Homemade Sugar-free Cherry Lemonade Jelly Stripes

A mouthful of a title, but I had to grab your attention. This recipe is sugar free and virtually calorie free, so is great for those of us on a lighter mission this month.

I’d never made my own jelly before, but when I saw a recipe for a root beer and cream soda terrine in a cook book I was given a few months back, it got my mind to thinking. The original version had sugary root beer made into jelly, layered with a milky cream soda flavoured pudding, sort of like panna cotta. This did sound delicious to me. But I know that root boor can be a bit of a hit or miss with some folk.

I decided to make it with sugar-free cherry and lemon-lime sodas. Cherry Lemonade is a great combination and I thought the colours would work well, as the jelly is striped. You could really try any combination of soda flavours here.

It’s layered in a loaf tin and does take a bit of faffing around, checking for each layer to set. But, if like me, you spend a lot of time in the kitchen then this is no bother at all.

I made this with regular gelatine, but perhaps some of my veggie foodie friends could tell me if vege-gel would work well here too?

The measurements below are in cups, which the original recipe had. This is actually easier with cups (which most folk have now in their kitchen drawers), rather than ml’s, but for your reference 3 cups is roughly 720 ml and ½ cup is 120 ml.

Yield: As many jelly stripes as you can slice

Ingredients:

3 ½ cups sugar-free cherryade (approx. 840 ml)

3 ½ cups sugar-free lemon-lime soda (such as Sprite or 7Up)

8 teaspoons gelatine (about 2 sachets)

Loosely adapted from Bakeless Sweets by Faith Durand

Method:

Grease a loaf tin with flavourless oil and wipe up any excess. Pop this into the freezer to chill.

In two large saucepans, separately boil 3 cups of the cherryade and 3 cups of the lemonade. When it reaches boiling point, turn the heat to medium and simmer for a further 20 minutes or until the sodas are reduced by half. Remove them from the heat.

 

In another 2 smaller saucepans, place the remaining ½ cups of cherryade and lemonade and sprinkle each one with 4 teaspoons of gelatine. Stir and let it sit for 5 minutes to let the gelatine soften then heat each pan gently to dissolve the gelatine. Pour each gelatine mix into the corresponding reduced sodas and stir. Transfer each soda mix to a jug.

Remove the loaf tin from the freezer and pour in half of the cherryade. Place this in the freezer for about 10 minutes, then into the fridge. The original recipe explains that freezing any longer can stop the gelatine from setting.

After 30 minutes remove from the fridge and the jelly should be sticky but firm. Slowly pour on half of the lemonade. Place into the fridge for 30 minutes and then repeat this process again with the remaining cherry and lemonades, so there should be four distinct layers of jelly. (The jelly won’t set in the jugs in between pouring each layer).

Allow this to set fully for a couple of hours before serving. To unmould, place the tin in some warm water (making sure it doesn’t go into the tin). Then invert the jelly on to your serving plate. Slice the ‘terrine’ into portions and your cherry lemonade jelly stripes are ready to eat – guiltlessly! Enjoy!

I am entering the jelly stripes into this month's Treat Petite, hosted alternatively by myself and this month Kat over at The Baking Explorer. The theme is free-from and as these have no sugar in them, they fit the bill perfectly!

Healthier Flapjacks with added Baobab

Have you ever heard of baobab? I hadn’t until the nice folk at the Eden Project asked if I would like to try some Baobab Powder. I was curious and asked more.

It turns out baobab is a tree referred to as the ‘Tree of Life’ in Africa and the fruit that the tree bears is highly sought after as it has many healthy qualities. In fact, this super fruit has more vitamin C than oranges, more iron than red meat and is packed with potassium, magnesium and calcium. The fruit comes in a powdered form which can be added to recipes and I was told, great in baked goods. The Eden Project also carry a range of other items with baobab in it.

I was sent the baobab powder to try as well as a couple of chocolate bars, one white and one milk chocolate with mango. Both the bars were delicious.

 

The powder has a slight fruity taste, but not overpowering. I couldn’t taste it at all in the bars. I thought adding it to flapjacks would be good, especially as I had come across a flapjack recipe, which promised it was lower in fat and sugar.

