before but this one is by far the best. It turned out fluffy, a little crumbly and the right balance of sweetness according to me. If you have some ripe bananas or just feel like baking… then give this recipe a go! You can see me make this bread in my instagram highlight (itsahealthylifestyle – my banana bread story highlight!)

Recipe:
▪︎
3 ripe bananas (note, leave half a banana to use on top)
180g all purpose flour
90g brown sugar
90g white sugar – or use stevia
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bakingsoda
C.a 50g cacao powder
1 tbsp vanilla sugar(or powder)
Pinch of salt
2 tbsp peanut butter… or use another nut butter
75ml coconut oil (neutral) or use melted margarine
C.a 60ml water/oatmylk/aquafaba

Top with: banana, chocolate chips and/or walnuts

How to:
Preheat oven to 175C
In a bowl mix together the dry ingredients (flour, sugars, baking powder/soda, vanilla, salt, cacao). Sifting the flour is the best… but mixing until no clumps also works.

In another bowl mash the bananas (2,5 ripe bananas). Add the oil or melted margarine as well as the peanut butter. Mix until combined.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Mix. Add some water as necessary. Add in some chocolate chips and walnuts.

Grease a bread form or make mini muffins.

Pour the mix into the form… top with some extra bananas slices. Cover with some parchment paper or aluminium foil.

Bake in the oven c.a 45-60 minutes… depending on what form you use. I don’t know the exact size of my form but mine baked for about 50-55 minutes… if you use a bread form(i.e longer and not as high) it might not need as long. And if you make muffins it might only need 25-30 minutes.

After 35 minutes check with a potato stick/knife to see if the knife comes out dry … if it does, then it’s done. If not.. bake longer.

When done.. take out of the oven. Pour over some chocolate chips. Allow to cool before eating

 
If you give this recipe a go don’t forget to let me know!!

 

Its a healthy lifestyle5 Comments

Vegan twix bars |Recipe

Surprisingly… it has taken me 4 years to recreate and veganize twix bars. In the past I have veganized kit-kat andsnickers bars… however they may need an updating soon just to double check the recipe and make a few changes if necessary. But I am surprised that it has taken me so long to try to make twix.One reason… I thought it would be somewhat difficult with the caramel.Two, twix wasn’t my favourite candy bar even when I ate dairy. But I have wanted to try give a homemade version a go.The thing about making homemade twix is that it can easily become… far too sweet. The sweet shortbread base, the sweet caramel and then topped with the sweet chocolate…. It can just become too much. But I found that these were ok, not too sweet…. Even if they were still very sweet.Adding a pinch of salt in the caramel and even adding some sea salt ontop of the chocolate doesn’t just make it look fancy, but is also necessary to balance out the sugar and sweetness.There are a few ways you can make twix which I have seen online.Many go down the route of making it a raw food/no sugar/margarine/flour type of snack…. And I think many presumed that I made these twix from dates, nuts and coconut oil when I shared these on my feed (click here).Unfortunately,…. Or fortunately? These are made from sugar, flour, margarine and sugar…. So if that’s not for you, well then I have linked some alternatives on how to make this down below. However, it wouldn’t give you that caramel pull which I shared on my feed and it won’t taste exactly the same. But it can still be delicious 😊 Personally, I like both alternatives…. The rawfood/only natural sugars type of remakes of candy as well as the real deal – just a veganized version. They have two different purposes and taste slightly different, and well… it’s good that options exist!So… You all came here for the recipe so that is exactly what is coming next.But first, just some notes:

  • You can add some peanut butter or nut butter before the caramel layer to add a little extra salty touch
  • *Note, the shortbread base will be slightly crumbly, but you need to press it compact and store in the fridge to fully cool before baking.
  • Also, make the base rather thin, not too thin that it crumbles but about 1-2 cm. Otherwise it is easy for the base to take over in the completed bar.
  • *How long the shortbread base needs to bake will vary depending on ovens and how big you make the bars, so I highly recommend that you check on the base and not let it overbake. It will firm up when it is cooling, so don’t bake too long, but keep an eye on it as ovens and the size of your base will affect the cooking time.
  • *Use whatever chocolate you like – I added some coconut oil to mine when melting to thin it out and not be too sweet. You could potentially use a darker chocolate which isn’t as sweet, or why not use maybe a dark chocolate with some flavour in it, to kick it up a notch!

