Easy, Never Fail, Chocolate Cupcakes.

These are the most amazingly light and moist, easy, never failed yet, chocolate cupcakes. I make them for all the children's birthdays, and they are always a big hit. Our favorite frosting/icing is a vanilla cream cheese one, so I'll share that recipe too as a bonus at the end.

Please note that this is NOT a Trim Healthy Mama recipe like most of the others on this blog. This is just a regular cake. I make a few cupcake style "muffin in a mug" cakes for me to enjoy while the rest of the family enjoys these birthday treats.

The recipe:

1 1/2 cups flour

1 cup sugar

3 heaped tablespoons cocoa

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoon vanilla extract/essence

1 teaspoon vinegar

6 teaspoon oil

1 cup water

The directions:

Sift together all the dry ingredients

Mix together

Make 3 wells in the mixture

Into each well add one of the following, vanilla, vinegar & oil

Pour in the water and mix thoroughly

Bake as individual cupcakes at Gas5/350f/180c for 12-14 minutes

Cool on a wire rack

Top with frosting/icing

*Our favorite frosting is:
16oz cream cheese
8oz coconut oil
1 tsp vanilla extract/essence
a few drops of lemon oil
stevia powder to taste

whip everything together until fluffy.

Enjoy.

These really are a simple, easy and tasty cake. Simple enough even toddlers can help make them.

Lyn

Trim Healthy Mama Tuesday - Cinnamon Rolls (E)

Last week for Trim Healthy Mama Tuesday I shared my Refrigerator Rye Bread recipe. In that recipe my jar wasn't big enough for all the dough, so I would put a little bit aside in another container. It wasn't a big enough amount to make a 2lb loaf so I had to find another use for it.

One of our favorite treats before we started Trim Healthy Mama was Cinnamon Rolls. I had an amazing recipe for this, but it seriously broke all the Trim Healthy Mama rules. It was delicious, but it also had almost a lb of butter between the bread, the filling and the frosting. So I decided to experiment with my rye bread dough to see if I could make something that would taste as good as traditional Cinnamon Rolls. This recipe is the result.

You will need:

1 grapefruit size piece of Refrigerator Rye Bread ( or you could use Gwen's Easy Bread Recipe if you prefer a white bread.)
Ground Cinnamon
Sweetener ( I use Kal Pure Stevia Extract Powder)
Greaseproof paper

Place the dough on a lightly floured or greased piece of greaseproof paper

With wet hands flatten out the dough

Add a light dusting of Stevia pure extract powder evenly over the dough

Sprinkle the dough with ground cinnamon

Starting at the wide end nearest you begin rolling the dough

My dough got stuck a little so I helped it roll with a spatula

Cut into 2inch slices and arrange on a lightly greased baking sheet

Allow to rise before baking at 450f for about 15 min

Cool on a wire rack

Cover with a low fat cream cheese frosting*

It won't have the usual visual swirl, but it tastes just as good

*Low fat cream cheese frosting
1 tablespoon low fat cream cheese
3 tablespoons of 0% Greek yogurt
dash of vanilla
pinch of Stevia pure extract powder
Mix everything together until smooth, then use to top the still warm Cinnamon Rolls

This post is shared on the Trim Healthy Tuesday link up over at Stacy Makes Cents, where you can find other wonderful Trim Healthy Mama recipes shared by some wonderfully creative ladies.

For more information about Trim Healthy Mama visit their website here.

Trim Healthy Mama Tuesday - Refrigerator Rye Bread (E)

I remember the first time I tried to make sourdough bread. Serene's sourdough recipe was included in the Above Rubies magazine. It was a lot of a disaster. I was still relatively new to Florida. I was also still struggling to bake successfully with all the "seems so familiar, but not really" ingredients. So I gave up on sourdough.

Fast forward to the end of last year, and the start of my THM journey. Once again it looked like a good idea to try sourdough bread. It was after all one of the only real plan approved breads I could bake myself at home. I had figured out most of those early baking adaptations, so it seemed like a good time to try again. This time I even bought a 25lb sack of rye flour so that I could copy Serene exactly as her recipe was written.

It was a disaster.

The bread wouldn't rise properly. It was like trying to slice cement. Sourdough just wasn't going to work for me.