I added the powder to my flapjack ingredients and still could not get any overpowering taste. Good to know you are getting lots of minerals and vitamins without even trying.

The flapjack recipe, one from Delicious magazine used low-fat spread in place of butter and the sweetness comes from dates and apricots. The original recipe called for apple juice, but I only had light purple grape juice in the fridge, so mine were even healthier.

Here’s how I made them;

Yield: 16 flapjack squares, approx.

Ingredients:

150 grams low-fat spread (I used I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Light)

150 grams dates, chopped

3 tablespoons fruit juice (I used light purple grape juice)

30 grams chopped nuts (I used pistachio)

100 grams dried apricots, chopped

220 grams porridge oats

1 heaped tablespoon baobab powder

Adapted from Delicious magazine

Method:

Pre-heat your oven to 170C. Line an 8”x8” tin with greaseproof paper. Melt the spread in a saucepan. Transfer to a large bowl.

In a food processor, add the dates and fruit juice. Blitz until the mixture is smooth. Add this to the melted spread and mix together. Also add the nuts, apricots, baobab powder and oats. Stir altogether with a spoon and transfer to the prepared pan. Press the mixture down firmly, into the corners. I used an off-set spatula here to help me.

Pop into the oven for 20 minutes, or until the top of the flapjacks are browned.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes before removing from the tin. Allow the flapjacks to cool fully on a wire rack before cutting into squares.

The bars are chewy, sweet and deliciously moist. You can eat these without too much guilt at all. Enjoy! 

Parmesan Coconut Popcorn

I was in the mood for a healthy snack and in my endeavour to have a lighter January, I reached for the popcorn maker.

Many people think popcorn isn’t a healthy snack and they be right and wrong. The popcorn itself is full of fibre and if air-popped it’s virtually like eating air.

What kills it is the fat it can be popped in, then the toppings. From toffee, chocolate, even cheesy nowadays – they all make it not quite so virtuous.

I would totally recommend buying your own popcorn machine if you haven’t got one. You pop in the kernels and out they pop all cosy and fluffy, waiting to be devoured.

I still fancied cheesy popcorn though and settled for parmesan. Did you know that parmesan is lower in fat than a lot of other cheeses? 1 tablespoon actually has only 22 calories and 1 gram of fat! Plus I added some unsweetened desiccated coconut as I thought this would be a great flavour combo, but go gently on this as it’s not quite so low in fat.

To get the parmesan and coconut to stick, I grabbed one of those low-fat butter sprays that you can get in the supermarket. A few spritz of this and then toss in the topping and you are ready to snack away!

Ingredients:

50 grams of popcorn kernels

Low-cal butter spray

2 tablespoons freshly grated parmesan

1 tablespoon desiccated coconut

Method:

Pop the kernels into a bowl and spray a few times with the low-cal butter spray. Sprinkle over the parmesan and coconut and toss until it begins to stick. Add a few more spritz of butter spray if you need to.

It’s as simple as that. The coconut and the parmesan go really well together, sort of sweet and savoury at the same time. Plus you are good in the knowledge that this snack isn’t going to ruin that post-Christmas diet. Happy snacking!

Detox with a Carrot Cake Smoothie

Well, that’s the festivities over. Gone in a flash, and some of you, like me, might be feeling a tad over-indulged!

Well, this January I am intending to share a few lighter recipes – for my own sake as much as anything else. And to dust away those cobwebs, how about a detoxing smoothie? The added benefit with this one, as the title suggests, is that it tastes just like eating a slice of carrot cake – honestly!

All it takes are some soft carrots, a banana, fat free Greek yoghurt, milk, vanilla extract and a few spices. All of the ingredients are healthy and some have benefits such as the bananas antacid properties, carrots flush toxins from the liver, greek yoghurt is packed with protein. Cinnamon can improve brain function and ginger can relieve nausea. Put this altogether and you have a perfect pick me up from all of the holiday bingeing!

Tips:

• For the milk, I use sweetened soya milk, but any milk would work here.
• I freeze my bananas for smoothie making as it brings out the sweetness.
• Do not salt your carrots when boiling them (to get them soft!).
• If you have a lethal blender or a Vitamix then boiling carrots isn’t required
• The addition of ice is optional if you want it cold and refreshing.
• Add more milk if you would like it less thick.

