New year, new you?! thoughts and healthy dessert

It is the second week of January and it definitely feels like it! Some of the new year motivation subsides and the dreary January blues might be settling in. Yet everywhere we are still surrounded by advertisements, tweets, instagram pictures and television shows about how to lose weight and 'detox' after Christmas. Which is...................great, I guess, it's good for people to feel motivated to make healthy choices. I don't really believe in 'detoxing' but I think that's a subject for another post, or possibly another blog. However I do believe in making healthy choices and particularly healthy substitutions. This weeks post is one of my favourite dessert substitutions.

This bowl of deliciousness can be made super healthy. The biscuit here is garnish but without it this dessert contains no added sugar, no fat but tonnes and tonnes of flavour. It tastes like apple pie and ice-cream but without any (unnecessary) guilt. The 'ice-cream' is actually just 0% fat greek yoghurt with vanilla mixed in.

On to the 'apple pie.'

4 Stewing Apples
2 Lemons
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp all spice

1-  Preheat oven to 180'C. Roughly dice the apples

2- Cover in the lemon juice as you go to prevent browning

3- Add the spices and mix well

4- Place in a ceramic bread tin and cover with tin foil.

5 - Bake for 30-40 minutes on the middle shelf.

The apples before they go into the oven

When you take the apples out of the oven, they will look as if nothing has happened

The apples post-cooking

Now here you have to just trust me...and stir. These apples will then turn into the apple pie filling below

It's that simple!!

As you can see I find this recipe perfect as it is. However if you find that you need more sweetness, or less bitterness then I have two suggestions. First, try adding a tiny pinch of salt. It sounds weird but apparently salt and bitter tastes use the same receptors on the tongue so salt can block out the bitterness. Then if you still need a little sweetness you can add honey or agave nectar.

This recipe makes new year's resolutions or healthy choices that much easier to stomach! Dessert is a very important part of a healthy diet! Healthy for body and soul! I make this throughout winter and absolutely love it. I would definitely recommend you try it, enjoy some January guilt free deliciousness and I will see you next week =)

A fat-free dessert for your summer party

There are a lot of exciting things coming up this week and lots of reasons to party. This coming Friday is Independence Day stateside, which means BBQs, ice-cream and fire-works and on this side of the pond this weekend is the Wimbledon tennis final, which means strawberries, ice-cream and 'Pimm's' cups to me (not that I've ever gone to it but I've dreamed) Edit: How could I forget that Tuesday is also Canada day, yet another reason to celebrate! So there's lots and lots of potential parties and delicious food. However what if you are eating healthy at the moment? Well I have a solution for you my friend and it is absolutely delicious so you won't feel left out.

These giant meringues are the perfect way to have your 'cake' and eat it without as much guilt. Now, they are not very low in sugar, I replace some of the sugar with stevia but you can only go so far when you want to get crispy meringues. I'll tell you a secret: I have been working on lower calorie baked dishes for years and am always trying to replace the sugar or fat with healthier options. Meringues were one of the recipes I tinkered with, however it never worked out and it reached a stage where all I produced was marshmallow clouds without any bite until one day my sister, who I was baking with, said 'This is ridiculous, you need so much more sugar in these!'

Well these meringues are crispy, sweet and chewy in the center and still have 1/3 less sugar than normal.

Real fruit Meringue with fat free 'sweet cream' (makes 4 giant meringues)

6 egg whites
6/8 tsp cream of tartar
230g white caster sugar
115g equivilant stevia (follow the packer directions, my stevia says 10% so c12g stevia)

250g strawberries + 1 pinch stevia
250g Black berries + 1 pinch stevia

8 tbsp fat-free greek yoghurt (2 per meringue)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste
optional - stevia to taste
berries to decorate


1 - Start by making your coulis- in a saucepan mash together the berries and stevia

2 - Boil the berries until they have reduced by half, let cool and then put through a sieve.

3 - Preheat your oven to 110'C. Beat the egg whites until light and fluffy, mix together the sugar and
      stevia and slowly add while whisking. Stop when firm peaks have formed.

4 - Pour out large dollops of meringue, then spoon on 3/4 tsp of the coulis on top of the meringue
      and use a tooth pick or the handle of a teaspoon to fold and mix the coulis gently into the
      meringue, stopping when it's streaked through the meringue. Steps below.

Try to lift up to keep the volume

Strawberry meringue

Blackberry meringue - these turned out best, a mon avis!

5 - Bake for 90 to 115 minutes and then turn off the oven and crack open the door to let the
     meringues dry out until cool. You will notice that the meringues lose a lot of volume and the
     colour diminishes on the outside. This is why it's important to try to keep the volume before
     cooking and don't worry the colour remains vivid inside.

6 - Now let's dress this up while keeping it fat free, so don't touch that cream!! Trust me you will not miss it. Now beat together your greek yoghurt, vanilla extract, vanilla paste and stevia. Portion out 2 tablespoons per meringue and decorate with extra berries and sprinkled coulis over the top. Then serve with a sparkling drink and enjoy ;)

Do you like my attempt to do red, white and blue? Perfect 4th July colours!

Quadruple-stuff Oreo Cheesecake

 Some weekends you just need a treat, and other weekends (after two weeks of studying and stress) you need a special treat! A special treat needs to be different, indulgent and mildly addictive, just enough that you find yourself having a second piece without knowing how you got to the kitchen. This might even be slightly more addictive than that but hey, in for a penny and all that. We all heard last year the research coming out of Connecticut claiming that Oreos are more addictive that cocaine. Now without going into the details of the research methods etc I think I'm willing to accept the basic premise - Oreos are extremely addictive and I don't need experiments to prove that. I only need this cheesecake recipe and one portion of your time...... maybe two, it's up to you!