Skinny Choc Chip Scones

Skinny and scones aren’t two words you usually see side-by-side. Luckily, I’m here to fix that.

The buttery, flakiness of a scone usually comes from – you guessed it – butter. This recipe only uses 3 tablespoons of butter for 12 scones, making these practically diet food. Unfortunately, a lot of the scone texture has been lost through minimal butter usage and these scones come out a bit more sponge cake-like than scone-like.

Make sure you go easy on the baking soda and the salt! I originally used 2 teaspoons of baking soda and ½ teaspoon of salt. Even though I’d used unsalted butter, these scones tasted like I’d just fished them out of the sea. My Official Treat Taster’s face was a picture.

I’m sad to say they’re also a little bit on the dry side. Thinking back now, I should have added some Greek yogurt, but that would have taken even more away from the scone texture. I think the lesson is that if you want a low-calorie snack, don’t opt for a scone!

Skinny Choc Chip Scones

Adapted from Skinny Taste

Makes 12

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup whole-wheat flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ cup white sugar

3 tablespoons cold butter

¾ cup milk

2 teaspoons vanilla essence

1 egg

¾ cup chocolate chips

Topping:

1 egg white

2 tablespoons sugar

Recipe

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Mix together the 2 flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar in a bowl.

2. Rub the butter in with your fingertips until breadcrumb sized pieces remain.

3. Mix in the milk, vanilla, egg and chocolate chips.

4. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead a few times. Shape the dough into a circle and use a pizza cutter – or a knife if you don’t have one – to divide the dough into 12 triangles.

5. Lightly whisk the egg white and brush it all over the scones. Sprinkle on the sugar and bake for 18-20 minutes or until golden brown.

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Skinny Mini Red Velvet Donuts & Muffin Tops

I discovered something fantastic this weekend.

If you over-fill mini donut pans – if pour enough batter so you have to tiptoe to the oven with your back straight because 1 tilt and the floor will be covered in red liquid donuts – you can make mini donuts and muffin tops at the same time. My laziness and greediness are finally paying off!

When you make your drizzle, make sure you whisk your powdered sugar better than I did!

Not sure what I mean? Instead of filling each mini donut mold half-way like you’re meant to, pour the batter all the way to the top so you can’t fit any more in. Bake a little longer than normal and the mini donuts will puff out over the top. When you take them out of the oven they’ll look like mini cupcakes! After they’ve cooled, slice the domes off with a knife and you’ll be left with mini donuts and mini muffin tops.

Watch out for the freaky shadow monsters on the wall

 I’m not sure how many calories are in each mini donut. The scales I use can tell me exactly how many calories/carbs/protein/etc are in everything – I really should read that manual! But check the ingredients – all the moisture comes from a little bit of yogurt and 1 egg. And besides, they’re mini donuts, and we all know anything mini is practically negative calories.

Skinny Mini Red Velvet Donuts & Muffin Tops

Makes 24 mini donuts or 12 mini donuts and 12 muffin tops

Ingredients

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons corn starch

pinch salt

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

4 tablespoons Greek yogurt

about 1/2 teaspoon red food coloring

1/3 cup milk

2 teaspoons white or red wine vinegar

1 teaspoon baking soda

drizzle of choice

Recipe

1. Pre-heat the oven to 400°F and sieve the flour and cornstarch at least three times.

2. Mix in the salt, baking powder, brown sugar, and cocoa powder.

3. In another bowl, beat together the egg, milk, yogurt, vanilla and red food coloring. Stir this into the dry ingredients.

4. Sprinkle the baking soda over the vinegar and quickly fold into the donut batter.

5. Pour the batter into a greased mini donut pan. Fill the molds all the way to the top if you want muffin tops or only half way if you want all mini donuts. Bake for around 8 minutes if making donuts or 12 minutes if making muffin tops as well.

5. Remove from the baking tray and leave to cool on a wire rack before dipping in your favorite drizzle. I dipped mine in a simple lemon drizzle made from powdered sugar, a few drops of lemon juice and a few drops of water.

Tip: it's much easier to slice the muffin tops of whilst the donuts are still in the pan

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Healthy Breakfast Nachos

Want to get three veggies inside you before you’ve even left the house? May I present to you Breakfast Nachos  –  one of the easiest, fastest and tastiest ways to start your day off in a healthy way.

Healthy breakfasts can get tiresome – especially if you’re trying to cram vegetables in there – but breakfast nachos are one dish that you won’t get fed up of.

You can easily mix up your veggies and change the herbs and spices you use to create almost a different breakfast each time. These are super easy and fast to prepare, too, which I absolutely love. And just look at those colours - who wouldn't want to wake up to that?

I usually go all in for thick, fluffy pancakes or heavenly chocolate donuts for breakfast, but every now and then I do crave something healthy. When those cravings hit, this is one of the first dishes I think of.

This is a super-short post today. If you visit my blog often, you may have noticed that the layout has changed completely. It's not finished yet, but I’m hoping to have most of the images and stuff sorted by today. Let me know what you think of the new design! 