Yield: 2 large glasses

Ingredients:

500 ml milk 

125 ml 0% fat Greek yoghurt

3 large carrots, softened (and cooled if pre-boiled)

1 large banana, frozen then thawed slightly

2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground ginger

¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

Ice (optional)

Adapted from Happy Healthy Mama

Method:

Place all of the ingredients (except the ice) into a blender/smoothie maker and blitz until smooth. Pour into two tall glasses over ice and sprinkle with some ground cinnamon if so desired.

See you can have your cake and drink it too! Enjoy....

I am entering this recipe into the new challenge In my VEG BOX, run by Nayna over at Citrus Spice. The veg this month, you've guessed it, is carrots!

2013 – The Best of the Boi

2013 was Cakeyboi’s first full year and I thought I would pull together some of the highlights for yours (and mine) delectation.

The year did start off quite quietly. Still learning my trade so to speak.

In April though my friend Jac from Tinned Tomatoes and I were invited to a tour of the Mackays Jam factory, here in Arbroath where I live. It was great to see how the jams and marmalades I grew up with were made. I also made a new foodie friend in Claire, who does the marketing for Mackays. Claire has since started her own baking blog What Claire Baked - check it out.

In May, it was Cakeyboi’s first birthday and one recipe I made to celebrate was very popular. The birthday cake batter bark was cake batter flavour fudginess sandwiched between white chocolate all with added sprinkles. Very delicious.

June was a busy month as Disneyboi and I travelled to NewYork for a joint (early) celebration of my 40^th birthday and our 10^th anniversary. We visited some places I had been dying to visit for ages, these included IHOP, the Big Gay Ice Cream store and lots of other candy-filled shops of wonder. It was a great, but very damp, experience!

In August Cakeyboi hit the press. After coming runner up in a National Cake Competition two of my local newspapers featured articles about me. The Dundee Courier even visited my dingy wee kitchen and took some photos for the piece.

In September after several months of sorting out, my foodie friend Kat at The Baking Explorer and I launched our own baking, blogging challenge. We toyed with a few names including ‘Four Petites Sake’ before agreeing on ‘Treat Petite’. It’s only a few months old but we are thrilled with all of the entries that our fellow bloggers are entering.

October was a busy bumper month. The BBC Good Food show invited me to be part of it’s Blogger Community, which I accepted straight away. I visited the show and wrote about my day there. This included meeting James Morton from The Great British Bake Off.

I was also lucky enough to interview celebrity chef James Martin.

Also in October I hosted my first Clandestine Cake Club. I joined the Dundee ‘branch’ in April 2012, and later was kindly asked by organisers Jac and Becca to join them as a co-host. My first time as host was great, the theme was Halloween and there were lots of tempting spooky treats to enjoy.

The past couple of months have been hectic, trips to London and York, busy at work, working with the nice people at After Eight, but I did manage to cram in a few festive recipes, including these cute Marshmallow Snowmen above, another recipe hit - if you can call this a recipe!

So that was 2013 in a nutshell. I wonder what 2014 will bring? Whatever it is, I wish you all the best. Happy New Year everyone!

Easy Cheesy New Year Nibbles

It’s nearly New Year. I don’t want to be all ‘Bah Humbug!’ but I’m not a fan of Hogmanay. Don’t know why, but it’s never been my favourite time of year, I’m much more a Christmas person.

We usually watch the London fireworks on the TV, and always say we will go down for New Year to see them first-hand, but always end up going later in the month.

Anyway, I digress! If you are having folk around for New Year, or are staying in with some nibbles and wine, like us, this easy recipe may be for you.

I love those cheesy goldfish crackers and there are others on the market now, such as llama’s and other random shapes. So I have made these addictive cheese crackers in the shape of owls. This may be fitting to eat when watching the ‘Hootenanny’ on the box(!).

This is just like making a cheese pastry - flour, butter, water and cheese, bit of salt and that’s it. Get strong flavoured cheddar, as that is what makes these nibbly delights. You can of course cut into any small shape you fancy. But try make sure they are no more than 1/8 inch thick. Any thicker and they have no crunch to them. They have a scone like texture instead, which is not that bad I suppose.

