Taste Awards

My first baking session was pretty successful. I've baked years ago and it was all about sugar, butter and wheatflour... But I've done it just a few times in my life. This healthy baking is so much more fun! Since I'm on a diet (one more week to my figure contest...) I can't taste my pastries, so my boyfriend did that job. Before showing you my latest accomplishments as a CleanEatingMasterChef (:D) I'll give you the Taste Awards concerning my previous baked goods :)

So this was his first portion :D Think he started with the cheesecake. At first he thought it should be a bit sweeter, but later (when he had eaten a couple of these) he said it's delicious in the way it is. Golden berries, raspberries and cloudberries were a great combination.

Blueberry vanilla protein muffins were a bit too dry on the top. The blueberries were on the bottom of the muffins so it was more moist, I think I'll try this with some banana or dates or something like that... But still, it was pretty good and he ate it all :D

Then the dark chocolate protein digestives with chickpeas & chiaseeds. My boyfriend isn't used to eating DARK chocolate so it took some time that he was able to say anything about these cookies. He said it could be a bit sweeter (maybe more stevia next time) but after all he thought that these cookies are pretty good, too. And he has been eating these so I think it wasn't a lie :D

My chocolate banana & strawberry peanut butter protein pie - what a SUCCESS!!! It was so moist and yummy and he was so excited about it! Strawberries were a perfect choice for this pie :) I can't wait that I get to taste this, but it's going to stay in my freezer for one more week...

And last but definitely NOT least - the almond, fruit & berry protein cake. Mm-mm-mmmm... You should have seen his face. This cake was perrrrfect! Just look at it. I was a little afraid if it were too dry, but no. The filling and the perfect crusting did the trick and the result was excellent. This cake dissapeared in no time (and so did the other pastries).

My next post will be about ROCKY ROAD PROTEIN MUFFINS - so excited about this one!!!

xoxo,
Henna

CHOCOLATE ATTACK!!! My very first baking session!

So, yesterday I decided to start my career as a CleanEatingMasterChef - and I did pretty well, I think! ;) I've been so inspired by all those Instagram pictures lately that I just couldn't hold myself anymore. Like I told you yesterday, I've found loads of recipes to die for. So I wondered, what would I like to try first... I don't have any casein protein (I've ordered some, just haven't received it yet) so I had to look for a recipe that I could do with whey protein.

I'm going to do some kind of list here in my blog about inspiring blogs and websites. Lately I've been sooooo hooked on PROTEINPOW and MEGAMEOWS (you should follow them in Instagram! And if you're not in Instagram, join immediately!) that I decided to try some of their recipes. After a very hard and longlasting consideration process I decided to try Protein Cheesecakes inspired by Protein pow and some Chocolate Banana Protein Muffins inspired by Megameows. I also considered Protein pow's Dark Chocolate Protein Digestives and Upside Down Blueberry and Vanilla Protein French Muffins, but then I thought that I just can't do it all at once. It was just my first day as a CleanEatingMasterChef.

Sooo I went to my nearest grocery store and bought some stuff I've ever boughten before. Like almond milk (didn't need it in these recipes but I bought some stuff that I can use after my diet). We don't use it a lot in Finland and the only almond milk I've seen in stores is the one from Alpro. Anyways, I found myself standing in front of the canned food looking for some black beans for the Digestives that I was NOT supposed to do. Well, of course there were not any black beans, I'm in Finland... So I continued shopping and headed to the counter... And then, suddenly, I just marched to the canned food shelf (or how do you say it in English...), picked up some chickpeas, grabbed some chocolate from the candy shelf and felt myself a little excited :D

Oat flour, bulgur, buckwheat flakes, wholegrain speltflour, oats, millet flakes

Xanthan, psyllium, almond milk, coconut cream, chickpeas, vanillaflavor, applemash (just 100% apples)

Didn't find any Greek yoghurt (not very popular in Finland) so I thought that I'll try this Ehrmann quark with yogurt. Then this natural yogurt from Valio which has a funny consistency, what would be the word for "lohkeava" in English... cracking splitting.... nooo, I don't know :D Anyways, then the darkest chocolate I could find from my nearest grocery store and some all organic Fairtrade banana-almond-whitecocolate. Yummmm...

I have to tell you that I don't usually even like marshmallow!!! And it's totally NOT clean!!! I just have this thing about rocky road although I have never even tasted it... and I thought that maybe I could use just a few small marshmallows sometimes on some delicious clean dessert...

