Paleo Mousse

Remember when you were little and you ate yogo like it was real yoghurt? That gloppy, runny, chocolaty stuff? Sometimes you would get the big serve with the choc chips or M&Ms to stir in?Or sometimes you would just drink it out of the little container, push it right up against your face so you can lick every last remnant from the bottom, resulting in a chocolaty ring around your mouth and nose? Remember that? And do you remember last week when your boyfriend was super sick with a weird strain of man flu/food poisoning and the only thing that made him feel better was a fridge full of yogo? Ok, so that was just me then?

I promise you, this yogo ranting is leading somewhere. I call this a paleo mousse because that's what the original recipe was published as over on PaleOMG. I nearly crapped myself when I saw this post, mostly because I had just made a fresh batch of almond butter AND I had all the other ingredients in the house to make the damn mousse. Which pretty much never happens. There is always one damn thing missing. I've tweaked the recipe slightly, and depending on how you like the consistency, you can either whack it in the freezer for a mousse or just chill it in the fridge for a yogo. See, I told you the yogo rant was leading somewhere.

Paleo Mousse

1/4 Cup almond butter
400ml ice cold coconut milk (full fat)
1/4 Cup Raw cacao powder
2 Tbs raw organic honey
Pinch of cinnamon

Pop your coconut milk in the freezer for an hour or two until it's ice cold. Place all ingredients in your food processor and blend until well combined. Pour into four small dishes (I used tea cups) and refrigerate for 4-5 hours, or until it firms up to your desired consistency. If you want firm mousse, transfer from the fridge to the freezer for 1 hour before serving.

Serves 4,  276 cal per serve.

Paleo Jaffa Cake

When I was young(er) I had a sleepover with a bunch of friends. The sleep part of 'sleepover' is only implied, as we didn't sleep a wink. We sat up all night and laughed, talked shit and ate crap. Oh, and we also rolled jaffas across the wooden floorboards to each other, creating a horrid noise in the echoy silence of early morning. This noise then filtered upwards to my parents bedroom, resulting in my mother, to directly quote one of my friends, going ape shit crazy.

Ahh to be young again. And jaffas - not just good for eating at the movies. Also an impressive torture device. Who would have thunk it.

Jaffa Cake

2 over ripe bananas
2 eggs
1/4 cup almond butter
2 tbs coconut oil
1/4 cup coconut flour
1/4 cup raw cacaco
1 mandarin zest, plus juice (you can use an orange instead. I only had mandarins)
pinch of baking soda
pinch of baking powder
vanilla

Preheat oven to 220 degrees celsius. Line a small loaf tin with baking paper. Place all ingredients in food processor and blend until combined. Alternately, combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Whisk wet ingredients in a second bowl. Combine wet to dry.  Bake for aprox 45 minutes, or until  brown on top and baked through the middle.

 

Paleo Sweet Potato Brownies

I have chicken neck. Let me rephrase that. I have big ass swollen glands that make me look like I have a chicken neck. I don't feel sick, but it hurts my face. Woe is me right now. Thankfully, I had 1 more sweet potato brownie waiting for me in the fridge when I got home tonight and now I feel heeeeeeeaps better. If you can, resist the urge to eat these straight out of the oven (fat chance). Instead, pop them in the fridge over night. These bad boys mature real well with age. I discovered this fact by accident. Accidents rule!

Paleo sweet potato brownies (adapted from PaleOMG)

1 1/2 sweet potato (about 1.5 cups mashed)
3 eggs
1 Tbs melted coconut oil
4 Tbs raw organic honey
3 Tbs coconut flour
2 Tbs tapioca flour
2 1/2 Tbs raw cacao powder
Pinch of gluten free baking powder
Pinch of cinnamon
Dash of vanilla extract
Optional extra - tsp of melted nutella or melted dark chocolate.

Pre heat your oven to 180 degrees celcius. Grease one large loaf tin (or I use two small loaf tins) with olive oil. Personally, I prefer not to grease as it adds extra, unwanted fat. Instead, invest in some silicon bakeware. Seriously, you'll never look back!

Depending on how lazy you are, peel and dice your sweet potato then boil until tender, then mash. For the lazy among us, put your taters in a microwave proof bowl, cover with water and zap for 6 minutes. Drain and whack in your food processor. BLLLLLIIIIIIITZZZ! 

