Pancake Muffins

Here is a fun recipe to try when you want that maple taste from pancakes but you need to eat on the run - try a maple pancake muffin! (original recipe found here)

Maple Pancake Muffins

1/2 cup wheat flour

1/2 cup white flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

2 T. sugar

2/3 cup buttermilk

1 egg

2 T. maple syrup

2 T. butter

chocolate chips

Mix together the dry ingredients in one bowl (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar). In a separate bowl whip together the milk, eggs, butter and maple syrup. Gently combine and spoon into a sprayed mini muffin tin. Top with a few chocolate chips and bake at 350 degrees for 8-9 minutes. Let cool and enjoy your pancake in muffin form!

(about 60 calories per muffin)

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Here's a recipe to keep for a gloomy day. Or a sunny day, because they'll still taste just as good :)
I got the original recipe from fellow Utah blogger Two Peas & Their Pod and just made a few modifications. Hope you like them!

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 1/4 c wheat flour
1 c oats
1/2 t. baking soda

1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
1/2 c brown sugar
1/2 c honey 
1/2 c coconut oil (butter substitute is okay)
1 egg
1 1/2 t vanilla
1 T. milk
1 c. chocolate chips

In one bowl mix together the flour, oats, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl beat the coconut oil, brown sugar and honey together. Then add the egg, vanilla and milk to the egg mix. Finally combine the liquid and dry ingredients, and then mix in the chocolate chips. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-11 minutes. Let cool and eat up!

Healthy Fat Cookies

Remember talking about avocados giving us healthy fats? Well I swapped avocado in my latest batch of cookies instead of butter. Ya know why?

Avocado has a quarter of the calories of butter and a fifth of the amount of fat. Two tablespoons of avocado has 50 calories, 4.5 fat grams, and zero cholesterol. Two tablespoons of butter has 204 calories, 23 fat grams and 61 mg of cholesterol. A bit of a difference, eh?

Healthy Fat Cookies

1 ripe avocado
1/2 c. agave or honey
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup wheat flour
1/2 cup oats
1 t. baking soda
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 t. salt
1/2 c. chocolate chips

In one bowl, whip the avocado, agave, vanilla and egg together. In a separate bowl mix the dry ingredients – then combine. I add the chocolate chips on top after scooping the dough onto the cookie sheet, but you can mix it in if you’d like.

Bake at 290 degrees for 15-18 minutes. It is a low temperature because the outside cooks fast due to the avocado. So keep the temp low in order to cook the inside too.

Enjoy! Have a safe and fun weekend!

Coconut Lime Cookies

So after cracking open my own coconut, I decided I would use it to make something yummy. And on our counter sat a plethora of limes. So coconut lime cookies were born!

*original recipe found on Peas and Thank You

Coconut Lime Cookies

1 cup oats
3/4 cup wheat flour
1/4 cup white flour
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 t. salt
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 cup shredded coconut
zest of 1 lime
1/3 cup honey or agave
1/4 cup milk
3 T. lime juice
1/4 c. applesauce
1 t. vanilla
1/3 cup chocolate chips

So first thing to do is shred the fresh coconut. You only need about 1/2 cup.

Then in one bowl, mix together the dry ingredients: oats, flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, baking powder and coconut. Then zest your lime into the bowl.

Next in a separate bowl mix together the wet ingredients: honey, milk, lime juice, applesauce and vanilla.


Now mix the two bowls together. Once mixed, fold in the chocolate chips. Bake at 350 for 11-13 minutes.

They come out a bit flat, I think because of some reaction with the baking powder/baking soda and the lime juice. But they sure taste good!

And it wouldn’t hurt to listen to this song while baking these cookies!
Hope you’re having a wonderful Wednesday!

Half and Half

Nope, we are definitely not talking about this stuff:

Instead, I’ve got a yummy cookie recipe for you using 2 kinds of flour…making up the half and half part! Usually I use all whole wheat or a mostly wheat and some white. I branched out and tried using almond flour!

Instead of going to the store to buy some, though, I just dumped some raw almonds into my blender and blended till I got a nice flour. Pretty dang easy! Just don’t blend for too long, or else you will get almond butter. Which definitely isn’t a bad thing…but just not what you are looking for right now!

       

After that, I used both wheat flour and almond flour to make these cookies. Let’s just say they were a hit at home!
*You could use 100% wheat flour, 100% almond flour, or try another flour like coconut or oat to put in this recipe – it is pretty versatile!

Half & Half Cookies
makes about 24 cookies

1 cup almond flour
1 cup wheat flour
1/2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/2 t. vanilla
1/2 c. honey
1 banana
1/4 c. peanut butter (or almond butter!)
chocolate chips

Mix together the dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, brown sugar and salt. Then in a separate bowl mix the vanilla, honey, banana and peanut butter. Once mixed, combine with the dry ingredients. Scoop out the dough onto a cookie sheet and top each cookie with a few chocolate chips (you could mix some in, but I found that you use less if you just top with a few, and that is all you need!)

Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Watch them carefully so they don’t burn!

Let cool, and enjoy!

The Truth About Chocolate

I would guess most of you have heard that chocolate is good for you, right? That all this time we have worried about it being too fattening and sugary, we should have just been eating it? Well…that isn’t 100% true.

Truth: Scientists reported preliminary evidence recently that cocoa may keep high blood pressure down, your blood flowing and your heart healthy.

Truth: The reasoning behind chocolate having health benefits is that the cocoa bean is rich in a class of plant nutrients called flavonoids.