How to make these bars with no sugar/margarine/white flour will be posted after the original recipe!

Recipe:

Makes 16 bars. C.a 1 hour prep/cook/chill time. Minimum 2 hours in the freezer before serving.

 

Ingredients:

Shortbread base:

200g margarine (take out of the fridge c.a 15 minutes before using)

100g caster sugar

c.a 260g all purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

1tsp vanilla powder/sugar

½ tsp baking powder

1-2tsbp cold water, if necessary.

Caramel sauce:

500ml vegan cream – either cooking cream (such as imat) or whisking cream such as (Alpro soya)

100ml syrup

3tbsp white sugar & 3 tbsp brown sugar (note, can also use just either or)

2 tbsp margarine

Pinch of salt

Topping:

c.a 100-150g chocolate of choice

Pinch of salt

Optional, 1tbsp coconut oil

How to:

Short bread base:

In a mixer, or a with an electric whisk, cream together the margarine (200g), sugar (100g) and vanilla (1tsp). Once creamed, sift in the flour (260g) and add the salt and baking powder (1/2tsp). Mix until combined and a dough starts to form. Note, you may need to add 1 tbsp of water if it is far too crumbly… but best is to add just a little water at a time so that it doesn’t get too wet. The dough should just about form into a ball/dough.

Wrap the dough in aluminium foil or cling film into a tight ball and place in the fridge for minimum 30 minutes.

In the mean time make the caramel.

Caramel:

To make the caramel, add the cream (500ml), sugar(6tbsp), syrup (100ml) and pinch of salt to a pot. Heat on medium/high temperature and stir to avoid burning. Allow to cook – avoiding burning – for around 10-15 minutes, stirring continuously. The caramel will begin to thicken – remember that it will thicken up more when cooling down. Once the caramel has begun to thicken up, after about 10-12 minutes cooking remove from the heat and add the 2 tbsp of vegan margarine. Allow to melt, stirring if necessary. Set aside and allow to cool down.

Note, if the caramel hasn’t thickened up despite cooling down for atleast 30 minutes, just heat up once again for another few minutes, stirring when necessary, and that will help it to cook a little longer and become thicker.

Preheat the oven to 160C (or 140C with fan). Either grease your baking tray, or place parchment paper in your tray (I personally recommend using parchment paper so you can lift the bar out when done).

Once the shortbread base has chilled in the fridge for minimum 30 minutes, take out of the fridge and press into the base of your baking tray, forming the base of your bars. The dough should have firmed up and not be too crumbly so that you can press it into a base. Remember, to not make the base too thick – or too thin so that it just crumbles apart.

Bake in the oven for about 15-20 minutes – the time depends on the thickness of your base and what size tray you are making. Just check on the base to make sure it isn’t burning.

Once done, take out of the oven and allow to cool completely.

Chocolate topping:

In the mean time, melt your chocolate over a waterbath. (Heat water in a pot, place a bowl or plate – that can stand the high temperature – ontop of the pot. Place the chocolate in the bowl or plate and it will begin to melt from the steam. Add some coconut oil if you want to thin out the chocolate). Once the chocolate has half way melted, remove the pot from the stove and the chocolate will continue to melt just from the heat.

When the shortbread base has cooled completely and the caramel has thickened up, pour the caramel over the shortbread base and spread out to cover the whole base. Then pour the melted chocolate on top, sprinkle with a little sea salt and place in the fridge to cool and firm up.

In a few hours, take out of the freezer and chop into desired bars or squares! Eat and enjoy 😊 Keep stored in the fridge or freezer, depending on how fast you eat them.

Alternatives:

You can make the base using almond flour and dates which you combine in a food processor (make sure the dates are the fresh kind and not the dry kind).

For the caramel you can make a date based caramel, such as THIS ONE, or you can mix together almond butter, maple syurp and a pinch of vanilla and salt to make a caramel sauce. These are not exactly the same as caramel based on sugar and cream, but it still works.

And for the chocolate topping you can opt for a verk dark chocolate or using sugar free chocolate, or make your “own” chocolate from melted coconut oil, cacao powder, vanilla…. Though that definitely won’t be the same result but it can work.

