Zizi's Adventures - Real Food, Real Stories

Superfood Breakfast: Sugar-Free Cinnamon Granola

by

Here is another superfood, sugar-free breakfast. I learnt the recipe from Maria. During this sugar-free (no fruits, no desserts, no chocolates, no honey, no agave/maple/rice syrup, etc.), vegan  challenge I got so much inspiration from her recipes. I can be a very sweet-tooth person so to be honest… sometimes I feel I’m craving just a piece of chocolate.

This granola is a new favourite of mine. I’ve never made it before – I always bought at the stores – but I realized it’s easy and quick to make and you can choose all the ingredients you want to mix.

Sugar-free Cinnamon Granola

Ingredients (serves 2)

– 70 g walnut
– 30 g cashew
– 30 g almond
– 70 g coconut flakes
– 20 g chia seeds (you can substitute it with flax seeds or sesame seeds)
– 20 g coconut oil
– 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Method

Preheat the oven to 120C (248F) and line a baking tray with parchment paper.

In a bowl mix together all the ingredients and spread the mixture evenly on to the baking tray. Bake for 10-15 minutes until golden brown (half time turn everything around with a wooden spoon). Let it cool before serve it with almond/oat/rice milk or yoghurt. If you want to make it a bit sweeter add 1-2 teaspoon honey to it.

Cocoa, Chocolate, Walnut Cookies

by

Note: I was so happy to find out that my blog was nominated as the Best Healthy Cooking Blog category for this year’s The Kitchn Homie Awards. If you agree the nomination, a vote or two would be great & much appreciated (voting ends March 2nd, 2012 at 11:59pm EST). Thank you so much! 


So my blog is nominated as healthy cooking blog and I’m posting a cookie recipe. 🙂 But! There is only 1/2 cup cane sugar in 32 yummie cookies. This is sweet enough for me. I think we can call them healty cocoa, chocolate, walnut cookies. 
There’s peanut butter and 70% cocoa content chocolate chunks in the batter. Yum and gulp. It’s best to eat them when they are lukewarm. We shouldn’t be ashamed to have two or three at once.
Or four.
If noone sees us, maybe five.
  
Cocoa, Chocolate, Walnut Cookies
(Recipe inspired by Bakerella)
Ingredients (makes about 32 cookies)

– 1 cup white spelt flour, sifted
– 1/2 cup whole wheat spelt flour, sifted
– 1/2 cup cocoa (unsweetend), sifted
– 1 teaspoon baking soda
– 1/2 teaspoon salt
– 1/2 cup butter, softened
– 1/2 cup cane sugar
– 1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
– 1 teaspoon vanilla
– 2 organic eggs
– 100 g dark chocolate (70% cocoa content), roughly chopped
– walnut, chopped

Method

Preheat the oven to 170C (350F). Line the baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

In a bowl mix together the dry ingredients: flours, cocoa, baking soda and salt. In another bowl cream butter with cane sugar, then stir in peanut butter and mix until fluffy and light (you can also taste it, it’s so yummie :)).  Add vanilla, eggs and mix until combined. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix until combined. Stir in the chocolate and the walnut.

Take two teaspoons of the dough, form a ball and place on the prepared baking sheet. Flatten the ball slightly, then repeat with the remaining dough. Bake for 10-15 minutes at 170C (350F).

Vegan Applesauce Cookies

by

I posted my last cookie recipe on the blog last August. It’s high time to share a new one. I baked so many vegan cookeis during Christmas time but I didn’t have time to take photos of them. I’ll bake them again (because it’s always great to have homemade cookies at home in case of emergency, isn’t it?). 
I found this recipe on Julie’s blog. I veganized the recipe and I omited raisins. I don’t like them in cakes and cookies. These comforting cookies are great for breakfast but also go well with your afternoon tea, coffee or hot chocolate. 

Vegan Applesauce Cookies

Ingredients (makes about 40 cookies)

– 120 g coconut oil
– 120 g dark cane sugar
– 250 g apple sauce, unsweetend
– 150 g white spelt flour
– 150 g whole wheat spelt flour
– 1 teaspoon aluminium free baking powder
– 1 teaspoon baking soda
– 1 teaspoon cinnamon
– 90 g walnuts, chopped

Method

Preheat the oven to 170C (350F). Line the baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

In a bowl mix together coconut oil with cane sugar and apple sauce. Mix until smooth then set aside. In another bowl mix together flours, baking soda, baking powder and cinnamon. Add the wet ingredients to the dry + walnut combining just until mixed. Take two teaspoons of the dough, form a ball and place on the prepared baking sheet. Flatten the ball slightly, then repeat with the remaining dough. Bake for 12-15 minutes at 170-180C (350F) until the cookies are golden brown.