Start with your wet ingredients - eggs, oil, honey, vanilla. Whisk to combine with your mash, or BLLLLLLLITTTTZZ in your food processor for 1 minute. 

Then the dry ingredients - flours, cacao, baking powder, cinnamon. Stir to combine or BLLLLLLITTTZZZ! 

Poor mixture into prepared tins, and if you have opted for the additional extras drizzle over the top of your brownie mix. Bake for around 30 mins or until a skewer inserted into the mix comes out clear. 

Makes 12 brownies. Or 4. Depending on how many you eat before your significant other comes home. 

Chocolate cake for skinny people

My dear surrogate mother, Mumma Fish, recently had a birthday. She also recently lost like, a billion kilograms. Ok, not that much, obviously. She always looked fabulous, but now she looks crazy skinny fabulous. I wanted to make her a 'healthy' birthday cake but then I remembered that healthy is boring. So I made my super moist chocolate mud cake and put fruit on it, because fruit is healthy. And when you pair fruit with chocolate, it cancels out the calories. That's just science, really.

 Make yourself a super moist mud cake, then slice it in half. Make a big bowl of ganache. 2 parts dark chocolate, 1 part pure cream. We want this ganache to set hard.

 Fill the middle of the cake with ganache.

 Keep filling.. 

 Grab some luscious, plump, juicy, sexy berries. Wash and set aside to dry off.

 Ganache your cake. We're going for a rustic look, no need to be fancy.

Pipe a border to hold in all the fruit. If you don't have a piping bag, just use a thick plastic sandwich bag and snip off the corner.

  Pile on your luscious, plump, juicy, sexy berries.

 Add more berries for decoration. Dip them in melted chocolate. Or white chocolate. Whatever takes your fancy. You could dip them in sprinkles as well. Yeah, do that. I wish I had sprinkles. 

 Add more chocolate. Just because. 

 Serve on a vintage, sliver cake stand with matching candles (note: cake stand and candles are optional. You could just eat it with a spoon, standing along in your kitchen. That would work well too). 

Attempt to claim a large portion of the cake by licking a selected area. This is called 'dibs!' as demonstrated here by silly surrogate sister. She lost a small section of her tongue doing this. Kidding.

Chocolate pasta - Reality or fantasy?

The Boy and I recently celebrated seven glorious years together. “But KayB, you are so young and virile to have had such a long relationship” you might be thinking. Well, yeah. I am young, still. Virile? I do like to think I wear the pants in my/our relationship! So, yes. You are correct. But basically, we are high school sweethearts. Cuteness, huh! And check out what he got me!

I frickin’ love Russian dolls, and these are super cute. Hehe, check out the doll on her head full of cheese. Wicked.

Not only did I score some super sweet culinary presents for our anniversary, but it was also a great excuse to have a mini break. Off to Narooma we voyaged! 

Narooma is about 5 hours south of Sydney, and if you’ve ever ventured down the gorgeous south coast of NSW, then you’ll know all about the quaint little country towns that you must stop at along your roadtrip. And the best part about these quaint little towns - the lolly shops! Whoooo! 

Browsing the shelves of the Old Time Lolly Shop Mogo, there is all the usuals that you’d expect. Boiled lollies, chocolate coated honeycomb, licorice bullets, toffee apples, HOLY S**T, IS THAT CHOCOLATE PASTA!!!?? Yup. It is. 

A month later, research for this article completed, and I have discovered that chocolate pasta isn't all that unusual. There are plenty of recipes online for chocolate pasta. Intriguing..

I’m back home and thinking there is a good chance I will have to spread the amazingness that is chocolate pasta. Dinner turned into dessert, equals amazing, right? I enlist the aid of by two besties, Moon and BecFace, to help me pass judgement over this dinner/dessert wonder.

After a quick hot chocolate and the unanimous decision that cold custard would be the best accompaniment, we’re boiling the water. BecFace and I nibble on a dry piece of pasta, far too eager to wait until it’s ready. BecFace is anxious with anticipation as the pasta boils, bouncing around in the kitchen. Moon, however is a little more apprehensive. Perhaps it’s because her wisdom teeth are causing her grief this particular day, or perhaps she somehow already knew what judgement we would be passing down upon the dessert pasta.

