Cakes, brownies and cookie recipes that are good for you - whoop!
In the immortal words of Mary Berry, "you must always have cake". Why? Because, she once told The Guardian "cakes are healthy too. You just have a little slice. There's a lot of cheer in cake."
And we heartily agree. A life following a diet plan without the odd gateau is a life half-lived. So if you're in a coffee shop and that cream slice just won't stop staring at you from behind the patisserie glass, do yourself a favour and eat the damn thing. Perhaps pay for it first before you crash right through and devour the lot, but do eat it. Know too, however, that there are a myriad of healthy, low fat and natural alternatives just waiting to be whipped up in your very own kitchen at home. From 100 calorie cupcakes to easy on the stomach soda bread and protein-rich brownies, here are a collection of recipes that are great additions to any diet - whether you're looking to lose weight, tone up or simply eat something delicious.
Rex FeaturesDark Chocolate and Mint Cake
This recipe is flourless, flavonoid rich and contains mint – one of the best ingredients out there for soothing bloated stomachs and aiding the body’s natural detoxification process. It also uses coconut sugar, instead of the refined stuff, for a natural, slow energy release.
You Will Need
¾ cup of coconut sugar
3 large eggs
3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa
3 tablespoons of finely chopped fresh mint leaves
3 tbsp hot water
60g chopped bittersweet dark chocolate
2 tbsp cornstarch
Pinch of salt
Mint leaves to garnish
Method Preheat the oven to 350C. Prepare a springform cake tin with greaseproof paper and cooking spray, covering the outside of the tin with tin foil. Beat the sugar and eggs in a bowl. Microwave water, salt and chocolate pieces with the mint until melted, then combine with cornstarch and cocoa and whisk until smooth. Slowly fold the egg mixture a quarter at a time into the starch mixture then scrape the batter into the tin. Bake for 20 minutes or until the top is set, placing the tin in a baking pan with an inch of hot water. Once baked, leave on wire rack to cool for 5 minutes before loosening the sides of the tin using a spatula. Cover the cake, then chill in the fridge overnight and decorate as desired the next day.
AlamyFig & Pecan Macaroons
If in doubt, reach for a macaroon. The small, French delicacies are made with eggwhites and so are low in calories because of the lack of calories they contain in the first place. This MyRecipes.com confection is slightly different, however, as it contains high fibre figs with pecans – a naturally sweet nut that boasts skin clearing, anti-aging and immune system boosting properties among its nutritional arsenal. Find the recipe here
www.cookinglight.com
AlamySpelt & Wholemeal Pie Crust
Yes, even the humble pie can be elevated to a diet-friendly dish simply by substituting bleached white flour for a bran and wheat germ alternative. Wholemeal flour not only boasts scores of immune system boosting vitamins and minerals (B1, B2, B3, E, folic acid, calcium, phosphorus, zinc, copper and iron, for example), but also more fibre to keep you fuller for longer. TheKitchn.com has a variety of great recipes for the ideal wholemeal crust. As for the filling, try a combination of your favourite savoury superfoods. Spinach and feta? Turkey and cranberry? Sweet potato, cumin and roasted red pepper? There are so many options.
Rex FeaturesBlack Bean Brownies
Food blogging duo Hemsley + Hemsley have come up with an amazing protein-rich, gluten free alternative to chocolate brownies: forgo flour and refined sugars, and use mashed black beans instead. Sound more like hellish breakfast than a satisfying dessert? Trust us on this one. It’s the most decadent chocolate treat we’ve tried in eons. And it’s reassuringly full of antioxidants, too. Get the recipe here www.thehappyfoodie.com
AlamyAll Day Apple & Oatmeal Rounds
There’s no need to opt out of biscuit week – particularly if your cookie of choice happens to be perfectly balanced, perfectly round and packed with fibre. Made with filling, nutrient-rich wholemeal flour and oatmeal, natural honey, metabolism-boosting cinnamon and skin purifying coconut oil, these apple and oatmeal confections will satisfy a sweet craving without derailing your diet plan.
You will need
90g Wholemeal flour
125g oatmeal
175g honey
1 egg
1tsp vanilla extract
110g coconut oil
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cored and finely chopped apple
Method
Grease baking trays and preheat your oven to 190C. Blend egg, vanilla, solid coconut oil, and honey into cream, then combine flour, oatmeal, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and apple. Drop into round cookie shapes using teaspoons onto the baking tray and bake for 10-15 minutes.
