Homemade Protein Bars & Balls with Raw Chocolate Frosting

I've been decorating my bikinis for two evenings. 1200 Swarovski strasses. Today I just needed something else to do. Well, most of the day I've just tried to relax.

 I baked some delicious protein cakes on Monday, but I'll do a post about that later. I received my orders from iHerb and WellBake this week and now I'm so excited about these:

Blueberry muffin & Peanut butter cookie dough flavored proteins.. Omnomnomm..  And Vanilla creme & Dark chocolate-Raspberry liquid stevia.

WellBake 15 piece Chef's Ultimate Gourmet Gift Set

Tomorrow I'm going to do some brownies and some other baked goods with these. Something for the weekend, for ME ;) I already put some bananas flavored with almond essence and vanilla extract to the freezer so that I can do some ice cream on Sunday (when I come home from Helsinki)... Mmmmm... Brownies and some protein cookie dough with ice cream... And some clean pizza!!! Oh, I can't wait. On Saturday after my competition we're going to Cantina West texmex restaurant and I'm definitely going to eat some Fajitas. I loooove texmex food :)

Bananas on their way to the freezer... I put one banana and one tsp of almond essence/vanilla extract into the bag and shaked well. I have no idea if it was a good idea but I hope so :D

But today I made some protein bars. And balls :D I thought that I'll do 3, but I got so excited about these that I did 15. Aren't they cute? :)

I decided to try THIS recipe from Proteinpow.com. And it was soooo fun & easy :) You can play with it a LOT. I did five different versions but I already have few more ideas in my mind that I just have to try...

 

So here they are. First I did the brown ones: Chocolate Coconut Protein Balls. Then I thought that it was so quick and easy that maybe I'll try some other flavor - so I did the light ones: Coconut Pear Vanilla Protein Bars. After that I realized that I have too many ideas for these little things... and decided to do some more. The pink ones are Strawberry-White chocolate & Nuts Protein Bars. Those big balls are Blueberry Protein Balls and green ones are Mint Chocolate Protein Bars. (Yep, I'm not very good with these names, but I think it's not the most important thing...) I definitely have to try these with some banana whey+banana powder and with my new Gaspari Peanut butter cookie dough protein powder+peanut butter. But here are the recipes for these bars & balls:

CHOCOLATE COCONUT PROTEIN BALLS

1,25 dl Self Omninutrition Coconut Chocolate Whey Protein Isolate (sweetened with stevia)
0,5 dl roasted coconut flakes
0,5 dl + 2 tbsp coconut flour
0,5 dl almond milk
1 packet Truvia
I mixed the  ingredients in a bowl with a spoon and thought it was a bit too sticky, so I added the extra 2 tbsp of coconut flour. This whey also has a little funny taste (I think it's the stevia, 'cause the other flavors of Self Whey Isolate that I have don't have this taste...) so I added some Truvia. Maybe it's too much for many but not for me :D

COCONUT PEAR VANILLA PROTEIN BARS

1,25 dl Self Omninutrition Pear Vanilla Whey Protein Isolate

0,5 dl roasted coconut flakes

0,5 dl coconut flour

0,5 dl almond milk

1 tsp tocotrienols powder

1 tsp vanilla extract

STRAWBERRY-WHITE CHOCOLATE & NUTS 

PROTEIN BARS

1,25 dl Fitnessguru Strawberry-White Chocolate Whey Protein

0,5 dl crushed hazelnuts

1 dl almond flour

3 tbsp coconut flour

1 tsp tocotrienols powder

0,5 dl almond milk

BLUEBERRY PROTEIN BALLS

1,25 dl Dymatize Elite XT Blueberry Muffin Protein 

0,5 dl dried dates (I chopped the dates into small pieces)

1 tbsp purple corn powder

1 tbsp coconut flour

0,5 dl almond flour

1 dl organic oat milk

MINT CHOCOLATE PROTEIN BARS

1,25 dl Self Omninutrition Mint Chocolate Whey Protein Isolate

0,5 dl coconut flakes

1 tsp spirulina powder

0,5 dl almond flour

1 tsp tocotrienols powder

0,5 dl organic oat milk

6 tbsp coconut flour (added 1 tbsp at a time until the consistency was nice)

7 drops of Dark Chocolate-Raspberry liquid stevia

You should mix all the dry ingredients first and then add the liquid. If it's too sticky, just add some coconut flour. It's easy :)

I put these into the fridge and made some raw chocolate to coat my bars&balls with it. It's simple to do and you can use it for topping your baked goods - or just put it into the fridge and get some delicious chocolate! You can sweeten it with honey, maple, erythritol, what ever you want. And you can also add some superfoods like goji berries, bee pollen, mesquite, aswagandha powder... But I kept it pretty simple this time:

RAW CHOCOLATE

60 g cacao butter, grated

30 g coconut oil

3 heaped tbsp raw cacao powder

dash of salt

10 drops of Vanilla Creme liquid stevia

2 tsp tocotrienols powder

1 tsp lucuma powder

I melt the cacao butter in a glass bowl (on top of another bowl filled with boiling water), then added the coconut oil and then the rest of the ingredients. That's it. I took my protein bars&balls and drowned them into the chocolate, put them back to the fridge for half an hour and drowned them again. You can see the result below. I love it. And I know they're delicious and filling - my boyfriend couldn't keep his hands away from these :D

 xoxo,
Henna

Rocky Road Protein Muffins

I've had this obsession for making some kind of rocky road protein muffins or brownies for a while now. When I saw Anna's recipe (click HERE for the recipe) on proteinpow.com I had to try it! I had to change it a bit 'cause I just can't find any pumpkin puree 'cause it's not that familiar in Finland... and yes, I did some other changes, too. But here's my version of the muffins :)

ROCKY ROAD PROTEIN MUFFINS

0,5 dl unsweetened apple puree

1 small Royal Gala apple

1,25 dl Fage Total 0% Greek yogurt

1,25 dl chocolate + mint chocolate whey (about half and half...)

5 egg whites

1/2 tbsp coconut flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tbsp Clipper organic drinking chocolate

 0,3 dl wheatbran

15 g cocoa nibs

30 g gojiberries

1 small piece of liquorice & 1 small marshmallow per muffin

Blend the first nine ingredients well, the batter is pretty fluid. Then add the cocoa nibs and goji berries. Slice one piece of liquorice into small pieces, put that and one small marshmallow in a baking cup with the batter. I got twelve muffins in all. I used organic liquorice. I know that the marshmallow isn't any good for you, but hey - 12 small pieces of marshmallow weighted 5 grams. So it's like nothing.

 I'm telling you - these were a huuuge success!!! My boyfriend totally loved these! I put some of it into the freezer so that I could taste it myself next week :) I got some Rocky Road Whey Protein Isolate from Fitnessguru just yesterday, it means that I have to do some more Rocky Road muffins ;) But in the meanwhile, I'll do some protein apple pie with some Fitnessguru caseins that I also received yesterday. Yummyyy!

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