Basil, Walnut and Pecorino Spelt Crackers

by

I think I can say that home made cookies and home made crackers are the best. What do you think? Most of the time I bake sweet cookies but once in a while I crave after something salty, something savoury… like these crackers. 
I was curious where the crackers come from so I searched the internet and I found this: “Crackers are said to have been invented in 1792 when John Pearson of Newburyport, Massachusetts, USA made a pilot-like bread product from just flour and water that he called Pearson’s Pilot Bread. An immediate success with sailors because of its shelf life, it also became known as hardtack or sea biscuit. This was the first cracker bakery in the United States, and produced crackers for more than a century.

The real revolutionary moment in the life of the cracker came in 1801 when another Massachusetts baker, Josiah Bent, burned a batch of biscuits in his brick oven. The crackling noise that emanated from the singed biscuits inspired the name – crackers – and a bit of ingenuity, as Bent set out to convince the world of the product’s snack food potential. By 1810, his Boston-area business was booming, and, in later years, Bent sold his enterprise to the National Biscuit Company, which now does business under the Nabisco name.”

Now that I’m writing this post, watching this mouthwatering photos I know I have to bake them again this afternoon… yes, it’s this addictive. The good news: baking these crackers is easy as it gets.

Basil, Walnut and Pecorino Spelt Crackers

Ingredients

– 150 g white spelt flour
– 100 g cold butter, diced
– 100 g pecorino cheese, grated
– 10-15 lemon basil leaves, chopped
– 3 tablespoons walnut, roughly chopped
– 1 teaspoon salt

Method

In a bowl crumble the cold butter with the flour. Add salt, cheese, basil and walnut. Mix everythig together until incorporated. Divide the dough into half and transfer each of them to clingfilm and shape into logs (10-12 cm long, 3-4 cm diameter). Wrap well and place in the fridge until hard, at least 1 hour.
Meanwhile preheat the oven to 170C (325F) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Unwrap the logs and cut crosswise into 5 mm thick slices. Arrange the crackers on the prepared pan. Bake the crackers until golden brown on the edges and lighter in the centre (for about 15 minutes). Transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely. The crackers will keep in an airtight container in cool dry place for up to 10 days.

Vegan Oatmeal Walnut Chocolate Chip Cookies

by

I found this recipe on Stephanie‘s blog, Desserts for Breakfast. Do you know her blog? If you don’t, hurry up and check it out after reading my post. She is such a talented baker and photographer. She bakes so fantastically. Make sure you don’t look at her photos when you are craving after sweets… otherwise you will die in front of your computer. 🙂 Thanks to Twitter we became friends. I hope we will have the chance  to meet in person one day. My secret wish is to bake, stlye and photograph a cake together with Stephanie. 🙂
So the basic recipe is hers but I veganized it. I didn’t use eggs, milk and butter but the recipe worked without them. I used a natural sweetener birch tree xylitol to sweeten the cookies. It is roughly as sweet as normal sugar with only two-thirds the food energy. Xylitol is an all natural sugarless sweetener from birch trees. If you can’t find xylitol of course you can use cane, palm or normal sugar.

Vegan Oatmeal Walnut Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

– 1 cup white spelt flour
– 1 cup whole wheat spelt flour
– 2 cups rolled oats
– 1,5 teaspoons baking soda
– 1,5 teaspoons baking powder
– 1 teaspoon salt
– 1 cup coconut oil
– 1/2 cup xylitol (natural sweetener, birch tree sugar)
– 3/4 cup oatmilk
– 1 cup walnut, roughly chopped
– 1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips
– 2 tablespoons hot water
– 1/2 vanilla bean, split and seeded

Method

Preheat the oven to 175C (350F). Line the baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside. 
In a large bowl mix together the dry ingredients: flours, rolled oats, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl mix to combine the wet ingredients: oatmilk, coconut oil, vanilla and at the end the xylitol. Mix quickly then add the wet ingredients to the dry ones. Add the hot water and mix until combine. Using a spatula fold in the walnut and chocolate chips. Take two teaspoons of the dough, form a ball and place on the prepared baking sheet. Flatten the ball slightly, then repeat with the remaining dough. The biscuits will spread during baking so leave space amongst them. Bake for 15 minutes at 170C (350F) until the cookies are golden brown.