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fiber

Friday Fare, Health

Friday Fare – Healthified ice-cream with toffee sauce

March 7, 2014

Woooow, it’s Friday already?? Umm, the weeks pass by too fast for me. And I have a lot of work due next week for uni, so that’s not necessarily a good thing lol.

Anyway, I thought I would show you all how to make a healthier and clean version of everyone’s favorite dessert: ice-cream! And since I loooove toffee, I thought I would show you how to make a healthy version of that, to drizzle on top of the ice-cream.

Healthified ice-cream with toffee sauce

Healthified ice-cream with toffee sauce

I was inspired to do this, because a) I freaking love ice cream, and b) I am in LOVE with banoffee pie. Read bananas and toffee in a pie. Together. Heaven in a pie. And because this ice cream is made out of bananas, I thought it would be delicious to pair it with a healthy and raw toffee sauce 🙂

This recipe was also inspired by recipes featured on Blogilates and The Detoxinista 🙂

And note, before you can do ANYTHING, make sure your bananas are ripe and sweet and then slice it up and freeze the banana slices overnight. This is a crucial first step, as the frozen banana slices is what gives you a deliciously sweet and creamy texture to the ‘ice-cream.’

Also PLEASE USE NATURAL PEANUT BUTTER and not just any old peanut butter 🙂

Alright, banana slices all frozen? Excellent, let us move on.

 

Healthified Ice-Cream with Toffee Sauce

Alice Williams
Healthy 'ice-cream' that literally tastes and has the exact same texture as ice-cream!
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Ingredients
  

  • For the Ice Cream
  • 2 bananas sliced and frozen
  • 1 tbsp Peanut Butter
  • For the Toffee Sauce
  • 12 pitted medjool dates
  • 3 tbsp milk
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions
 

  • To make the ice cream
  • 1. Throw your banana slices (or you can gently guide them) into your blender, and whizz it until the consistency becomes smooth and creamy. This will be done very quickly if you have a Vitamix or Ninja blender and unfortunately will take longer with a less high powered one. I found that a food processor actually worked very well in getting a very ice-cream like texture, but perhaps that has more to do with the fact that my housemates food processor is perfect ..
  • 2. Then add your peanut butter to the mixture. Blend for another 30 seconds – 1 minute.
  • To make the toffee sauce
  • 1. Make sure you soften the dates by soaking them in hot water for a few minutes (3-5 is fine) first.
  • 2. Once the dates are soft, add the dates in first and blend them for a bit until adding in your milk and vanilla extract.
  • 3. Blend until your desired consistency (I wanted to leave mine a bit gritty and thick) and then either add to the ice-cream, on top or by swirling it in orrrrr just eat it. Hehe, it is really good.

Notes

Adapted from Blogilates and the Detoxinista
Healthified ice-cream with toffee sauce

Healthified ice-cream with toffee sauce

I hope you like this recipe as much as I do!! I normally like to add some unsweetened cocoa powder to my ice-cream mix, or I stir in some unsweetened coconut flakes and dark chocolate chips. Experiment, the possibilities are endless!

If you make this delicious dessert and post it on Instagram, Facebook, or any form of social media, please tag me and hashtag it with #fridayfare and #honestlyfitness so I can find you 🙂 My name on all social media outlets is just ‘Honestly Fitness’.

Love you all so much, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend. And remember to indulge once in a while! I had a ridiculously decadent little dessert last night and plan to go out for Indian food with my good friends tomorrow night. Although health and fitness is important, it is all about balance. Don’t deprive yourself, and don’t go too crazy 🙂

Honestly yours,
Alice

Friday Fare

Friday Fare – Almond and Oat Cinammon Spiced Muffins

February 14, 2014

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!! Whether you have a special someone to spend it with, or are single and proud, I hope you are having a fabulous day.

Since I made a very decadent raspberries dipped in dark chocolate and cacao for last weeks Friday Fare, I thought I would make something a little lighter, but delicious nonetheless. I bring you Almond and Oat Cinammon Spiced Muffins!

Almond and Oat Cinammon Spiced Muffins

I really like muffins, particularly in the mornings but most commercial ones are full of junk and other yucky stuff I quite frankly refuse to put into my body. These muffins are light, healthy, and very versatile meaning you can add berries into the mix, dark chocolate chips, pretty much anything into them. If I had some coconut whipped cream I most definitely would have dolloped some on top of the muffins I made. They are still a sweet treat regardless of their lovely and wholesome ingredients however, so please treat these as a dessert and do not go nuts. I am planning on featuring a lower calorie sweet treat soon that you can definitely eat quite a few of, so stay tuned 😉

You need the following ingredients to make 8 muffins:

Almond & Oat Cinnamon Spiced Muffins

Alice Williams
Muffins that won't pack on the pounds!
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Ingredients
  

  • 1 cup almond flour
  • 1 cup oat flour
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
  • 1/2 cup honey
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp high quality salt
  • 1/4 cup coconut oil

Instructions
 

  • 1. Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees farenheit 🙂
  • 2. Mix all of your WET ingredients in a large bowl (eggs, vanilla extract, unsweetened applesauce, melted coconut oil, and raw honey).
  • 3. Mix all of your DRY ingredients into the wet ingredients (high quality salt, baking powder, oat flour, almond flour, and almond flour).
  • 4. Once you have mixed all of the ingredients together well, get a muffin or cupcake pan and either put muffin cups into the cupcake pan holes or grease the holes with some olive oil or coconut oil. Put the batter evenly into 8 of the muffin holes.
  • 5. Bake the muffins for 20 minutes (or 25 minutes if you like them more firm).
To make the oat flour, all I did was buy rolled oats and then quickly pulse them in a food processor (a blender works too).

