Fitness Friday| Low Cal Cake| Chocolate & Beetroot Cake Recipe

Living a healthy lifestyle means everything in moderation and not depriving yourself of anything! If you want a cake, eat a cake, just don’t them all! I am a massive cake fiend! I love baking them, I love decorating them and I obviously love eating them! So as I would quite happily eat cake most days I thought why not try and make my cake recipes a bit healthier, so if I do indulge I’m not going completely overboard. So I was over the moon when this month Women’s Health magazine featured 5 wonderful health boosting, low cal, cake recipes. I decided that as it was my trainer’s birthday yesterday, I would bake him some healthy Birthday Cake, so everyone at my Kendal Bootcamp Class could try some and be my little guinea pigs!

I made two batches as it was my first attempt at a “healthy cake”, the first batch wasn’t so great. I don’t think I used enough chocolate and didn’t bake it for long enough as it was a little too moist, a little bitter and tasted a lot like beetroot. The second batch was much more successful, it was baked for a few minutes longer so the consistency was cake like but still moist, and there was a little more chocolate in this one, so it tasted like a chocolate cake! The pictures are of the first cake which I dusted with icing sugar, the second cake I topped with a thin layer of buttercream icing… a little bit naughty I know, but it was a Birthday cake! The cake went down very well with everyone at Bootcamp and was a great treat for our hard work. So as it was a success I thought I would share the recipe with you!

You will need;

300g cooked, unseasoned beetroot, peeled and purred, 4 large eggs, 4 tbsp honey, 1tsp vanilla, 1 tbsp cocoa powder, 1 tsp baking powder, pinch of salt, 125g ground almonds, 135g good quality dark chocolate (It HAS to be good quality!), 8 tbsp olive oil.

Start by pureeing your beetroot in a food processor. Once smooth tip into a bowl and mix in the eggs, honey, vanilla, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt. Mix well. Next gently fold in the ground almonds.

Now melt your good quality dark chocolate. Once melted, pour in the olive oil and mix thoroughly; you should be left with a liquid that isn’t separated and is smooth and shiny. Now gently pour the chocolate mixture into the rest of your cake mixture in the bowl and fold gently.

Once everything is combined, pour the cake mixture into a greased cake tin, and bake in your preheated oven at 180c for 35-40 minutes. Try the trusty skewer test to ensure your cake is cooked through!

Finish by either dusting with icing sugar or cocoa powder, or if you are feeling naughty give it a thin layer of buttercream icing! Cut into 8 pieces and at only 260 calories per slice you can really enjoy it!

Have you ever tried chocolate and beetroot cake? Do you have any other favourite healthy cake recipes that I should try next? Do you think you will give this one a go?

Be sure to check out my blogger of the week and fellow Cumbria Blogger Anna from On The Dressing Table. She has the most amazing beauty blog, full of insightful and honest reviews, plus she is the sweetest girl!

Fitness Friday| Overnight Oats Recipe| Easy, Healthy Breakfast

Since moving into my new place I have been on a mission to overhaul my diet and eat fresher, greener and leaner. I eat regularly with 3 meals and 2 snacks each day, but my breakfast and lunch were not the healthiest. They were more grab and go, think cereal bars and cup-a-soups.

However for the past few weeks I have been frantically researching recipes and have discovered two new breakfasts, one of which I’m going to share with you. This week I’m sharing a recipe that is super healthy, easy to make, and the perfect way to start the day… Overnight Oats!

Overnight oats are essentially oats soaked overnight  in any liquid you fancy! The most common mixture is 1/2 of oats, milk and yoghurt. There is absolutely no cooking required so it takes literally minutes to prepare and they are easy to grab as you run out of the door in the morning.

I was dubious at first as I imaged it would just be cold porridge… and who wants to eat that. But the magic with overnight oats is that they can be totally adapted to suit your taste. You can add ingredients the night before and allow them to soak in or just stick with topping your oats with the extra ingredients. Below I am sharing with you my current favourite flavour, but feel free to get creative!

My oats are peanut butter and banana flavoured. The below recipe makes quite a substantial portion but I do a lot of exercise so need it, but if you a more dormant or can’t stomach a big breakfast, try using 1/3 cup of oat,milk and yoghurt. Here’s the recipe;

• 1/2 cup of rolled oats
• 1/2 cup of skimmed milk
• 1/2 cup of low fat natural/greek yoghurt
• 1/2 mushed banana
• 1/2 tbs organic peanut butter

All you do is mix all you ingredients together in a bowl. Cover with cling film and leave in the fridge over night. In the morning take them out of the fridge, give it a stir and add whichever toppings you fancy. I add the other half of my banana chopped banana and a small handful of walnuts.

This breakfast is guaranteed to see you right through till lunch!

