Carrot and Fig Muffins (vegan)

Happy Good Friday! This Easter season has been filled with good food. The little nests and these muffins I made to get into the Easter spirit both taste amazing. My dad who has the "healthy food tastes bland" mindset really liked these! I didn't even ask him how they tasted and he was told me they tasted great which is so heartwarming hehehehe

Not only are they easy to make, but they're vegan friendly too! I do wish they looked better though. After exams I'm going to really focus on food styling and photography!

Vegan Spelt Hot Cross Buns

Hot cross buns hot cross buns one a penny~~

Easter is coming! If you guys have been to any grocery store lately, I'm sure you already know. However, I'm staying clear of the Easter eggs and bunny shaped peeps. Instead I'm gonna have these healthy, vegan, spelt, hot cross buns! 

Buckwheat flour used here. Served with chocolate maple sauce, sliced banana, peach and dried strawbies.

This vegan waffle recipe is the best I've tried for vegan pancakes or waffles ever. It uses flax as an egg substitute, which may be a little inconvenient for you guys, but really I don't know what else can replace it! 

Waffle and pancake recipes can be used pretty much interchangeably. After all, waffles are pancakes but with abs.

Choc Cookie Bananaberry Waffle Grilled Cheese

Hello. Brace yourselves for I am about to do a mass recipe update on this blog. Lately, I've been fairly busy with school, I'm secondary 3 now and my O levels are next year so life is only going to get busier. 

Anywho, this is the best grilled cheese I've ever eaten. 

1) It's grilled in a waffle iron. No explanation needed.

2) There is a cookie dough quest bar in there. 

3) The sweet and savory flavours work really well together! Cheese and fruit and chocoate and cookies yum. 

Strawberry frangipane galettes (vegan)

Mm galettes for breakfast. Galettes are tarts but are made without a tart pan so the sides are just folded over to keep the toppings in. I filled these spelt flour galettes with frangipane, an almond cream, and some fresh strawberries. A fairly simple recipe to make, but that's what I always say :/ 

Took a while to get this up as I've been awfully busy with school work although it is the march holidays :( I still need to share the recipe for my sweet potato kimchi sliders and teriyaki tofu fried rice! 

Waffled Vegan French Toast

I was so scared to make this. The previous time I did this, it a literally hot mess. The bread stuck to my "not so non stick" waffle maker, and I had to waste food, which sucked. But on Friday my parents bought me a new cuisinart Belgium waffle iron of amazing waffle making quality, which allowed me to create the crispest most delicious french toast ever. You can't even tell that this has no dairy or egg!! All these flavours work so well together :>

DOES IT NOT LOOK SO COOL? I was really quite fascinated when I opened the waffle iron. The first one stuck a little but but the second slice practically detached itself from the waffle iron. Which is funny because the second round, I didn't add extra oil and just used the leftover oil from the first slice! I guess Baylie just needed some warming up. I've named my Belgium waffle maker Baylie!!! 

Vegan Banana Berry Streusel Pizza

So I've been reducing my protein and increasing my carbs lately, because I want to eat less animal products. I was watching this YouTube video by freeleethebananagirl, and I saw how cruelly cows are treated. It was so horrible I literally cried. I'm eating more vegan meals now but I don't think I'll go completely vegan because that lifestyle isn't maintainable for me at the moment. 

Besides I'm actually eating more protein than necessary so it won't hurt to cut down. I want to watching "earthlings", a documentary about animal abuse stuff but I'm worried I'll be a huge sobbing puddle by the time the film is over.

Today's recipe is a wonderfully scrumptious vegan pizza. It has an oat flax base and is studded with banana coins and blueberries, sprinkled with walnut cinnamon streusel, drizzled with coconut cream and finished off with some freeze dried strawberry pieces. 

Food props: I am loving my cute little honey drizzling thing! I don't even really know what it's called haha. Found that little acorn by the pavement near my condo. 

For those who need photographic evidence that the pizza holds together when lifted up....

This was actually a really photogenic breakfast! :D I love it when the food makes my life easy by looking good. Sometimes I get so stressed taking food pictures.........

Cinnamon Roll Cheesecake

Happy Valentine's Day! Had a pretty boring one as I just got back from camp today and then I had school stuff :/ Didn't exactly feel the love. This cinnamon roll cheesecake is no bake and really so easy! When I say cinnamon roll, I mean cinnamon roll. It isn't just a cheesecake with cinnamon swirled through. 