Then I read about Gwen's easy bread dough, that Pearl had approved as an E bread. It was very similar to a refrigerator bread dough recipe I had that used wholewheat flour.

But I still had most of that 25lb sack of rye flour. Maybe I could convert the recipe I had into a rye bread.

The first time I used a mixture of white bread flour, wholewheat flour and rye flour. It worked really nicely. So I ditched the white bread flour and just used wholewheat and rye. Then I increased the rye content. It was still a really nice bread. So now I'm ready to share the recipe after several successful batches giving me the same tasty result.

Easy Rye Bread (E)

4 cups rye flour
3 3/4 cups wholewheat flour
1/3 cup vital wheat gluten*
2 tablespoons of yeast
1 tablespoon of salt
4 1/2 - 5 cups of hand hot water

* Gluten is added to this recipe to help with a good rise. Whole grain flours have less gluten content than white flour because the bran is taking up some of the volume/weight. If the flour doesn't have a high enough gluten content then the bread won't rise properly and you will be left with a dense bread, no matter how good your yeast is, or how much yeast you use.

Whisk together all the dry ingredients.

Add the dry ingredients to the water in a large bowl or container.

(I use a large glass jar so I can store it in the same container I mix it in. I also found adding the dry ingredients to the water helped me get a better mix, as adding water to the dry ingredients made it difficult to get all the flour mixed in completely.)

Mix it all thoroughly with a wooden spoon until there is no dry flour left.

Cover loosely and leave at room temperature for about 2 hours to prove.

Once the dough has risen well and flattened out a little on the top move to the fridge. Keep it covered loosely to stop it drying out on top, while allowing the gases that form to escape. (Who wants to clean exploding bread dough from the inside of their fridge?)

Leave it in the fridge for at least 24 hours if you want to get rid of the phytates. If you are using it as a THM plan bread leave it in the fridge for a minimum of 3 days to reduce the glycemic index and have a nice fermentation going. It will stay fresh in the fridge for about a week.

My gallon glass jar for mixing and storing my bread dough

Adding the dry ingredients to the water

Mixed thoroughly with a wooden (bamboo) spoon

My jar isn't quite big enough so I put a bit in another tub

After an hour

After 2 hours

The flattened top shows me it is ready for the fridge

To use:

Take the container out of the fridge and immediately remove the amount of dough you want to use. There are 2 methods for this. You can use some extra flour over the dough to stop it from sticking to your hands, or you can make sure you keep your hands nice and wet to stop it from sticking.

Quickly form the bread into the desired shape. (I'm lazy and don't like messing with free forming a loaf, so I use 2lb loaf tins for baking my bread.)

Leave the shaped bread out on the counter for 90 minutes.

If free forming the bread you might want to invest in a bread stone for the oven. If using a bread stone you will need to start the oven 30 minutes before you bake the bread so that the stone has time to get up to the right temperature.

If using loaf tins (like I do) you will only need to heat the oven up about 5 minutes before baking the bread.

Bake at 450f

For 1lb free form loaves it will take about 30-35 minutes to bake.
For 2lb loaf tins it will take 45-50 minutes to bake.

Cool on a wire wrack.

Enjoy one or two slices of this bread as an E, but remember that means less than a teaspoon of butter between the slices if you have butter with it. I really enjoy it with just the Slim Belly Jelly (page 411) on top.


(Next week I plan to share an awesome way to make Cinnamon Rolls using this recipe, so stay tuned for next week's recipe.)

This jar is 4 days old dough, notice that it has sunken a little bit

All the dough from the glass jar split between two 2lb loaf tins

90 minutes later and ready to bake

Fresh out of the oven

Nice fluffy homemade rye bread

 This post is linked up on Stacy Makes Cents for Trim Healthy Tuesday

For more information about Trim Healthy Mama visit the website here.

Trim Healthy Mama Tuesday - Key Lime Cheesecake

In celebration of my birthday today I made cheesecake at the weekend. Although there is a recipe for cheesecake in the book I thought I would try my hand at THMing a wonderful cheesecake recipe I already had, and knew worked really well.

I did make two different flavors, but the chocolate one isn't going to be tasted until tonight, so I'll post a recipe for that one separately at a later date (and I didn't take photos of the chocolate one as I went through making it.)