Ingredients:

120 grams plain flour

60 grams cold butter, cubed

Pinch of salt

220 grams strong cheddar cheese

2 tablespoons cold water

Adapted from Food4Tots.com

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 170C and line a couple of cookie sheets with greaseproof paper.

In a food processor pulse together the flour, butter and salt until it resembles breadcrumbs (if you don’t have a food processor, cut the butter in with two knives). 

Place the breadcrumb mix into a large bowl and add the cheese. Mix the cheddar through with your fingers. Add the two tablespoons of water and with your hands mix until a solid ball of dough forms. Split the ball in half and form them into discs.  Wrap each half in clingfilm place into the fridge to chill for 30 minutes.

Take one dough disc out and with a rolling pin, roll the dough out on a lightly floured worktop until it is 1/8 inch thick.

Cut out shapes with whatever cutter you are using and transfer to the prepared cookie sheet. With the leftovers, roll back into a ball and roll out again until is all used up. Repeat with the other disc of dough.

Bake the crackers in the oven for 15 minutes. Let them bake as long as you dare without them beginning to burn. They will turn darker, but this is cheese browning. The darker they get, the crispier they will be.

Let them cool for a few minutes before transferring to an airtight container to store them. They will last for a couple of days if you can resist them that long – enjoy! 

Treat Petite December 2013 Round-Up

I trust we all had a good Christmas? During December I was overwhelmed with the number of entries into Treat Petite. The challenge is only a couple of months old and I am astounded so many of you have taken the time to kindly enter your delicious bakes. I really appreciate it.

Without further ado, I present your offerings which all fitted into the theme ‘Happy Holidays’!

First entry is from Laura at I’d Much Rather Bake Than… who entered these delicious Christmas Aero Bubbles cookies made with mint Areo Bubbles. She made them after a very busy weekend, which included a trip to the BBC Good Food Show!

Next, Camilla from Fab Food 4 All entered her Finnish Shortbread – made by dipping the dough in egg wash, nuts and sugar. I’ve never heard of that technique before but it does sound very tasty.

Caroline over at Caroline Makes entered these Chocolate Chip Biscotti – this included orange rind, orange juice and ground coriander. That really is a party going on in your mouth!

Jen over at Blue Kitchen Bakes made these lovely little white chocolate tarts. The recipe she used had rose petals on top, but she swapped them for pomegranate seeds, which are very festive.

Laura over at How to Cook Good Food made individual trifles – perfect for Treat Petite. These include the retro delight Caramel Oranges and just look divine. They also have crumbled Christmas cake too, so they scream Happy Holidays!

Louise over at Crumbs and Corkscrews entered these very festive peppermint pinwheel cookies. The colours in them are so vivid. Louise guest posted these into our friend Steph’s Cooke Advent Calendar over at Kitchen Frolic too.

Kate from Veggie Desserts entered these very original mince pies with spinach pastry. I love spinach, but never had it for ‘afters’ although Kate says that the spinach taste doesn’t come through at all. The pies look very festive with the green-hued pastry!

Caroline from Caroline Makes entered another of her bakes – Hershey Kiss Thumbprint Cookies. Caroline said she would love to have used candy cane flavour kisses to make them even more festive, but I think they look great as they are.

Sarah at Maison Cupcake entered her Festive Mini Coffee Cupcakes. They have coffee in the cakes and frosting, plus shards of Aero chocolate atop. Added gold sprinkles make these very festive. Coffee in desserts is a favourite of mine, so thank you Sarah!

Ros at The More Than Occasional Baker was very busy throughout December and entered quite a few bakes. Firstly, she entered her double chocolate and hazelnut muffins. Anything with chocolate and hazelnut is a winner in my books!

She also entered these simple vanilla cookies made with vanilla bean paste. She used festive moulds, so there were snowmen, Christmas trees, gingerbread men and so on.

Sophie over at Feeria’s Cookery Journal made delicious chocolate and raspberry truffles for her mum’s 60^th. Lucky mum! They are a very good idea for a holiday treat and are super easy to make too.