((Omg on Instagram I said it was no bake but it's not! I DO bake this))

The twist: The base is made of bread. Or should I say, it is bread. Right now you may think it sounds crazy but if you think about it, this is kind of like a cheesecake over bread pudding. Sounds good to me lol.

Chocolate Chip Bacon Donuts

This morning I got up bright and early just bursting with excitement to use my new mini donut pan. I bought it with some of my Christmas money the other day and it's been sitting in my kitchen cabinet begging me to use it ever since. 

Delicious donuts for me to eat! 

In case anyone of you asks, I got it from kitchen capers a wonderful little cooking shop along kallang bahru. I wanted the normal sized donuts but they were all sold out, so I settled for the mini donut pan! The donuts are smaller than they look in the pictures above. You'll see! 

Anywho I decided to make clean chocolate chip donuts, frosting with maple greek yogurt and sprinkled with crunchy little bits of turkey bacon! I basically used a pancake batter and baked it haha. 

You can sub the greek yogurt in the donut batter with cauliflower purée and use dairy free chocolate to make it dairy free. I just love the protein added by greek yogurt! 

I made 11 mini donuts and I ate 9 of them for breakfast. Not the slightest bit guilty because each donut is roughly about 35 calories INCLUDING TOPPINGS. I wouldn't mind eating the whole batch of donuts ;)

My process of frosting these cutie piess, or should I say donuts:

Now you know how small they are!

What you'll need

1/3 cup oats

1/4 tsp baking powder

1 egg

1 egg white

1/4 cup greek yogurt

1/4 tsp vanilla extract 

1 tbsp chocolate chips

1/2 tsp coconut oil

1/8 cup greek yogurt

1/2 tbsp maple syrup 

1/2 strip low sodium turkey bacon

How to

1. Blend oats and baking powder into a flour. 

2. Beat egg, yogurt and vanilla extract together. Mix in dry ingredients. Fold in chocolate chips. 

Preheat oven to 180C.

3. Grease donut pan with coconut oil and pour the batter in until almost full! Bake for 10min. 

4. Remove donuts from the oven. While the donuts cool. Cook turkey bacon according to the packaging. Mix greek yogurt and maple syrup to get a frosting. Chop up cooked turkey bacon. 

5. Now frost the donuts and sprinkle them with bacon. Voila! Your yummy healthy donuts are served. 

P.S this can be made into cupcakes 

Another pizza post. Sorry I'm not sorry.

These are like pizza, minus the grease and carbs.

Gluten free too! Quinoa is also higher in protein than other carbs like rice :)

Going for a swim in pizza sauce. Actually I used pasta sauce but what's the difference haha.

I do realised I just spammed you guys with pictures but I can't short list them it's so difficult sigh. 

What you'll need

1/2 cup cooked quinoa 

1/3 cup shredded cheese 

1/4 cup chopped shallots

1 tsp minced garlic

Slightly under 1/4 cup parsley or basil 

1/2 tsp chili flakes

1/2 tsp dried mixed herbs (ensure there's oregano in there) 

1/2 tsp smoked paprika 

50g turkey breast, chopped up

1 egg

Serve with: pasta or pizza sauce

How to 

Preheat oven to 180C

1. Mix everything together except egg. Beat egg and combine with the other ingredients.

2. Divide into 5 greased muffin cups. Bake for about 18min. Cool slightly, remove from tray and serve with sauce!

Ps you can try less cheese and an extra egg white if you want.

Mint French Toast Tree

Hello! This post is so late!! I'm sorry I've been lazy. Though no one asked for this recipe I'll just leave it here in case anyone ever wants it later on :) Do you see two angels at the base of my Christmas tree? Let's pretend they have their wings folded in :)  

Had this super cute breakfast on Christmas morning and I had way too much fun dressing my tree up. 

I used a gooseberry as my "star" to top my french toast tree. 

Licked the plate clean. Yup.

Did you guys have a very Merry Christmas? 

What you'll need 

1 egg 

2 tbsp milk 

1/4 cup baby spinach

1/2 tbsp honey 

1/4 tsp peppermint extract 

1/4 tsp vanilla extract 

2 slices wholemeal bread

Oil to fry 

Decorations:

Fruit 

Yogurt 

1/2 tbsp honey + 1 tsp cocoa powder = chocolate sauce 

How to

1. Blend egg, milk, baby spinach, honey, peppermint extract and vanilla extract. 

2. Heat oil in a pan. Dip a slice bread into the batter and let both sides absorb a good amount of batter before frying over low heat. Repeat with the next slice. 