Key Lime Cheesecake (most definitely an S)

For the crust I chopped some Pecans and stirred in 2oz of butter. I then pressed the pecans into a 9inch spring form pan and baked at 350f for 10 minutes

1lb cream cheese, at room temperature

1 teaspoon of pure Stevia extract powder (I used KAL brand)

2 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup Greek Yogurt

1/4 cup heavy/whipping cream

3 tablespoons of Almond flour

4 eggs, at room temperature

1/2 lb Key Limes, juice & zest

Combine cream cheese, stevia and vanilla.

Add yogurt & cream, beat slowly just until smooth.

Mix in almond flour.

Add eggs one at a time, beating in between each egg.

Beat in Key Lime juice & zest.

DO NOT OVER BEAT as it will make the cheesecake sink in the middle.

Pour cheesecake mixture onto the crust.

Place in the center of middle oven rack, with a pan of water on the lower rack.

Bake at 350f for 15 minutes, then lower the temperature to 300f for 70 minutes.

Turn oven off, but let the cheesecake stand in the oven with the door slightly open for 30 minutes.

Completely cool on a wire rack.

Refrigerate for 12-24 hours before serving.

Enjoy

 
This post is being linked up over at Stacy Makes Cents for Trim Healthy Tuesday. Check out the link up for more ideas and recipes from Trim Healthy Mamas.

For more information about the Trim Healthy Mama eating plan visit the website here.

Trim Healthy Mama Tuesday - Quick Lunch Size Pizza

Just a quick post today with one of my new favorite lunches.

You will need:

1 Joseph's Lavash Bread

 

2-3 tablespoons of crushed tomatoes

shredded low fat mozzarella cheese

half a skinless chicken breast, cooked and shredded

preheat the oven to 425f (240c or Gas mark 7)

Place the Lavash bread on a greased baking sheet (I used a piece of parchment paper to make it easier to remove after baking.)

Spread the crushed tomatoes over the Lavash bread.

Add the chicken and cheese, spreading evenly over the whole bread.

Bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes.

Cut into 6 pieces and split with someone else. 

A big green salad goes really well with this.

If you only add a small amount of cheese this will stay in Fuel Pull territory, so could be served with either a S or an E salad/dressing.

Enjoy

This recipe is being linked up on a Trim Healthy Tuesday link up over at Stacy Makes Cents.

For more information on Trim Healthy Mama check out their website here.

Trim Healthy Chocolate Cups.

I mentioned back around St. Valentine's Day that I was making Peanut Butter Cups for my darling husband Rob. I also promised to share the recipe. After some experimenting I came up with three chocolate cup flavors, and even remembered to take photographs of them too.

Peanut Butter Cups

1 1/2 of the Skinny Chocolate recipe in Trim Healthy Mama (page 371)
2 dozen mini cup cake paper cases
1 cup peanut butter
1 1/2 tablespoons coconut oil.

Use half of the Skinny Chocolate to put a layer of chocolate into the 24 paper cups. Freeze until set (5-10 minutes should be good.)

Mix the peanut butter and coconut oil in a stand mixer until light and creamy. Split it between the 24 paper cups with the frozen chocolate in the bottom.

Top the 24 paper cups with the rest of the Skinny Chocolate. Return to the freezer until set.

We like to keep them in the freezer in a Ziplock bag, but they will also keep in the fridge too.

Tangy Lemon Cups

As per the Peanut Butter Cups only this time the middle filling is as follows:
1 cup cream cheese
3 tablespoons of coconut oil
3 tablespoons of lemon juice
3 small shakes of Nustevia Pure Extract

Again mix in a stand mixer until light and creamy, then split between 24 mini cup cake cups between 2 layers of Skinny Chocolate.

Coffee Lovers Cups

As per the Peanut Butter Cups only this time the middle filling is as follows:
4oz unsweetened Baker's chocolate, melted
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup strong coffee
dash of vanilla
1/8 teaspoon Nustevia Pure Extract

Add the butter to the melted chocolate, stir until it also melts. Slowly add in the other ingredients while whisking carefully to prevent it from separating. Then as before split it between the 24 mini cup cake cups. This time put in the freezer to set before adding the top layer of Skinny Chocolate.

And here is two photographs of Rob's Valentine gift all nicely boxed up.