Ros at The More Than Occasional Baker entered another of her bakes – Gingerbread Cupcakes with Golden Syrup Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting! I could die happy with a bowl of that frosting by my side. And gingerbread seems to be such a hit this year in Christmas flavours.

Grace over at Life Can Be Simple entered a couple of her festive bakes – Tiramisu Cake which looks huge! It really sings to the Italian in me – it has coffee liqueur in it, so is another winner with me.

Grace also entered her Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes withCream Cheese Frosting, stating that the sprinkles on them were the happy and the alcohol was the celebrating part!

Corina at Searching for Spice entered her chewy Gingerbread Biscuits. They look delicious and seem such a breeze to make. Gingerbread is so popular this year.

Kate at the Gluten Free Alchemist made these Minty Chocolate Brownies – using gluten-free flour. The stars and glitter are so Christmassy!

More from Ros at The More Than Occasional Baker who made Gingerbread Christmas Tree Cookies. Using different sizes of tree cutters she stacked them up, but kept centres hollow so she could pack them with mini m&m’s – like piñata cookies! Great idea.

Choclette from the Choc Blog Log sent in her Goat’s Cheese Choolate Truffles.I love that these have ripe goats cheese in them I’m sure the flavour is unique!

A good food blogger friend of mine – Keep Calm and Fanny On entered these vibrantly coloured Petit Fours. They are from Fanny Cradock’s recipe which she features on her Christmas cookery show repeated every year ad infinitum. I love these!!

Another friend of mine – Claire from What Claire Baked made these very festive Christmas Cupcakes – chocolate reindeer and Christmas tree cupcakes. She was giving them out to colleagues – lucky co-workers!!

Our first Antipodean entry to Treat Petite comes courtesy of Green Gourmet Giraffe. Johanne from Melbourne shared with us her Christmas Fudge and what Christmas will be like for her on the other side of the world from us. Her minty caramel layered fudge looks magic.

Charlene at Food Glorious Food brought us her Christmas Brownies – with added glace cherries and brazil nuts. These certainly meet the Happy Holiday criteria!

Caroline over at Caroline Makes entered another couple of bakes. Firstly her Christmas Cupcakes flavoured with brown sugar and cinnamon. Heavenly tastes and they look great adorned with a little cupcake Christmas kit she picked up.

Caroline also entered her Reindeer Pops. These are made from crumbed Madeira cake, dunked in chocolate and have pretzels as antlers and red m&m’s as noses. Too cute!

Elizabeth at Elizabeth’s Kitchen Diary entered these Whipped Shortbread Cookies which so light. These also featured on Steph’s Cookie Advent Calendar over at Kitchen Frolic.

Another bake from Ros at The More Than Occasional Baker – cornflake Christmas wreaths. These are a Nigella recipe and are made from melted mallows and cornflakes. Shaped into wreaths these look just like the real thing!

Ros also made these Irish Cream Chocolate Truffles– what’s Christmas without a glass of Irish Cream? These look very naughty!

Ros’s last festive bake for us is her Chocolate Orange cupcakes – made with orange frosting. As an added bonus they have a hidden (chocolate) gold coin on the inside. Chocolate Orange is another of those things which instantly remind you of Christmas.

Cupcake Girl from My Cupcake Habit entered these yummy looking ginger stars dusted with loads of icing sugar – makes me think of snow!

Siobhan from  Tasty Recipes and Other Stuff entered her Christmas Tiffin – it was jam packed full of the flavours of Christmas – ginger nuts, brandy, sultanas, raisins and chocolate – this tiffin would keep you very merry at Christmas.

Kat, my co-host from the Baking Explorer entered her MulledWine cupcakes – these actually have mulled wine in them so would pack a punch! The frosting had cinnamon and mixed spiced so would compliment the cupcakes very well.

And lastly my entry – Chocolate Pine Xmas Tree Cupcakes. I used pine essential oil to flavour the chocolate batter and piped mallow fluff on top of the baked cupcakes. Apart from the dodgy white chocolate stars on top, I was very happy with the way they turned out!

And that was Treat Petite for December 2013. A huge huge thank you to everyone who entered. I hope I have got everyone this month, but if not drop me a line! Pop by Kat’s blog soon to find out what she has in store for January.