If you give this recipe a go don’t forget to let me know and tell me what you think! You can tag me or message me on Instagram, itsahealthylifestyle!

Are there any other candy bars you would like me to recreate? 😊

Its a healthy lifestyle

Double chocolate ganache birthday cake | Vegan

Looking for a chocolate cake recipe that isn’t based on dates, coconut and avocado? Or looking for a chocolate cake recipe that i can guarantee you won’t turn out dry?

Well then this is the cake for you. 

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A brownie-fudge base and a truffle/ganache filling with a tiny bit of rum for that extra kick. But that is entirely optional and would taste amazing without the liquor.

This cake was the result of mixing two good ideas into one. As it was a birthday cake for my mum i didn’t want to make a super simple chocolate cake, but neither did i want to go full on 4 layers with extra filling and toppings like i have in the past. So this cake idea seemed like a good middle ground. Not to mention, easy to throw together meaning that you really don’t need any baking or cooking skills to make this cake.

Also this cake would be a great addition to the new years eve celebrations or dinner 🙂 And a good way to impress non vegans with some amazing vegan cake!

So if you have the ingredients at home, or just want to try this cake… then give this recipe a go!

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Also note, you can change the cake base to something else if you don’t want the chocolate cake as the base. Example crush some digestives, add melted margarine and press into the base of your cake form, that will give this cake a bit more crunch.

Changes:

If you want more pear taste you could try adding c.a 30ml of the pear juice from the concentrated pears into the mix. But note, don’t add too much as there is risk that the mix won’t firm up in the fridge then.

You can add frozen – or fresh – raspberries straight to the chocolate mix to add more raspberry flavour.

You can opt for lighter or darker chocolate, but then of course the sweetness will change and if you go for very dark chocolate the cake will taste more bitter. But if you go for a very sweet milk or white chocolate you may want to cut back on a little sugar in the base or skip the vanilla sugar.

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Cake recipe:

Serves 12.

30 minutes prep, 30 minutes cook, 2+ hours to chill

Ingredients:

Base:

  • 150 g margarine
  • 100 g vegan chocolate – light or dark
  • 180g all purpose flour
  • 190g sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla sugar
  • Pinch of salt
  • 50g cacao or around 3tbsp
  • 150ml plantbased milk – go for soya or oat

Cake filling – ganache

100 g margarine
250 ml whisking cream, e.g oat or soya
400 g dark chocolate
1 tablespoon icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
1 tablespoon light rum, can be excluded

Topping
1 can of preserved pears
1 box, 100 g, raspberry

 

How to:

Make the base:

Preheat the oven to 175 ° C.
Grease a cake form with some margarine – or place parchment paper around the cake form.
Melt the margarine in a saucepan and remove from the stove. Chop the chocolate into small pieces and add into the melted margarine. Let the chocolate melt, mixing when necessary.
In a baking bowl, mix flour, sugar, vanilla sugar and salt in a bowl and sift in the cocoa. Mix until the dry ingredients are fully combined with no clumps.

Pour the margarine and chocolate mixture into the dry ingredients and add the plantbased milk. Mix until it’s a smooth batter. Pour the batter into the cake form.

Bake in the middle of the oven for about 20-25  minutes. The cake will firm up when it cools down.

Allow to cool down for 20 minutes before placing in the freezer for 30 minutes.

Filling:

Begin by boiling the margarine and cream in a saucepan (the same saucepan), takes around 3-5 minutes. Meanwhile, chop the dark chocolate into small pieces and place in a bowl.

When the mararine has melted and the cream is boiling, pour it over the chocolate.

Let stand for 1 minute before mixing until you get a smoothchocolate batter.

Add the icing sugar, vanilla sugar and rum into the mix.

Once the cake base has cooled properly (after being in the freezer) pour the chocolate on top of the base and place in the freezer for around 45 minutes to firm up before placing in the fridge for at least 90 minutes before serving.

*Don’t forget to set a timer so you don’t end up forgetting the cake in the freezer!*

Before serving, add some canned pears and raspberries on top!

This cake tastes almost better a day later, so you can make this cake in advance – just don’t top with the pears or raspberries until it is serving time.

 

I highly recommend you give this cake a  go if you like chocolate.

