Heatlhy cake for my 1 year old son

My son's First Birthday is coming up and I wanted to make a cake just for him. I wanted it to be healthy with no added sugar and no fat either. So I made up my own recipe using whatever I had at home.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup of ground almonds
1/2 cup of oats
1/3 cup of hazelnuts
2 apples, cored and sliced
1/2 cup of water
1 Tbsp of honey
3/4 cup of milk
1/2 cup of yoghurt
2 eggs
1/2 cup of flour
1 tsp of All Spice

Preheat the oven to 170 Degree C.

Blend the almonds, oats,flour, hazelnuts and All Spice together until it looks like fine crumbs. (My food processor is not the best so I had little bits of nuts in there which in the end added a bit of texture). Set aside.
Put the water, the apples and the honey in a saucepan and cook the apples until you can cut them with a spoon. Blend them and let them cool.
In a jug, mix the wet ingredients (yoghurt, milk and eggs).
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ones and mix.

Bake for about 40 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

I made some as cupcakes and 2 is small ramekins.

Notes:
I kept and reduced the juice from apples and once the cakes were cooked I out holes in them with a toothpick and soaked them with the juice. It really helped moistened them.
Both my husband and I tasted them and we found that they were more breads than cakes. My son didn't mind them though.
I mixed some icing sugar with water and drizzled over the cakes just for us. It was quite nice and added a different taste to the bread- cake.
I think that a cream cheese icing with lemon juice could add more to those though.
Any fruit can be used in place of the apples. When I was preparing the ingredients I though either apples or a tin of apricots.
This would be quite a nice tea cake.
Next time I will make it into a load tin with raisins.

While I was typing I thought of another one... Hmmm, let's see what might come out of that idea.

My very own version of healthy cannelloni

Technically it is baking:

Tonight I had some left over chicken from the week end and I wasn't sure what to do with it. I thought Stir Fry... but my husband was more in an Italian mood. So I opted for my version of cannelloni which is the easiest and quickest thing to do...
In place of the actual pasta, I made some savory crepes with dried thyme. So I just added about 1 cup of flour with 2 eggs and enough milk to loosen the mixture. Spray some oil onto a frying pan and add some of the dough, swirl the pan to make sure the dough is covering the whole bottom of the pan. If the mixture does not spread, it is too thick and you need to add some more milk to the mixture. Put the crepes aside on a plate.

For the stuffing:
- Leftover cooked chicken
- About 1 cup of frozen spinach (defrosted in the microwave)
- 3 tablespoons of light Ricotta cheese
- 1 onion sliced
- 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
- Oil spray

Spray a saucepan with the oil. Add the onion and the garlic and let it cook for 3 to 4 minutes (until the onion has soften).
Add the spinach, chicken and ricotta. Mix and turn the heat off. It'll do it's own thing.
Set aside to cool a bit while you make the tomato sauce.

Sauce:
- 1 can of tinned tomatoes
- 2 tablespoons of tomato concentrate
- 1 garlic clove peeled and crushed

Add all the ingredients in a saucepan and leave it to cook for 5 minutes.

Place some of the filling in the middle of the crepe and roll the top part over the filling, then fold the sides and keep rolling until you have a parcel. Repeat with the rest of the crepe. Place them into a baking dish and cover with the tomato sauce. Grate some cheese on the top (I just put a little bit to add another flavor). Put it in the oven for about 5 to 7 minutes and serve.

S'mores Cupcakes

Well this was meant to happen sooner or later... First I was offered a new cooking book by the lovely team I have left to look after my little treasure and the second reason is that it's simply winter...

I used the recipe from Cake Day, the Hummingbird Bakery. I said I USED because I have a tendency of not following recipes and making things up as I go and this time is no different I'm afraid...

So here is the actual recipe:

For the cupcakes:
30g dark chocolate (minimum 70% cocoa solids)chilled
5 digestive biscuits
80g butter at room temperature
280g caster sugar
200g plain flour
40g cocoa powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs
240ml whole milk

For the topping (which actually is an Italian Meringue):
200g caster sugar
4 egg whites

Preheat the oven to 170Degree C, and line a muffin tin with muffin cases. Use the finest blade of a cheese grater to shave the chilled chocolate, then set aside. Crush he biscuits in a food processor with the blade attachment or in a plastic bag using a rolling pin. (I couldn't find any Plain Digestives so mine were milk chocolate coated)

Using a hand- held electric whisk or a freestanding electric mixer with paddle attachment, beat together the butter, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt on a low speed until resembling fine breadcrumbs.

Mix the eggs and milk by hand in a jog, then pour three- quarters of this into the dry ingredients and mix on low speed to combine. Increase the speed to medium and mix until smooth and thick. Scrape the sides of the bowl, add the remaining milk mixture and keep mixing until all the ingredients are incorporated and the batter is smooth. This is where I made another change (I crushed the Digestive biscuits and added them to the batter to add some texture to the cupcakes).

Fill each paper case two- third full with batter. Sprinkle the chocolate shavings and three- quarters of the crushed biscuits on the top of the cupcakes, reserving the remaining biscuit crumbs for later.

Bake in the oven for 18- 20 minutes or until risen and springy to the touch. Leave to cool slightly, then remove from the tin and place on a wire rack to cool completely before frosting.

Put the sugar into a small saucepan with 150ml of water and bring to the boil. Meanwhile, using the electric whisk or freestanding mixer with the paddle attachment (I used the whisk, whisk the egg whites until foamy.

When the sugar has boiled for 5 to 10 minutes and reached the soft- ball stage, pour onto the beaten eggs while mixing on a medium speed. Once added, adjust the speed to high and whisk until the underside of the bowl feels lukewarm. At this stage, the meringue should have increased in size and become white, smooth and quite shiny.

Smooth the meringue on to the cooled cupcakes. With a blowtorch, lightly brown the meringue to give it a bakes appearance. Alternatively, pop the cakes under the grill- but only for a few seconds, as the meringue will brown quickly and you don't want it to burn.

Decorate the cupcakes with biscuit crumbs and chocolate.

A few notes:
I had a lot of shaved chocolate left so I sprinkled some on the cupcakes.
Instead of chocolate squares I used broken pieces of chocolate covered Digestive biscuits to decorate and mini M&Ms for the mini cupcakes.
With this batter I made 16 normal sized cupcakes and 22 mini cupcakes.

I kept licking my fingers every time I got some Italian Meringue on them and I got such a sugar high, I don't think I will be making Italian Meringue again for a little while, although I really want to try High Hat cupcakes... Well we shall see. I hope you enjoy making and eating those cupcakes as much as I did.