Nutritional info for the oats without any topping- Calories- 365, Carbs- 55g, Fat 10g, Protein 17g.

What’s your favourite healthy breakfast? Have you ever tried overnight oats? If so what toppings a flavours do you prefer… give me some ideas!

Don’t forget to check out my blogger of the week Natalia from Natalia’s Beauty Blog. If you enjoyed this post Natalia often posts about fitness too, so be sure to give her blog a read. She also has the most gorgeous OOTD posts.

Nutella Melt Cupcakes

 

It seems to becoming a bit of a habit of mine these baking posts. I do actually post quite often, as we have a weekly “Cake Day” at work. I also come from a long line of cake bakers. My mum bakes, my Nana bakes, my Great Grandma bakes and my Grampy bakes. There is very rarely a time when there isn’t cake around in one of my family member’s homes… which is of course very homely but not great for the waist line! Hence the mountains of running I now do!

On Friday night I came in from work and had the urge to bake. So Friday night I took over the kitchen, turned the music up and came up with the idea of Nutella Melt Cupcakes. I had a jar in the cupboard and thought it would be a great addition to my usual vanilla cupcakes.

I wanted to have a Nutella melting middle and was unsure how to go about this. I decided to make the cake mix, place that in the Cupcake moulds then add a dollop of Nutella in the middle and finally another spoonful of cake mix. This turns out not to be the answer. As you can see from pictures above the Nutella sunk to the bottom of the cakes. They are still yummy, but a little messy to eat! Next time I will be adding the Nutella to the cake after its been baked, either by scooping out the top and adding the Nutella before topping with icing, or try piping the Nutella into the middle. Anyways here’s my recipe for a simple vanilla cupcake, which you can alter as you wish!

You will need(makes 12 small, or 6 large cupcakes like above) ;

Cake Mix- 110g butter, 110g caster sugar, 2 eggs, 1tsp vanilla extract, 110g self-raising flour, 1-2 tbsp milk

Buttercream Icing- 140g butter, 280g icing sugar, 1-2 tbsp milk

Preheat your oven to 180c/ Gas 4 and line your muffin tin with paper cases. Cream your butter and sugar together in a bowl until smooth and pale. Beat in the eggs gradually and stir in the vanilla extract.

Fold in the flour, adding a little milk until the mixture is of a dropping consistency. Spoon the mixture into the paper cases. Now bake in the oven for 10-15 minute of until they are golden-brown on the top and a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. Set to cool for 10 minutes, then remove from the tin and cool on a wire rack.

For your icing, beat the bitter in a large bowl until soft, then add half the icing sugar and beat until smooth. Now add the remaining icing sugar with one tbsp of milk, add more milk if necessary. Beat until the mixture is smooth and creamy. If you want to make the above cake, mix a coupe of tbsp of Nutella into your icing sugar.

If you want to make the Nutella melt cake above, before icing your cakes, scoop out the top of them, as you would when making butterfly cakes and place the Nutella into the hole on the top of the cake. Then ice your cakes as you would normally.

What do you think of my Nutella Melt Cupcakes? Do you love Nutella as much as I do?

Two Birthdays, One Dinner| The Highwayman Restaurant Review

Having just returned from the Lake District after a very busy but lovely birthday week visiting my family, I thought it was about time I got back to regular blogging, so will be writing three posts this evening as well as taking part in #bbloggers chat at 8, two to be published today, and one tomorrow.

The first, this one, is about my second birthday meal that I had in a Restaurant outside of Kendal in the Lake District. As the pictures show, I went with my boyfriend, Mum  and her partner. The photos also show my two dogs, who didn’t go, but looked cute so thought I would involve them in this post. The meal was for my mums partner’s, Steve, Birthday as well; a double celebration.

We went the the HighwayMan Inn, owned by Nigel Haworth and located in the small village of Burrow, near to Kirby Lonsdale, I have never been before but was thoroughly impressed, not only with the quality of the food and service, but more so of the concept of the restaurant. What I love is that the restaurants uses exclusively local producers for their menu. As it is close to the borders of Cumbria, Yorkshire and Lancashire they are in a prime location to use many different local and regional flavours. The restaurant was decorated with pictures of the producers with their produce, giving it a real feel of community. The first picture shown in this post was the placemat, which again was decorated with the friendly faces of the farmers and producers.

We had a selection of starters to share, sort of like an English tapas, which included deep fried cauliflower with curried mayonnaise, cheese soufflé, deep fried fish cheeks with an apple and garlic mayonnaise, and bread with olive oil and treacle balsamic vinegar. For my main I had a cheese and onion pie, and desert a lemon meringue pie (pictured). Overall it was beautiful, I admit not the healthiest…diet starts tomorrow, but definitely worth it!