If you do try this cake, let me know what you think down in the comments below… or let me know on my Instagram (itsahealthylifestyle)

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Its a healthy lifestyle

Portion dessert: Saffron and gingerbread cheesecake

Saffron and gingerbread cheesecake parfaits

It’s Christmas and new years… you want dessert but you don’t want to, or don’t need to make a cake for several people… what do you do? Skip dessert… no of course that shouldn’t be an option.

Instead… make parfaits or single portion desserts… then you won’t have a bunch of dessert over that may not be eaten (or let’s be honest, is left over dessert even a thing?). Or maybe it is just date night and you want a tasty dessert for you and your partner or friend. Then here is the perfect dessert fro you.

Or if example, you whipped a bunch of cream and don’t know what to do with it, then this recipe is also for you 😊

Variations: NOTE… you can vary this recipe by making it oreo based. I.e use oreo biscuits as the base and add some crushed oreos to the cream. Or make a snickers based parfait by using digest biscuits in the base, adding chocolate and peanut butter to the soya cream, adding some salted nuts and caramel sauce as well as dark chocolate to the parfait 😊

The actual cake recipes for inspiration: Snickersmousse cake(HERE)& oreo mousse cake (HERE)

There you have 3 easy dessert ideas you can make.

So this recipe has been shared before, HERE, but that was to make an actual cake that serves 6-8 people, and this recipe is basically just downsized to make parfaits.

Recipe:

Ingredients – 2 large pots

c.a 100g-150g gingerbread men (you don’t need to be so precise with how many gingerbread men you use)

C.a50 g vegan margarine (melted) or neutral coconut oil

120ml soyacream, whipped

0,5g saffron

c.a 50g sugar

c.a 150g vegan cream cheese

Optional: some vanilla

How to:

Begin by melting the margarine. Crush the gingerbread men until almost crumbles – some bigger pieces are ok.

You can do this by placing gingerbread men in a plastic bag and then with a rolling pin, rolling over the bag to crush the cookies. Or just smashing down on the cookies with something heavy.

In a bowl, pour the crushed gingerbread men, and then pour over the melted margarine until combined. It should not become mushy or be too much margarine, if there is… then add more crushed cookies. Or vice versa, if it is too dry then it is just to melt a little more margarine.

Pour the base/cookie mix into your desired glasses, jars or pots. Press down to form a base.

Place in the freezer while you make the filling.

In a clean steel (or baking bowl) – make sure there is no oil reisdue, whisk the soya cream with a few drops of lemon juice until stiff peaks begin to show.

In another bowl mix together the cream cheese, sugar and saffron. Then “fold in” the whipped cream into the cream cheese mix. When it is all mixed together, pour into the portions/jars which you placed the gingerbread base and let sit in the freezer to solidify. Take out of the freezer c.a 30 minutes before serving and optional to top with some more gingerbread cookies.

NOTE – you can make layers and parfait. Example, make the gingerbread cookie base, place into the freezer. Add the saffron filling to half way, then add some crushed gingerbread cookies before adding more of the saffron cream. And then place back into the freezer.

Also note, you can use some lingonberry jam on top or in the middle, as that works well with the saffron cream and the gingerbread cookies. Though I don’t know how easy it is to find that jam in countries outside of the Nordic countries.

If you make this, don’t forget to let me know… on here or on my Instagram! It is always fun to hear when you try my recipes and what you think of them…. And yes, that also means constructive feedback 😊 I have been asked to start writing in grams instead of ml or dl which I usually use, and that is feedback which I am keeping in mind and going to try writing in grams instead or as well as ml and dl!

Its a healthy lifestyle

Vegan chocolate mudcake | Portionsize

Halloween is coming up…. and that means candy and chocolate in overload!

Typically it is candy you eat and want… but who can say no to chocolate cake? Of course… i am just using Halloween as an excuse to make these because they are so amazing. And also great to have in the freezer and ready to heat for when you get that chocolate craving… or maybe if you have friends or family over.

These are also the best way to impress anti-vegans or those who are sceptiacal to vegan food. Then whip these together and impress them with some chocolaty goodness!

If you are looking for some candy ideas then i have several homemade candy recipes you can try:

Kitkat, snickers, daim, ferrero rocher, oreo truffles,

In the future i need to try making some vegan twix or vegan mars!