Flavanols are the main type of flavonoid found in cocoa and chocolate. Flavanols act as antioxidants, which protect the body from aging caused by free radicals which can cause damage that leads to heart disease. Dark chocolate contains a large number of antioxidants (nearly 8 times the number found in strawberries). In addition to having antioxidant qualities, research shows that flavanols have other potential influences on vascular health, such as lowering blood pressure, improving blood flow to the brain and heart, and making blood platelets less sticky and able to clot.  A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that dark chocolate helps to lower blood pressure.

The problem? Not all chocolate is equal. A lot of chocolate doesn’t have high levels of flavanols. If you’ve ever tasted cocoa straight, it has a pretty strong, bitter taste. A taste most people don’t enjoy chomping down on. In order to fix that, most companies process and add sugar and other things to make it so you DO chomp down on it.

The other day I was watching the news and they had a guy from a local chocolate shop talking about their store. They sell high end chocolates (that sounds weird) and he actually said most people aren’t “chocolate lovers” but just plain old “sugar lovers” and they realize that when they go into their shop and taste real chocolate. They don’t like the cocoa, just the sugar and milk and fat added to the cocoa. Interesting, eh?

Typically, dark chocolate has the highest levels of flavanols.

Obviously, that doesn’t mean you should go eat all the dark chocolate you want. First, be careful about the type of dark chocolate you choose: chewy caramel-marshmallow-nut-covered dark chocolate is by no means a heart-healthy food option. Watch out for those extra ingredients that can add lots of extra fat and calories. Second, there is currently no established serving size of chocolate to help you reap the cardiovascular benefits it may offer, and more research is needed in this area. However, we do know that you no longer need to feel guilty if you enjoy a small piece of dark chocolate once in a while.

Hope you have a wonderful Valentine’s Day and enjoy a little chocolate with someone you love!

My Confession: Failed Attempts

I will just come out and say it: a lot of things I try to make come out gross and end up in the trash. Not always the whole batch of whatever it is, since my family is kind enough to try. But when 8 of the 12 muffins I made a week ago still sit in the bag on the counter, I know it is time to dump them.

As sad as that story is, it doesn’t really bother me. You see, I can’t eat pretty much anything I make because of my absurd amount of food allergies. So I see something online, adjust it a bit if I’d like, and then get my groove on in the kitchen.

My family will always humor me and try it, but the majority of the time it is a fail. However, this recipe I share with you today actually did get eaten. All of them (there were only 5…) Some liked them more than others. Like my brother-in-law who actually asked for the recipe (thanks, Tim). But now it is your turn to judge.

They are meant to be a dessert (aka, not eaten like a snack every day) and are not as sweet as the real thing. However, as Tim said, it is a great way to get your chocolate fix without all the sugar and sweetness. And you know my thing: homemade is better than processed.

So, here is my take on the infamous

Dark Chocolate Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup

Yield: 5 PB Cups

3 Tbsp. coconut oil or butter
6 Tbsp. natural cocoa
1 Tbsp. honey (or maple syrup or other sweetener)
1/4 t. vanilla
5 tsp. natural peanut butter

On the stove heat and melt the coconut oil or butter and the honey until a liquid. Take off the heat and add the natural cocoa and vanilla. If it is too thick, add a splash of almond milk until you reach a smoother consistency.

Then, in muffin liners cover the base with a smear of chocolate. Add 1 tsp. of peanut butter in the middle, then cover the top until you cannot see any peanut butter. I was able to make 5 of them. Pop them in the freezer to just get firm, maybe 10 minutes, then you can pull them out and store in the fridge until ready to be eaten.

Just so you know, I only took pictures of the pretty ones. The others looked not as smooth and nice. But I’m sure they taste just the same, so don’t worry about it!

Nutrition Facts:

	Regular Reese’s	My Reese’s
Calories	110	130
Total Fat	14 g	10 g
Sugar	19 g	4 g
Protein	4 g	3 g
Carb	23 g	8 g
Fiber	2 g	2 g
Sodium	130 mg	80 mg

 

Regular Reese’s ingredients: Milk Chocolate (Milk Chocolate contains Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Chocolate, Nonfat Milk, Milk Fat, Lactose, and Soya Lecithin and PGPR (as Emulsifiers), Peanuts, Sugar, Dextrose, Salt, and TBHQ and Citric Acid

My ingredients: cocoa, coconut oil, honey, vanilla and natural peanut butter

Try em out? Don’t tell me if they end up in the trash…

Have a great weekend!

Cocoa Surprise Muffins

No, the surprise is not black beans. After I tried that once and they were a fail among the fam I decided to stay clear of those fiber monsters in place of chocolate.

These, however, have the real deal. Cocoa and the real surprise: peanut butter! Who doesn’t love that combo?

I got the original recipe off Daily Garnish but they were made gluten free, so I changed the recipe a bit. It makes about 7 muffins…so if you are looking for more than you can adjust accordingly.

Cocoa Surprise Muffins
1/2 c. + 2 T. whole wheat flour
2 T. chia seeds
1 banana (or 1/4 c. applesauce)
1/2 c. almond milk
2.5 T. cocoa
1 T. brown sugar
2 T. natural peanut butter, plus another 2 T. for the filling
1 T. honey or maple syrup
1 egg
1/2 t. baking powder
1/4 t. baking soda
1/4 t. salt
1 t. vanilla

In one bowl, mix the dry ingredients (flour, chia seeds, cocoa, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda & salt)
In another bowl, mix the wet ingredients and the banana, leaving out the 2 T. for the filling. (banana, almond milk, 2 T. PB, honey, egg and vanilla)
Combine until just mixed.

Then fill half of your muffin tin with the batter, drop a bit of peanut butter in, then fill the rest.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. Enjoy!

Mmmm, ya!