As I mentioned the diet starts tomorrow, which it definitely must! I’m off on holiday in 4 weeks, and the past week of birthday celebrations has not be favourable to my figure, I’m looking and feeling a little more rounded… oh dear! To encourage my health kick, I will be posting a few healthy recipes that I am going to give a go… I’m an awful cook, so it could be quite entertaining!

The importance of Health! Which life are you designing?

This image popped up on my Dashboard on Tumblr, and it really struck a cord with me. I may not be the healthiest person in the world, but I have a great respect for it, and thankfully a knowledge of it.

I get really annoyed by people who assume that because they are slim or skinny, whatever, they believe that they are healthy. Because I can tell you many of them are not. Your weight is not a representation of your health, you can be slim yet still have unhealthy fat around your organs that can damage them. You can be skinny, yet be unfit, and not have strong bones and muscles to support you, that will quickly deteriorate with age. There are plenty of people out they who may be classed as overweight, due to their high BMI's yet, they are healthier than people who are deemed healthy because of a lower weight.

I am not consistent with my health and fitness, but I do try, and I know that although "overweight" I am a lot fitter and healthier than some of my friends. Nutrition has a lot to do with it, and since drinking smoothies everyday for breakfast, which include on average half a mango, quarter of a cucumber, handful of berries, one banana, and a handful of spinach, I can't believe the crap I used to start my day with. Even just walking for 30 minutes a day is better than nothing. I believe that everyone should be active at least once a day. There is no excuse for not working out these days, especially with the computer games and DVD's that mean you don't have to trek to a gym, they make working out work round your schedule (although exercise should always BE part of your schedule). Even if injured with a bad back, or leg etc, do some gentle exercise such as yoga (which is amazing!)

Overall you may be young now, but how you live your life now will effect how you live it when you are older. Your body has a very good knowledge of how you treat it, and it will treat you the same as you age. Treat your body well and it will look after you for years. Abuse your body and it will soon shy and retire from yourself, and will refuse to work properly.

Just take the picture for example, or look to Jane Fonda for inspiration. At 73 she has just release a new exercise DVD. She admits she can;t do everything she used to, but she tries. (And she still looks fabulous doing it.)

Please just think about how you treat your body. Even just aim for 4 days healthy, 3 days not, and try and build it up and up. Aim for healthy breakfast and lunches, every little bit will help, and the more you do it, the more it become a habit.

Food Intake Recently| The Benefits to Soup and Smoothies

Recently I have had this obsession on not becoming ill. I have a million assignments to do for uni my dissertation, I work 30+ hours a week in hospitality, plus it's party season... so basically I don't have time to be ill, and with loads of my colleagues being ill I had to take action.

I decided to up my vitamin intake and make loads of vegetable soup, and eat a bowl a day, hoping the vitamins would keep my immune system up. It seemed to work, plus my skin and hair looked amazing thanks to these vitamins. I have done well at sticking to eating soup, so decided to increase my vitamins more and added smoothies to my diet. So before I knew it I was having home made smoothies for breakfast, and home made soup for lunch. I feel great because of it, and because they are full of fibre and protein, I feel fuller for longer, so I don't feel the urge to snack. As a consequence in the past 2 weeks I have lost 6 pounds in weight, which is a great side effect.

For recipes I find them on tumblr, on recipe sights such as the BBC good food, or SparkRecipes. And as long as you have a blender it is easy to do. You can even make a few days worth in one go and leave them in glasses in the fridge, so you can just grab your smoothie in the morning.

I have really just accidently found myself on a replica of one of these silly meal replacement plans that people pay fortunes for, yet mine is completely natural, cheaper, and has the same effect.

So, so far, so good, as I have not fallen ill, I have tonnes of energy, my hair and skin will look amazing for party season, and my waistline is slimmer.

Have you ever tried a meal replacement diet? Or do you favour more green and natural diets? 

Winter Warmers\ Health Benefits to Soup

I don't know about you, but working all the time, and only having a short lunch break (20-25 minutes) makes finding a suitable, fulfilling and healthily lunch difficult. Especially during the colder months. I never have time to leave work and go to a sandwich shop such as Pret-a-Manager, Boots or Costa Coffee, and I do not like preparing my own cold salads or sandwiches.

So my latest thought has been soup. Home-made soup to be exact.
Yes I agree it easier to buy a can of soup, but it is not as healthy, more expensive and less fun.
So I make batches of soup, then portion them out into freezer bags, and freeze them. When I go to work I use the microwave to defrost them, and hey presto fresh home made soup to warm me up :)

This is a soup I made this evening- Lightly spiced Carrot Soup.
Recipe- http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/12276/lightly-spiced-carrot-soup

BBC good food website has a few great recipes, they even have the nutritional value about each dish to help you calorie counters!

A quick, easy, healthy solution to a rushed lunch!