If you have the ingredients at home then make these asap! You can half the recipe to make less, or double the recipe if you are having a party!!!

They work great to freeze in… so you have something chocolatey ready when you need some!!!

This recipe is definitely my go to when i want to bake something sweet or when baking to impress or give away to others!!!

If you have some nuts, coconut shreds or chili at home… you can always those to the mix!!

Recipe:

Ingredients:

180g flour

200g sugar

50ml cacao

1tbsp vanilla sugar

1/2 tsp baking powder

100g vegan margarine, melted

100ml vegan cream, cooking or baking(not whipped)

Pinch of salt

* extras, nuts, coconut, chili powder, espresso, nut butter

*muffin/cupcake forms – the best is to use reusable ones. Preferably, use sturdier forms as otherwise the mixture will spread out when baking.

How to:

Preheat oven to 180c

Begin by melting the margarine.

In the mean time mix together the flour, sugar, cacao, baking powder and pinch of salt. Make sure it is fully mixed and no clumps!

Once the margarine is melted pour over the dry mix along with 100ml plantbased cream. Mix until it all comes together.

Pour into individual forms. Fill about 3/4 of the way.

Place in the oven and bake for 20-30 minutes.

They will still be a little loose in the middle, but my recommendation is to allow them to cool in the fridge or freezer so that they get fudgy!!

Either eat warm, after cooling a little or eat when cold and fudgy!!!

These are the perfect dessert to throw together for any occasion!!!

Note, you can try making this in one long form but i can’t guarantee the results and the baking time may differ.

If you try these, don’t forget to comment below or let me know on instagram: itsahealthylifestyle

Its a healthy lifestyleLeave a comment

Peanut butter cookies recipe

Peanut butter fudge cookies…. what else can you want?

Recipe testing can go two ways….. you try to create a dish and it turns out amazing so i have to quickly write down the ingredients and measurements as to not forget them.

Or the dish can turn out unedible and can’t be saved….. but even then i write down the measurements and ingredients so that i can adjust for next time.

With this recipe… i thought it was the latter. A fiirst the cookies didn’t really turn out as i hd expected or wanted. They very soft coming out of the oven and thought maybe it was too much margarine. They didn’t quite taste like the crispy, crunchy cookies you can buy in stores.

But they were still tasty so i covered them an placed them in the fridge overnight…. andthe next day. Well that’s when i realized these cookies turned out suoer good anyway. They just needed time to fully cool!!

They are more soft and fudgy… almost like snickerdoodle cookies.

These cookies are quick to make, however they do need time to fully cool down so the wit until you can eat them may be a little longer than other cookies… but it’s worth the wait!!

Can you switch peanut butter for another nut butter?

I haven’t personally tried but i don’t see why not…. so you could give it a try!

Gluten free or sugar free version?

No, making these gluten free won’t work… inead it’s better to opt for another recipe 🙂 such as my chickpea peanut butter cookies

As for sugar free… it should work fine to switch the sugar for stevia. With the syrup… you should be able to use a stevia syrup/sweetener syrup, but that is alot more expensive. Or you could just add a little more liquid and make the cookies less sweet. However i can not guarantee the results if you do make this switch.

If you try these cookies… let me know wha you think!!

Recipe

Makes 10-12 cookies

Ingredients:

240g flour

150g sugar

100-150ml syrup

100ml peanut butter

200g margarine, room temperature

2tbsp cornstarch

1 tsp baking powder

1tsp bicarbonate

1 tsp vanilla powder

1 tsp cinnamon

Pinch of salt

How to:

Preheat the oven to 175 C

In a bowl whisk together the margarine and sugar until fluffy. Add the peanut butter and syrup.

In another bowl mix together the dry ingredints.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until well combined.

Cover 1-2 baking trays with parchment paper.

Form the dough into balls and place on the pparchment paper. Press down slightly. They will spread out a little so leave room for them to flatten and spread out.

Bake in the oven for 13-16 minutes.

Note… they will be rather soft when you take them out of the oven. So allow them to cool FULLY. Even placing them in the fridge a few hours before eating and then they will be more fudgy rather than crispy.

These work fine to be frozen and reheated 🙂 should also work fine to half the recipe!

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