3. Now decorate and eat up!

Red Velvet French Toast

Red velvetttttttt. The combination of vanilla kissed with cocoa and the cream cheese frosting is just perfection. My frosting is greek yogurt for more protein and less fat but you can totally use cream cheese if you wanted! 

And guys tomorrow is Christmas Eve yay :) I spent today afternoon making cute cards for my family members, hopefully they appreciate it. Also, I won the Christmas recipe contest by funwithmunch so thank you guys so much for voting for me :) 

What you'll need

2 tbsp chopped beet root 

2 tbsp milk

1/4 tsp vanilla extract 

1/2 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tbsp honey 

1 egg 

2 slices wholemeal bread 

Oil to fry 

1/3 cup greek yogurt to serve 

How to

1. Blend first 5 ingredients together. Make sure there aren't any beet root chunks! Then blend in the egg. 

2. Dip your bread slices in the French toast batter. Heat some oil in the pan. Then fry bread pieces on both sides until slightly browned. 

3. Serve with greek yogurt and whatever else you want, 

And your done! 

Paleo English Muffins

Paleo English muffins! Complete with the nooks and crannies of our usual muffin, perfect for spreading creamy nut butters and jam on :-)) Paleo also means dairy free and gluten free yay! These are about 100 calories per muffin, low fat, low carb and high in protein and fiber! 

How to serve: Split your English muffin in half and toast. I topped one half with mashed raspberries, pistachio and desiccated coconut. The other with adams crunchy peanut butter, cottage cheese and pomegranate arils ~

Yum and not hard at all to make. It may take a while to bake but remember, real English muffins require a lot of waiting time to let the dough rise! So this is actually quicker and healthier too :) 

The yeast is just to add flavour... The boiling water kind of kills the yeast haha. 

What you'll need

1/4 cup coconut flour 

3 tbsp psyllium husk 

1 tsp baking powder

1/3 tsp yeast (for flavour) 

3 egg whites

1/3 cup boiling water

How to

1. Mix dry ingredients. 

2. Mix in egg whites with a fork. Add in the boiling water and combine well.

Preheat oven to 160C

3. Form the dough into two English muffin shaped patties. Heat a little oil in a pan and fry the patties over low heat on both sides until golden brown. 

4. Place on baking paper and bake for 40min. The bottoms will look nicer after baking so turn them around after baking. 

5. Use a fork to split into two, toast, and serve! 

Microwave Christmas Pudding

Isnt this adorable! Now you can eat an entire Christmas pudding on your own. You can even eat it for breakfast like I did and not feel bad :P It was tricky getting the colour to match the original Christmas pudding colour without using alcohol, brown sugar etc so I used cocoa powder! You can't taste it though hah. If you can then you have really good taste buds :-)

I'm so excited for Christmas. I'm almost completely done with Christmas shopping! 

Side note: Guys it's raining do heavily now and the wind is crazyyyy. Knocked the whole Christmas tree over whaaaat. 

Nice moist inside ❤️ 

What you'll need

1/3 cup oat flour

1/4 tsp allspice

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp cocoa powder

30g raisins (I normal sized box!)

1 tsp water

1 egg 

1 tbsp chopped almonds 

1/4 cup grated apple 

1/4 tsp orange zest

Plain yogurt

Flat leaf parsley

Raspberries 

How to

1. Blend oat flour with spices and cocoa powder. Transfer to a bowl.

2. Blend raisins with water. Now add raisins and egg to the bowl of oat flour. Beat it all together.

3. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Scrape the inner sides of the bowl down so all the batter is together. Smooth the surface of the batter. Cover bowl with cling wrap and microwave 3 min or so until everything is cooked! 

4. Serve with yogurt, parsley and raspberries :)

Cranberry Pistachio Scones (gluten free, egg free)

More cranberry and pistachio things for Christmas! May not be very creative but there IS a reason why this combination is so popular. These scones are gluten and egg free plus they are low fat because we use greek yogurt instead of butter here! 

But to be honest, even though these scones are delicious, the texture is kinda bun-like. It's more like a scone bun than a scone?? I'm not sure if I should reduce the greek yogurt or add more baking soda or flour :/ Anyway, some of you want the recipe so here it is :) 

Drizzled mine with plain non fat no sugar yogurt!

So deeeelicious. 

