Steamed Quinoa Cake

Ingredients for the cake:

•  1 cup ground quinoa (125g). [Blend dry quinoa in a food processor to make ground quinoa. Quinoa flour would probably work too but making ground quinoa is cheaper.]
• 1 cup water (240 ml)
• 2 tbsp white almond butter
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp brown sugar (put more if you’re not used to low-sugar desserts) or your favorite sweetener to your own taste

Mix everything together. Put in a cake pan or in several small cake pans and place in a steamer. Steam for 25 to 30 minutes. (If you don’t have a steamer you can use a steamer pot with water at the bottom and a strainer on top to hold the cake.)

I made the raspberry filling mixing raspberries with a bit of white almond butter.

A small serving (on the first photo) is about a sixth of the whole cake and contains 90 calories.

PMS-cookie: because sometimes a girl just needs a cookie…

Ingredients for one cookie:
- 1/2 avocado
- 1/4 cup vanilla protein powder
- 1 tablespoon cocoa
- 1 to 2 squares of dark chocolate

Mix avocado, protein powder and cocoa in a food processor or using a hand blender. Chop dark chocolate and add to the mix. Bake for only 10-12 min at 180-200 degrees Celsius. (Be careful not to overbake that cookie or it’s going to be too dry.)

The nutrition facts for the cookie are: 457 kcal, 31 g of protein, 27.5 g of carbs, 7.5 g of sugar, 27.5 g of fat, 11.5 g of dietary fiber. If that’s too much for you, you can save 168 kcal, 7 g of sugar and 12 g of fat by omitting the chunks of dark chocolate.

Comparatively, a double chocolate chunk cookie at Starbucks is about the same amount of calories but with 37 grams of sugar and 3 grams of fiber.

Hazelnut Protein Cookies
They’re made of egg whites, protein powder, chocolate and hazelnuts. They’re featured as a guest post on Anna’s Proteinpow blog!www.proteinpow.com/2012/04/hazelnut-protein-cookies-guest-post-by.html 

Estimated nutrition facts for one cookie: 144 kcal, 7.8g protein, 5.7g carbs (2g sugar), 10g fat, 2.1g fiber.

Carob brownies
These are great to serve along with a coffee or espresso. People who like strong-flavored foods like black coffee and dark chocolate will probably like the flavor of carob, though it tastes a bit unusual at first. You can usually find carob powder in whole food stores and large grocery stores in the cocoa/coffee aisle.

Ingredients for 2 servings:
- 1 egg
- 2 tbsp chick pea flour (or quinoa flour or wholewheat flour)
- 2 tbsp carob powder
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp sucanat (or stevia)
- 20 almonds (you can omit them to save 15g of fat)

Mix dried ingredients together. Add egg and olive oil. Chop almonds and mix. Bake for 20 min at 230 degrees Celsius or until the top starts crackling.

Estimated nutrition facts per serving: 314 kcal, 9.5g of protein, 16.5g of carbs, 7.5g of sugar, 25g of fat (but these are ‘healthy’ fats from the olive oil and almonds).

thefameofhealthandfitness:

Sweet spud & mini dates cheescake recipe

[Source: Oxygen magazine, April 2012 issue]

High protein version of Italian cannoli
20 gr of protein per cannolo
The detailed recipe is on my wordpress-blog: www.fitnesstreats.com/2012/02/protein-cannoli 

Protein besan ladoos (Indian sweets) made of chickpea flour and protein powder. 
Recipe: www.fitnesstreats.com/2012/01/protein-besan-ladoos-indian-sweets 

Gluten-free, Vegan Chestnut Cakes

Ingredients:
- 300 g cooked chestnuts (2 cups)
- 160 g apple sauce (1/2 cup)
- 80 g coconut milk (1/3 cup)
- 50 g mais flour / polenta (1/4 cup)
- 2 tbsps cocoa (or 100 g dark chocolate)
- the sweetener of your choice

Pour all additional ingredients into a food processor and blend everything together. Bake for 20-30 min at 230 degrees Celsius. 

Pear muffins
They looked undercooked inside but that’s precisely how I enjoy them (still warm just out of the oven)! And I love how baked, soft and translucent the pear was! The maple flavor I bought when I was on holiday in the US was a nice little extra ‘twist’. 

Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup fat free yogurt
- 1/3 cup oats
- 1 tablespoon coconut flour
- 1 egg
- 1 pear
- 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon (optional)
- 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract (optional)
- 1/2 teaspoon of maple flavoring (optional)

Mix everything together except the pear. Peal and cut the pear in small pieces and incorporate in the mixture. Bake for 15-20 min at 220 degrees Celsius.  

Simple fruit tartlets
Only 4 ingredients: fruit, agar-agar, almond flour, eggs.
I put the whole description of the recipe on my blogger-blog: www.fitnesstreats.com/2011/11/simple-fruit-tartlets.html