Dark chocolate pecan pies

So it's almost Christmas and it's time to start making some seasonal food. Normally I don't bother with this stuff. I don't love or hate mince pies, but I don't think I'd make them for myself. So this year I decided to try and make a few variations on the traditional mince pie by making dark chocolate pecan pies and roast cranberry and apple pies. 


Here's how I made the pecan pies, which have been very well received by all who have eaten them so far. My mother thinks she could keep eating them til she gets diabetes. 


That's pretty high praise right?

Spelt pastry recipe

Yesterday I went to my friend Rioghnach's Christmas party. She's been so encouraging about my blog and we have a shared love of cooking and all things retro. So I tried to channel my inner Betty Crocker and planned to bring some tasty baked treats to her party.

My list of tasty treats included chocolate macaroons and my alternatives to the traditional mince pie, so mini jam pies, chocolate pecan pies and roast cranberry, apple and Cointreau pies. Sadly the macaroons as we speak are sitting in the bin. They looked perfectly cooked when they came out of the oven, so not suspecting a problem and feeling slightly stressed about how many things I had to do, I left them to cool and thought nothing more of it. Until I attempted to remove them from the greaseproof paper and they fell apart. They hadn't cooked in the centre and returning them to the oven did little to salvage the situation. Sigh. Baking failures make me very sad. 

Icings

I had this tagged onto the end of a bun recipe post and then decided it merits it's own separate post. So here they are, my recipes for sugar free bun and cake icings. 


As I find more or come up with them I'll add them to this post with the relevant book references or website links. 
  
Faux-chocolate buttercream
100 g of diabetic chocolate,
2-3 generous tbsp butter.

Chocolate Orange Macaroons

A few years ago cupcakes became the "it" thing in confectionery.  I think macaroons are possibly replacing cupcakes as the new super trendy sweet treat. Normally I'm not one for being trendy, generally it actually puts me off things but I do have a sweet tooth and really enjoy macaroons. There's something wonderful about teaming of the soft meringuey biscuity base and top sandwiched together with a buttercream filling. The French truly have a gift for creating wondrously indulgent sweet things! I think that last statement is just one of those widely accepted facts of life. 

But one of the unfortunate results of things becoming trendy is that you can end up paying stupid prices for something you could just make yourself. Like €1.60 for ONE macaroon - sod that!

This is the first time I ever made macaroons, a French dinner themed pot luck last month proving to be the kick I needed to finally make them. As you can can see from the pictures, I made two types of macaroons, the green ones were elderflower flavoured but if I'm honest I'm not entirely happy with how they turned out, so I'll hold off on putting up a recipe for them until I've refined it more. 

As a final note, those who have problems with sugar, be warned these things are loaded with it!

Peach and flaked almond cake

I had some over ripe peaches and a hankering for cake so I decided to make some of Blazing Salad's fruit pies. But being me I didn't have a bunch of the ingredients I tweaked the recipe and now claim this one as my own! It's a lovely light and sweet cake. Perfect for the lovely summer weather I still wish we had. 

Blueberry and coconut flapjacks

Original recipe taken from What to Eat When You Can't Eat Anything, Honey Flapjacks with Lemon, page 133. 


Lately I've been getting some major cravings for sweet things. It's been years since I've had home-made flapjacks so I figured I'd make some from the What to Eat... cookbook since they seemed to be sweet treat that takes a lot less hassle to make than buns or cheesecake which I've also had a hankering for. Because honey is the sweetener it also means that Gar can eat them too and not feel worse for wear afterwards. Plus since oats are a slow release carb they make for a great snack which won't cause a sudden sugar come down.


I used cranberries in the batch, just to see how they'd turn out. They didn't last long so I had to make another batch within days and thought coconut and blueberries sounded like a good combination. The second batch didn't survive the weekend. 

Revised sweet treats for my valentine

This will be my second Valentine's day with Gar and I've been giving some thought to some yummy treats for us to enjoy that are still within the limits of our combined dietary restrictions. Ideally I'd like to make cupcakes. They're so versatile in flavor, decorated to look so pretty and of course the icing is delicious, whether it's just plain butter cream or something more exotic. But they are of course riddled with all three things we shouldn't eat; wheat, dairy and sugar. It's pretty easy get daunted by this and think our only option really is some cardboard probably with a slice of fruit on it. I have genuinely been giving it some thought though and I think I have a very delicious alternative to cupcakes worked out, icing and all. 


So here's my alternative. Double chocolate brownie cupcakes with red currents, using the chocolate brownie recipe on p131 in The Blazing Salads Cookbook topped with a variation of my diabetic trufffle recipe to make the icing. :) Sounds good huh?!


Makes 16-20 buns


Ingredients:
170g butter, dairy free that's suitable for baking if you can find it
3 free range eggs,
200g natural honey,
1/2 tsp natural vanilla essence,
80g oatflour,
80g Green & Black's cocoa powder,
1 heaped tsp of baking powder,
soy milk,
150g red currents.

Dark chocolate cookies

Adapted from: 1001 Cupcakes, Cookies & Other Tempting Treats recipe for Midnight Cookies, p 82.


Makes about 2 dozen


Ingredients:
125g softened butter
175g caster sugar
1 egg,
1 tsp vanilla essence,
125g wholegrain spelt flour,
35g cocoa powder,
1 tsp bicarbonate soda,
2 tbsp orange juice (this gives the cookies some extra moisture but is not a must if you don't have it!)

Updated Diabetic/sugar free truffles recipe

Adapted from: http://www.dlife.com/


Makes about 18 truffles


Ingredients:
100g of diabetic chocolate,
100ml of double cream,
1 tbsp butter (generous),
50g of ground almonds or chopped hazelnuts.


Break up the chocolate then place it together with the butter and cream in a heatproof bowl and set it over a saucepan of gently simmering water. Heat until melted. Remove this from the heat then leave to cool and set. To make the truffles, spoon out the mix and gently drop it into the ground almonds/chopped hazelnuts and roll them around to coat them.