What you'll need

1 and 1/4 cup gluten free flour blend

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp cinnamon 

1/4 cup honey

1/2 cup greek yogurt

1/2 cup fresh cranberries

1/4 cup shelled pistachio

How to 

1. Soak your shelled pistachios in hot water for 15-20min. 

2. Meanwhile, mix flour, baking soda, cinnamon together. Than add in the honey and greek yogurt. combine everything together well. 

Preheat oven to 190C

3. Rub the skins off the pistachio to reveal the green insides. Now fold cranberries and pistachios into the scone dough. 

4. Use an ice cream scoop to scoop 5 balls of dough out onto a baking tray lined with parchment paper. ((They should be bigger than the ice cream scoop size. The scoop just makes it easier to get equal amounts of dough!))

5. Bake the scones for 20 min and then cool before eating. I left mine in the (turned off) oven to brown a bit longer. They taste great on their own but you can eat them with some breakfast spreads too!

Enjoy!

Persimmon Chocolate Marble Oats

Superrrrrrr easy recipe! Well oatmeal is usually super easy anyway. Especially if you use instant oats like I did! The chocolate sauce for this is bitter on it's own, but with the sweet creamy oats I promise it'll be fine!! Usually I don't post oatmeal because my oats aren't very photogenic..... But it was requested by a follower so of course I made some :) If you ever want a recipe, just request and I'll try to make it! 

I added protein powder to this. You can leave that out but add more oats! Also add some honey or whatever sweetener you like ^^

The marble effect destroyed :( 

Questie on the side :>

What you'll need

100g persimmon (half a persimmon)

1/3 cup cup instant oats

1 small scoop vanilla protein about 15g

About 1/2 cup almost boiling water 

1 egg white 

1.5 tsp cocoa powder 

1 tbsp water 

How to

1. Microwave persimmon until soft. I microwaved for about 1.5 min. Next purée it in a blender.

2. Mix oats and protein powder. Pour in boiling water. Add in egg white. Stir well. Egg whites will cook in the water and make oatmeal really creamy! Next add in persimmon purée. And stir.

3. Mix cocoa powder (make sure it's not clumpy) and water. Swirl in oats like this. 

Then run a tooth pick up and down the oatmeal in a zig zag pattern. 

4. Add some raisins and coconut or whatever you wish! 

SGFS: Sweet Corn Pau

Hi! I love eating paus so it was about time I made a healthy recipe for one. I'm glad I did because I really enjoyed gobbling these up! I used a mixture of organic wholemeal and Hong Kong flour for this. I know the latter is not exactly healthy but a little won't kill you. This pau won't be as fluffy as regular pau because it's 50% wholemeal which makes it heavier. 

If you want a fluffier pau you can adjust accordingly by replacing some wholemeal flour with the Hong Kong flour. Hong Kong flour is low protein white flour that has been bleached a lot. It's very light so it makes buns, breads etc softer. If you really can't find it you can use white flour. 

The previous time I made this I used a bob's red mill gluten free flour and some corn starch instead of the HK flour and it was pretty okay too. You can do that if you wish. 

What you'll need 

Filling:

1 egg yolk

1/2 cup brown rice syrup (you can sub with honey, agave or maple syrup but I think you have to use less. In my opinion, brown rice syrup isn't very sweet)

1/3 cup milk

1/4 cup corn kernels 

3 tbsp coconut flour

Pau: 

3/4 tsp instant yeast

75 gm wholemeal flour

75 gm hongkong flour 

1/2 level tsp double action baking powder

1 tsp honey/brown rice syrup/agave/maple syrup

70ml water

1 tsp coconut oil

Extra ww flour if the dough gets sticky

How to

Filling: 

1. Mix egg, brown rice syrup and milk in a sauce pan. 

2. Heat over high flame until the mixture begins to bubble. Then over low heat simmer 13min, add corn kernels, simmer 3min longer. 

3. Then stir in coconut flour and let the mixture cool. It will thicken by the time you need to use it.

Pau: 

1. Mix wet ingredients. 

2. Mix dry ingredients.

3. Make a well in dry ingredients. Pour wet into dry ingredients and knead into a ball. Add flour if too sticky. Leave to proof for 1h.

4. Punch down. Split into 6 equal portions. Flatten dough into a disk. Wrap dough around corn custard filling. Rest for 20min.

5. Steam over rapid boiling water for 10min. Leave in steamer for 3 min after cooking. 

P.S The pau surface will be a bit sticky when its first done steaming. But when you let it cool and stuff it'll be fine!