Rex FeaturesSatiating Spelt Soda Bread
No, completely cutting carbohydrates isn’t the key to diet success. We need the energy to power our brains and bodies, feed our growing muscles and keep us feeling satisfied for longer. But there is an easily digestible, nutritious alternative to processed, refined white bread. Try baking yourself a loaf of spelt soda bread instead. It encourages a flatter stomach by using bicarbonate of soda instead of yeast to make it rise, and low fat natural yoghurt instead of buttermilk to keep it lean.
You Will Need
250g spelt flour
200ml low fat natural yoghurt (plus extra in case needed for consistency)
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
1tsp sea salt
Method Preheat the oven to 200C. Sift flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt into a large bowl, then, forming a well in the middle, pour in the yoghurt and stir until if forms a soft, slightly sticky dough. Add more yoghurt if too dry. Need the dough for a minute and roll into ball. Put the dough on a floured baking tray, cut a cross in the top and bake for 30 minutes. You’ll know it’s ready if it makes a hollow sound when you tap the bottom of it.
Rex FeaturesDouble Chocolate Cookies
By now, you’re probably pretty familiar with good fats (the hunger-staving unsaturated kind) and bad fats (the artery-clogging saturated variety). But what if we made sure that same rule didn’t just apply to what we spread on our wholemeal toast in the morning, but to our baking as well? www.skinnytaste.com
food blogger Gina Homolka came up with a genius solution – substituting butter for avocado to create decadent double chocolate cookies that, at 152 calories each, are as easy on the waistline as they are on the tongue. Find the recipe here www.womenshealthmag.com
Rex FeaturesSuper Skinny Muffins
We’re talking proper skinny muffins – not the lemon and poppyseed coffee shop variety that still weigh in at a small meal-sized 350 calories. Food blogger Sunny Side Up Soph has cleverly substituted bleached flour for spelt, and refined sugar for coconut sugar, to come up with diet-friendly muffins at 100 calories each. Get the recipe here www.sunnysideupsoph.com
Rex FeaturesRaw Avocado Superfood Cake
OK, so this recipe is technically ‘no bake’. Which is sort of cheating, but in fairness just makes this skin-nourishing, irresistibly creamy dessert just that little bit easier to accomplish.
You will need
5 ripe avocados
2 lemons
150g agave syrup
1/2 finely grated lemon zest
150g melted coconut oil
½ tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp rosewater
For The Base
45g raw almonds
65g brazil nuts
53g desiccated coconut
150g dates
35g nut of your choice
2tsp melted coconut oil
Method Prepare a springform cake tin (around 20cm) with greaseproof paper. Soak the nuts and dates in water for 1 hour, then blitz in a food processor with the coconut and melted coconut oil until it forms a sticky crumb. Press into the bottom of the tin with your fingers and freeze for 20mins. For the filling, scoop out the avocados and squeeze over the lemon, then blend into thick cream adding the coconut oil, vanilla extract, rosewater, agave and grated lemon peel. Take the base out, pour the filling in, smooth it, and then put it back in the fridge for 30 minutes. Voila.
Rex Features100 Per Cent Vegan Rye Bread
Rye bread is a great staple carbohydrate to include in your diet. It's high in fibre, contains far less gluten than wheat bread, and is high in manganese and phosphorous; essential minerals for bone strength and a speedy metabolism. This recipe on VeganBaking.Net is super easy to follow, and omits all dairy for a particularly low fat alternative.
Rex FeaturesHealthy Carrot Cake
Anything with a carrot in it should be part of your five a day right? Well. Not quite. But you’re halfway to healthy with this Dukan friendly alternative. Instead of brown sugar, it uses liquid Hermesetas, a sweetner made from fructose fibres, making it 10 times sweeter than sugar for a tenth of the calories. Flour is swapped out for slow release oatbran and of course, there’s a pinch of cinnamon for a calorie-burning kick.
You Will Need
250g grated carrots
4 tbsp oatbran
3 eggs separated
2 tsp liquid Hermesetas
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp dried yeast
1 grated lemon zest
1 tsp rum flavouring
Method Line a 20cm loaf tin with greaseproof paper and preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4. Mix the egg yolks and sweetner in a bowl, then slowly incorporate the other ingredients, leaving the grated carrot and zest last to go in. In a separate bowl, beat the eggwhites until they are stiff and fold into the carrot cake mixture. Pour the mix into the tin, and bake for 45 mins. Why not try a low fat cream cheese topping with walnuts as a butter icing alternative?
