Another Birthday Calls for Another Cake

On this birthday of mine, my family and I were in the lovely state of Montana on a family vacation. That state has stolen my heart, and one day I hope to call it my home. If you have not been there, you must take a trip there. The beauty cannot be imagined or explained. Anyhow, as bitter sweet as it was, we flew home on my birthday, but I was able to make this cake! 

I am grateful that I was able to make this cake because boy it was delicious and the best way to end a birthday and vacation. This cake was so easy to make that I was able to make it and eat it within two hours. It is such a flavor filled cake. The lemon and blueberry complement each other impeccably.

You may question the "glaze" as not tasting good since it is made out of plain greek yogurt. Well let me tell you, I was skeptical, but now, I am a believer! The cake would taste absolutely wonderful with out it too, if you are dairy free. However, if possible, I would add it because it is amazing. To me, it kind of resembles a cream cheese frosting.

As you can tell, all the pictures have pieces of cake missing...yes, that would mean that I did not even take the time to take pictures before we all snatched a piece for ourselves. It smelt so good, we could not wait any longer. Just try to refrain from indulging in it! It is harder than you think!

Blueberry, Lemon, Poppy Seed and Almond Cake
Recipe Adapted from Green Kitchen Stories
Serves 8-10

Ingredients:

4 cups almond flour
3 Tbsp. poppy seeds
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup maple syrup (or honey)
1 large or 2 small organic lemons
3 large eggs
2 cups blueberries (save half for topping)

Glaze:
1 cup plain full-fat greek yogurt
2 Tbsp. maple syrup (or honey)
1 tsp. vanilla
Remaining lemon juice

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 Degrees F.
2. Combine almond flour, poppy seeds, salt, baking powder, and baking soda in a large bowl and set aside.
3. Heat oil and maple syrup in a sauce pan on low heat until combine. Grate the zest of the lemons and add it to the maple syrup/oil mixture. Divide the lemons in half and add the juice of three lemons halves (or 3/4 of 1 lemon if using one large lemon) to the mixture. Save the rest for the glaze.
4. Add the maple syrup/oil mixture to the bowl with dry ingredients.
5. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl until light and fluffy. Then fold into the dry ingredient bowl.
6. Grease a 8-inch spring form cake pan and add the batter to it.
7. Bake for 40-50 minutes or until golden on the outside and baked all the way through (may add foil for the last 15 minutes if starting to get dark brown). Remove from oven and let cool for at least 30 minutes before removing from the edges of the pan.
8. Meanwhile start making the glaze. Combine the yogurt, maple syrup, vanilla, and lemon juice in a small bowl. Leave in the fridge to chill.
9. When the cake has cooled completely, cover it with the glaze and and top with the remaining blueberries. May also serve with the glazing and blueberries on the side.

Hope you enjoy! Eat up!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal Bars

I finally find myself back here. It has been quite awhile. With finishing up school and working way more than expected this summer, I have been way too busy! Thus, my kitchen time gets limited. However, just yesterday I had a baking day with my good friend Claire who has this awesome food blog Your Daughter's Kitchen. 

The slightly ironic thing about our baking day was that we never turned on the oven until we had to for our spare of the moment dinner. We made a Raw Peach Cashew Cheesecake, Zucchini Fig Pasta, and these delicious Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal Bars. The recipes for the others are soon to come!

The Raw Peach Cashew Cheesecake had to cool for about five hours. So Claire and I got a little impatient and hungry. We kept checking it and the progress of freezing it seemed non-existent. We were just sitting there talking, and Claire saw the picture of these bars come on Instagram. She showed me, and we both decided that we had to make them...So we did!

With only six ingredients, these bars are easily made on a whim! However, we realized that these too had to cool.. But let me tell you, it is totally worth it! They are absolutely positively scrumptious. They reminded us of puppy chow and fudge in one. If that doesn't sound amazing, I don't know what would!

The bars came from the blog Hungry Happens. I was just shown this blog this weekend, and I already love it! After eating these bars, I can't wait try many more things from here!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal Bars 
Recipe from Hungry Happens
Yields 18 mini bars

Ingredients:
1 cup raw smooth peanut butter
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup coconut oil
2 cups old fashioned oats
1 cup dark chocolate chips (dairy-free if needed)
1 tsp. vanilla

Directions:
1. Line an 8x8" baking pan with parchment paper
2. In medium to large size pan on medium-low heat, melt the peanut butter, coconut oil, and maple syrup together. Do not heat on high or the mixture may burn. Stir until throughly combine.
3. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the chocolate chips and vanilla. Then add in the oats.
4. Pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish. Smooth out the top with a rubber spatula.
5. Freeze for 1-2 hours or until set.