Almond and Oat Cinammon Spiced Muffins

Almond and Oat Cinammon Spiced Muffins

Almond and Oat Cinammon Spiced Muffins

Almond and Oat Cinammon Spiced Muffins

Nutritional Values per 1 muffin

Calories: 320
Carbohydrates: 32g
Fat: 20g
Protein: 7g
Sugar: 18g
Fiber: 3g

Let me know how the recipe goes for you, and how you personally enjoyed them. Did you add any berries in, had some coconut whipped cream, etc?

Have a great weekend, and again, happy Valentine’s Day!!

Honestly yours,
Alice

Friday Fare, Health

Valentine’s Day Raspberries Dipped in Dark Chocolate

February 7, 2014

Ahhh, Valentine’s Day; you either love it orrrr you hate it. I happen to quite like it, but the fact that I have a boyfriend and have had the same (awesome) one for the past 5 years may have helped with that 🙂

Unlike other special days though, when one thinks of Valentine’s Day, you tend to think of two things: the color red and chocolate. These two factors directly influenced what I made for you all today. Which is …… Valentine’s Day Raspberries Dipped in Dark Chocolate!!

Valentine’s Day Raspberries Dipped in Dark Chocolate

Okay okay, I know they are not completely guilt free, but hey. Gotta live a little once in a while. Plus, raspberries are high in fiber and low in calories, whilst dark chocolate (when eaten sparingly, not every day people!) allows our bodies a greater capacity to absorb antioxidants found in chocolate, whereas the milk in normal milk chocolate actually interferes with our bodies absorption of antioxidants from chocolate. I added in cacao as well because that has also been shown to have a high amount of antioxidants. Reality check though people, eating mass amounts of dark chocolates will not necessarily ward off disease .. it will more likely make you gain lots of weight, so be sensible and eat it in moderation pleeeease 🙂

Alright, so let’s get down to making this stuff! You will need the following:

Raspberries Dipped in Dark Chocolate

Alice Williams
A perfect Valentine's Day Treat!
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Ingredients
  

  • 1 bar of unsweetened dark chocolate
  • 1 bar of dark chocolate or cacao
  • 1 6 ox box of raspberries

Instructions
 

  • Step 1: Start boiling a pan of water (fill your pot about 1/4 to half way full) with boiling water. Get two bowls out. Fill one bowl with your raspberries and then put them aside as you will come back to the bowls once you have melted your chocolate.
  • Step 2. Once you have your water boiling, quickly turn down the temperature of the flame to low. Too high of a heat will cause your chocolate to melt. Get a big metal bowl, or a bowl that fits easily on top of your pot and is heat resistant. Break up the bar into small pieces and slowly add them into the big metal bowl (it will not melt well if you just chuck the bar in).
  • Step 3: Merrily stir the chocolate slowly until it melts. it really does not take long, it took me a grand total of 3 or 4 minutes.
  • Step 4: Mmmm, the best part. Get a towel or something to grab a hold of the bowl with and then scrape out the chocolate into your bowl (that I told you to get in step 1, remember). Then, get your skewer (thank you Alyssa!) or fork, whatever, and pierce one of the raspberries and simply … dip into the bowl of hot chocolate!
Valentine's Day Raspberries Dipped in Dark Chocolate

Valentine's Day Raspberries Dipped in Dark Chocolate

Ahh, it melted so fast!!!

Valentine's Day Raspberries Dipped in Dark Chocolate

Valentine's Day Raspberries Dipped in Dark Chocolate

Valentine's Day Raspberries Dipped in Dark Chocolate

And there you have it, the finished product!! If you find that you would like it sweeter than this, feel free to add some honey, stevia or brown sugar and let me know how that makes it taste. If you have celiac’s disease use pure unsweetened chocolate and pure cacao (mine is 75% so not pure). If you want it completely sugar-free  .. I am afraid that will not happen, because fruits have naturally occurring sugars in them.

Nutritional Details (for whole bowl of chocolate and raspberries)
Calories: 1222 (as you can see it is NOT low calorie, so eat sparingly)
Carbohydrates: 122g
Sugar: 81g
Fat: 79g
Protein: 9g
Fiber: 22g

I know these numbers seem daunting, and I could’ve chosen not to include them. But you know what? I do not want you to be ignorant. I hate how people have gotten the notion in their head that healthy automatically means that you can eat as much as you want … NO. No foods should ever be abused in this way (except perhaps celery). Eat too much of anything and you will gain weight, although the quality of the foods you eat will certainly make a difference. I have said this a lot: eating 500 calories of grilled chicken and quinoa is so much better for you than eating 500 calories of ice-cream and pizza. Okay, rant over guys, sorry!!! Love you really, I just want you to be aware 🙂

I hope you have all enjoyed this weeks Friday Fare!! If any of you make this, please let me know how it goes. And feel free to make any suggestions as to things you would like to see in the future. Hope you all have a great Valentine’s Day next week.

Honestly yours,
Alice