Rex FeaturesNo Butter Shortbread
Yes, it is possible to create a moreish, melt-in-the-mouth shortbread biscuit with barely any fat in it. Instead, use a 125g tub of natural yoghurt, 100g of gluten free cornflour, an egg, 125g of unrefined sugar (or fructose), 70g of ground almonds, 200g of plain flour and a good spoon of cinnamon, which is great for boosting sluggish metabolisms.
Method Preheat the oven to 200C (Gas Mark 6) and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper. Whisk the egg and sugar together until it turns frothy, then stir in the ground almonds and cinnamon. Slowly add the sieved plain flour, corn flour and yoghurt until you can form a dough ball. Roll the dough out flat on a floured work surface, and use a cutter of choice to stamp out your biscuit shapes. Place on the lined tray and bake for 15 minutes. Simple.
AlamyChocolate Biscotti
Sounds indulgent, tastes indulgent, but these chocolate biscotti contain less than 100 calories each. Made with wholewheat, ground almonds and flaxseed, they’re rich in satiating fibre and packed with antioxidants. Check out the recipe here www.myrecipes.com
Rex FeaturesNearly Fat Free Sponge
Egg yolks do contain fat. But it’s just so easy. And so light on calories. And so easy to adapt. Want to customise the flavour? Add spice, use different flour, fruit, chocolate, marble colouring, or sandwich with your filling of choice.
You Will Need
3 eggs
75g unrefined sugar
75g self raising flour (yep, that’s really it)
Method Line a 20cm circular baking tray with greaseproof paper and preheat the oven to 170C/Gas Mark 5. Whisk eggs and sugar together until the mixture roughly triples in size. Fold in sieved flour and pour the mixture into a tin. Bake for 10 minutes or until done. Make two, leave to cool and add healthy filling for a Victoria Sandwich.
AlamyClean Gingerbread Loaf
Sweetened with natural molasses, formed out of high fibre spelt flour and containing a triple cleansing spice combination of fresh ginger, cinnamon and cloves, IFoodReal.com’s recipe
Gingerbread Loaf is so clean, you could eat it for breakfast. Vegan alternatives included, along with a delicious coconut icing. Find out how to make it here.
Rex FeaturesLose A Pound Cake
Imagine a traditional pound cake with all the flavour and moist texture of the real thing, with half of the calories? Well, it exists. And it does so by eschewing butter for low fat sour cream. This recipe can be further adapted to use fructose or fruit syrup instead of sugar, polyunsaturated soya margarine instead of butter and flax eggs instead of the chicken variety.
Rex FeaturesVegan Banana Bread
The perfect way to use up those blackened but still nutritious bananas sitting on your sideboard, and to try your hand at super clean vegan baking at the same time.
VibrantVegan.com has a brilliant method containing vitamin E-rich walnuts and canola oil, which is one of the best oils for maintaining heart health because it contains half the amount of saturated fat as olive oil.
Rex FeaturesFat Free Vanilla Cupcakes
Happy Herbivore’s vegan cupcakes are so natural it’s hard to consider them among the cake family at all. The baking blogger uses wholewheat pastry flour instead of traditional self raising, applesauce for moisture, non-dairy milk and raw sugar to create these vanilla-flavoured low calorie alternatives. Try a low fat vegan cheese topping for the icing. Find the recipe here VibrantVegan.com
Rex FeaturesFlourless Chocolate Cake
Your guests would never guess that this decadent dessert not only satisfies gluten-free diet plan followers, but those avoiding refined sugar as well. And that’s before we mention the health benefits of indulging in high cocoa chocolate now and then. Packed full of antioxidants, eating small quantities of dark chocolate can boost your mood, improve your skin and curb your appetite. Food blog Detoxinista has a great recipe for one such wonder pudding. Just substitute the butter for coconut oil for an extra nutritional boost.
AlamyHealthy & Humble Apple & Blackberry Crumble
The days get shorter, the nights get longer, the trees glow red and ochre and brown. And we have an excuse to eat warm apple crumble again. Yes, even if we are trying to shed the excess of the summer months. Instead of nutrient-stripped bleached white powder, we use natural rolled oats, seeds and chopped nuts for a protein-packed alternative (about 125g). To make, simply rub in with 175g solid coconut oil, 225g spelt flour, and 55g of unrefined demerara sugar until it forms a crumb. Pinch of nutmeg and cinnamon (great for your metabolism) is optional. Then sprinkle on top of 900g of bramley apples, a punnet of blackberries and a generous 175g of unrefined sugar and bake in the oven for 30minutes on 200C (400F, Gas Mark 6).