Leftovers should be stored in an airtight container in the fridge. Enjoy and eat up!

Delicate Peanut Butter Cookies and A Confession

For the love of peanut butter and cookies!! These lovely babies were a concoction from quite awhile ago, but hey, better late than never right!? So these cookies were inspired by my desire for some Christmas cookies. Yes, a long time ago. Of course, we had all kinds of other cookies in the house, but no healthy ones. So I hopped up off the couch, crutched to the kitchen and sat on a chair with my leg on another and stirred that dough. You are probably wondering what on earth I am talking about. Well, like in my previous post, I was hung up because of my surgery.

Thank God for my wonderful mother! If it wasn't for her, we would not have these wonderful cookies to enjoy. I mean she is amazing in many other ways too. Always there when you need her. Anyways to the cookies. I am quite obsessed with peanut butter...if you haven't figure that one out yet. It is definitely a staple food in my diet. Thus, after my surgery what was I craving? Well of course, peanut butter and cookies!

So what better than to put the two together to make peanut butter cookies! Some times I am amazed at how creative I am. These cookies are seriously amazing. My whole family loved them as well! Always a good thing. They literally melt in your mouth. These peanut butter cookies are more rich than sweet, which makes them absolutely perfect for my taste! And they are so easy to make! If I can make them while having one leg and two days out of surgery, I think anyone can manage these delicious cookies.

And now on to my confession. Well, there is a saying "third time's a charm". It just so happens that it took me three times of making these cookies to get pictures of them before they were eaten. Needless to say, they could have been posted long ago if my family (mostly I) didn't eat them so fast.

Peanut Butter Cookies
Yields 20 small cookies (1.5" to 2" round)

Ingredients:
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup coconut sugar
1 egg white
1/4 cup spelt flour
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. baking soda

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a medium size bowl, combine peanut butter, sugar and egg white, stir until mixed thoroughly.
3. Add the remaining ingredients.
4. Roll dough into 1 inch balls and press down with a fork.
5. Bake for 5-8 minutes.
6. Let stand on pan for a couple minutes before transferring to cooling rack.
7. Allow to cool almost completely or they may crumble in your hands.

Enjoy! Try not to eat them all in one sitting. It is hard!!

A Chocolate Bar, A Little Taste of Heaven

I have had the ingredients to make chocolate for about seven months now. So I finally decided it was time to experiment. And oh boy! I am glad I did. My mom was quite happy too. (She is quite the choco-holic to say the least). I have seen multiple recipes for chocolate before, but none of them fit the idea that I had for it. So what did I do? Well like always, set aside time between studying and take everything out of the cupboards that I think I will need and start throwing ingredients in.

I am just so happy that it actually turned out the first time! I mean it better for how many times I taste "tested" it while making it. You never know when the flavor might just change on you...even when nothing new is added. That's my motto, and hey, it hasn't proven me wrong yet! This chocolate is an all around winner in my book!! there are many different ingredients/flavors that you could put in this chocolate to make it your own. My personal favorite was goji berries and cocao nibs. Another flavor that I made was roasted almond, sea salt. That one was my mom's favorite. So play around with your already favorite flavors and spice it up for your preference!

Now on to the ingredients. Cocao butter is the basis of this chocolate. It can be hard to find, but it is necessary to create such soft chocolate. This chocolate literally melts in your mouth. To find out more about cocao butter and another chocolate recipe visit My New Roots. Also, you may or may not notice that this recipe has cocao powder instead of the more popular cocoa powder. Cocao powder is a superfood. Yes! One of the most loved foods is good for you! However, like all things it is only good in moderation. Sarah Britton writes more about cocao on her blog My New Roots (which is one of my favorites!)

Heart-warming, Mouth-watering Homemade Chocolate
Yields roughly 3 oz. 

Ingredients:
1/2 cup cocao butter
1/4 cocao powder
2 Tbsp. maple syrup
1 Tbsp. coconut sugar
one pinch sea salt

Directions:
1. In a double boiler, melt the cocao butter.
2. Once melted, add in cocao powder, maple syrup, coconut sugar, and sea salt. Stir until combine.
3. Pour into a mold or in a pan lined with parchment paper.
4. Let cool completely and make sure they are hard before removing.
5. Store in the fridge to ensure they do not melt if warm out. Best to remove from fridge a few minutes      before serve/eat them.
6. Enjoy!

My advice...try not to eat them all right away. Not as easy as you may think!

Possible Flavor Combinations:

Roasted Almond Sea salt: load up on almonds and light on the salt
Goji Berries and Cocao Nibs: load it up!
Vanilla Coconut: 1/2 vanilla been scraped
Espresso: add 1 Tbsp. espresso powder
Add some hemp seeds for a little crunch
Be creative!