Out comes the pasta, on goes the custard and into our mouth’s it goes. 

Hmmm. Ok? Ahh well..

If you shut your eyes, clear everything from your mind and concentrate on dulling all your other senses so your sense of taste is heightened, then yes I guess you could argue that the taste of coco slightly comes through. Otherwise it just tastes like plain old, regular pasta. Perfectly al dente pasta, but just pasta none the less. 

I was disappointed, BecFace was shattered, Moon was.. well, actually she wasn’t too traumatised by the whole experience. 

Even Miss LuckyB spat it out. And hey, I love pasta, I ain’t one to be hating on the pasta. But this seriously just tasted like regular pasta with custard on it. Moon and I actually couldn’t even finish the bowl. On the plus side, I guess you could also argue that we’d just discovered a cheap dessert option for students/dole bludgers. Buy yourself a cheap bag of no frills pasta and whack some custard on it! But at $9.95 for a 250gram bag of chocolate pasta, it just isn't worth it!

Old Time Lolly Shop Mogo

Opposite Fire Station, 

1 Tomakin Rd, Mogo

NSW, 2563

(02) 4474 4121

Valentines Day - Chocolate, strawberry and cupcake bouquet

Valentines day. Commercial construction or genuine celebration of love? Well, both are wrong. Valentines day, or February 14th, is simply the eve of my birthday. Mwahahaha.. (cake to come).

Ok, but seriously, I have the most amazing boyfriend in the whole world. Don’t even try and argue with me, I’m sure your boyfriend is quite lovely too. But mine is better. The best. Ever.

Unlike my amazing boyfriend, I unfortunately do not have a romantic bone in my body. My idea of romance is spending the night in some seedy pub with a beer in one hand, while my other hand is giving either the finger or devil horns to a local indie/rock band.

But this year I thought I’d attempt to bring the cheese (you know, a classically romantic gesture that is so cliche it has actually become too cheesy for words!). And what better way to bring the cheese than with a home made gift.

An interesting alternative to the classic bouquet of flowers is the now popular chocolate bouquet. You can also get fresh fruit bouquets. Some specialty businesses (mostly in the USA) offer cupcake bouquets. How about we combine all three of these...

Complete with nutella cupcakes, chocolate covered strawberries and chocolate hearts. Yummo! Super easy and cheap to make. I think it makes a great alternative to flowers, and a fantastic option for a present to give a male. Handmade with love for my baby. Xxx.

Guylian Cafe, The Rocks

Lucky me received a gift voucher to the Guylian Cafe for my 21st birthday. Ok, so my birthday was back in February, but Daddy and I had drafted this fantastic plan to gorge ourselves stupid one Sunday while Mumma B and JayB were climbing the harbour bridge (yet another birthday present..). We ending up waiting for them to disembark from the bridge and headed over to the cafe together, along with my Aunty Vickii.

My family suffers from a condition I like to refer to as ‘burrell syndrome’, our eyes are far too big for our stomach. We were all suffering from this terrible syndrome on this particular Sunday afternoon. As a result we ordered five different cakes plus a beverage each. All the cakes were amazing, my favourite being the winter of passion ($15.25), extremely light and fluffy with a yummy citrus edge. And you can go past the hazelnut torte ($15.25), chock full of milk chocolate ganache (possibly my most favourite cake filling ever!).

The Guylian Shakes were devoured by Mumma B, Daddy and JayB – I didn’t even get a photo! At 10 bucks a pop you’re probably thinking we’re insane – no amount of milk, ice cream and chocolate flavouring can amount to $10! However, I am reassured that it was extremely satisfying, and totally worth the money.

Winter of Passion ($15.25)

Winter of Passion

Hazelnut Torte ($15.25)

Hazelnut Torte

100% Pure Pleasure ($15.25)

100% Pure Pleasure

Chocolate Eclair ($7)

White Chocolate Eclair ($7)

Complementary Chocolates

Guylian Shake ($10)

Guylian Cafe, The Rocks - 91 George Street - T. +61 (02) 8274 7500

Guylian Cafe, Circular Quay - Shop 10, Opera Quays - 3 Macquarie Street -

T. +61 (02) 8274 7900

http://www.guyliancafe.com.au/