So back home I found myself preparing four different pastries. I can't put all of them in this same post 'cause it would be waaayyyy to giantic post then. So I'm going to introduce two of them now and save two of them for another post. But I'll show you a picture of what I achieved to produce :D

The recipes went through some changes and I'm just about to tell you about that :) I used my Kenwood Multipro Compact which I love because you can do pretty much anything with it plus it was affordable - that's a big thing for me! I didn't have any chocolate or vanilla whey so I used my Self Omninutrition mint chocolate & pear vanilla whey proteins. That's a good quality and also affordable protein, I've used it for almost two years now :) I also have their coconut chocolate whey which is sweetened with stevia. I actually don't know why I didn't use it... Well, I love mint chocolate so maybe that's why :D

 

 And here's some superfood products from Detox Trading that I used with these pastries. Coconut flour, lucuma powder, banana powder, golden berries and bee pollen. I just received a huge package from them a few days ago, I can introduce these product more sometimes :)

I'll present my chocolate treats now and the vanilla ones in another post. So let's get started!

DARK CHOCOLATE PROTEIN DIGESTIVES 

with chickpeas&chiaseeds

click HERE for the original recipe by amazing PROTEIN POW!

What I love the most about these recipes is that they are so easy to make, you just have to blend the ingredients and put it into the oven :) So I didn't find the blackbeans so I had to use chickpeas. And then I realized that the recipe says 345 g of beans and I only had 230 g. But I thought that I'll try and if it sucks, that's OK. Here's my Digestive's ingredients:

230 g chickpeas
3 eggwhites
65 g mint chocolate whey protein
80 g buckwheat flakes
35 g organic raw cocoa powder
1/2 tsp English Toffee liquid stevia
a dash of sea salt
1 tbsp chiaseeds

 I just mixed it well and put into the baking cups, 170 degrees celsius and about 35 mins. Too bad I don't have a muffin mould :( but I just ordered some stuff from WellBake so soon nothing will stop my CleanEatingMasterChef career!

These are from iHerb

 I ended up with probably the most ridiculous looking "cookies" ever. The baking cups are NOT GOOD for this. But because I think it's the inside that matters, I just melt some chocolate, topped the cookies with it and put the cookies into the freezer for half an hour. I also topped two blueberry-vanilla muffins 'cause I had melt too much chocolate.

 Because I prefer not to use microwave nowadays, I used hot water and I think that it really is the best way to melt chocolate, it's so easy :)

And this is how they looked like. I can't describe the feeling when I realized that I can't taste the cookie dough!!! Or any other dough!!! I can't lick the spoon or the bowl, 'cause I'm on a diet!!! It almost killed me. And what a waste of food!!! OMG it was freakin' awful... But I survived! I still don't have any idea if all these pastries taste like shit, but I don't think so. The texture and the SMELL of all of these were soooo amazing that I almost cried. Almost! My boyfriend is coming back home tonight so I believe he will tell me how they are.

CHOCOLATE BANANA&STRAWBERRY PEANUT BUTTER PROTEIN PIE

inspired by Megameows choc banana protein muffins, click HERE for this awesome recipe

Sooo muffins right?! :D It was supposed to be. I lost my mind with those baking cups and decided to make it a pie. With this one I felt myself like some crazy scientist and the ideas were just flooding into my head! It was an amazing feeling for me, who NEVER EVER bakes anything! I enjoyed this so much and I'm so full of ideas that I'm craving to put into practice. I feel like I've found my mission in this world :D

So here's my version:

3 bananas

2 scoops mint chocolate whey

1 tbsp organic raw cacao powder

2 eggs + 1 eggwhite (was supposed to put 1 whole egg but oooops...)

0,75 dl wholegrain speltflour

0,5 dl oatflour

1 heaping tbsp raw banana powder

2 tbsp bee pollen

1 heaping tbsp lucuma powder

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

2 tbsp smooth peanut butter

1 cup frozen strawberries

Mixed it and put the strawberries on top, then in 190 degrees celsius approx 20 mins.

I thought it was shouting for some toppings, so I HAD TO use the strawberries :)

It's so pretty!!!

And the texture... PERRRRRRFECT!!! It was so moist and beautiful and everything!

I decided to top few bites with that lovely whitechocolate, which -by the way- smells soooo delicious!!! Can't wait that I can taste it! I don't usually even like white chocolate. So these with the topping are for my boyfriend.

 And these are for meee!!! :)

I put these in the freezer, I'm going to eat it by myself!!! In two weeks... :)

And these are for my boyfriend, hope he'll love the surprise :)

The funny thing is that although I'd love to taste all of those, I don't want to eat it all at once :D That's weird FOR ME so I believe something has happened inside my head! I know that all my meals and all the ingredients that I use are not clean or organic etc. etc. but I think that this clean eating as a lifestyle is just the best thing ever :) I hope that I'll have time to post the rest of the recipes real soon. And I have a lot of other ideas too to write about :)

Life is good! xoxo,

Henna