Breakfast Nachos

Ingredients

2 tortillas

1/4 cup sweet corn

1/4 cup diced onion

2 slices ham, chopped

1 large tomato, diced

1 tablespoon butter

3 eggs

Splash of milk

Salt & pepper

1/4 cup grated cheese

Recipe

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C and chop the tortillas up into small triangular nacho shapes. Arrange on a baking tray and bake for about 10 minutes or until brown and crispy. (Don’t turn the oven off when you’re done! Instead, increase the heat to 400°F/200°C)

2. Melt the butter in a frying pan over a medium heat and sautee the corn and onion for 5 minutes.

Add the tomato and ham and cook for a further 5 minutes until soft.

3. Lightly whisk the eggs, milk and seasonings and pour into the frying pan. Stir the eggs (just like you would if you were making scrambled eggs) and cook until set.

4. To assemble, layer half the baked tortilla chips in the bottom of a ceramic bowl, add half scrambled egg and veggie mix on top, layer the rest of the tortilla chips and finally the rest of the eggs. Sprinkle on some grated cheese and bake in the oven for 5-10 minutes or until the cheese is golden and bubbling.

Enjoy a healthy breakfast that actually tastes good!

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Healthy Mini Chocolate Donuts & Muffins

Welcome to the magical Pink Recipe Box bakery where you can eat as many chocolate donuts as you like without putting on a single pound. Okay, that might be a bit exaggerated – I work in marketing so what do you expect? – but it’s not far from the truth. These chocolate donuts really are healthy. You won’t find any oil or butter in the recipe and you won’t have to step anywhere near a deep-fat fryer.

They are a combination of oats, egg, cocoa, apple sauce and yogurt essentially, with a few other ingredients thrown in for good measure. I was skeptical at first when making the batter – it was really thin and the ingredients just didn’t sound appealing together. Then I tried a spoonful of the batter – a very important quality control measure all bakers will know about wink wink – all ready to pull my what-on-earth-have-I-done?! face, only to be pleasantly surprised. The batter tasted great and if the raw batter tastes great, you just know the final creation will be fantastic.

Because there is hardly any fat in these donuts, feel free to add a few handfuls of chocolate chips – I promise I won’t tell. My donuts are covered in a chocolate glaze – 1 part melted butter to 2 parts melted milk chocolate – which isn’t healthy, but as soon as I find a way to make a butter and chocolate combo that’s good for you, I’ll let you know.

I bought this mini donut pan from Amazon a while ago. It’s fantastic – the donuts pop out really easily and don’t stick at all. If you don’t have a mini donut pan, you can always pour the batter into muffin cases and make Healthy Chocolate Muffins that you can eat for breakfast. Don’t forget the chocolate chips!

Healthy Mini Chocolate Donuts or Muffins

Inspired by Triple Chocolate Chunk Muffins from Healthy is Always Better

Makes around 36 mini donuts or 12 muffins

Ingredients

½ cup + 2 tablespoons oats

1 egg

1/4 cup cocoa
1/4 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup hot water

2 tablespoons apple sauce

2 tablespoons Greek yoghurt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 tablespoon lemon juice

Pinch salt

Optional chocolate chips

Recipe

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F/170°C and grease a mini donut pan or line a 12-cup muffin pan with cupcake papers.

2. In a blender or food processor, blend together all of the ingredients until the mixture is smooth.

3. Fold in chocolate chips is using and half fill your donut mold or fill your cupcake liners 2/3 full. If you want chocolate chips to sit on top of your muffins like mine, sprinkle a few on top of the muffins before baking.

4. Bake donuts for around 12-15 minutes or until they spring back when touched. Bake muffins for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out almost clean. 

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Healthy Chocolate Chunk Brownies

Okay, so maybe calling these Healthy Chocolate Chunk Brownies is pushing the boat out a little, but they’re healthier than regular brownies. They aren’t packed with vegetables or beans, but instead they completely replace any added butter with a much healthier alternative – Greek yoghurt.

This is quite a serious statement to make, but I have taken a lot into consideration and can honestly say that these are the best brownies I’ve ever made. Wonderfully soft and velvety, whilst densely fudge-like at the same time – they are everything I look for in brownies.

The original recipe called for flax seeds – something that I’ve never ever seen in a Canarian supermarket – in place of eggs. I didn’t want disappointingly flat brownies, so I whipped, whipped, whipped two egg whites and folded them in to get air into the batter. I also sifted all of my dry ingredients to make the result as light and airy as possible.

If you’re really craving brownies but are trying you’re hardest to cut the calories – may I suggest you avoid a dessert? – then you could also cut out the chocolate chunks. You’ll end up with the same fudge-like texture with less of the fat and sugar. I wouldn’t recommend reducing the sugar in the recipe, though; these brownies are perfect – not too sweet at all.

If you’re feeling good about all the calories you’ve saved from not adding any butter into the mix, then treat yourself and top these brownies with a deliciously tempting Chocolate Buttercream Frosting. =D

Healthy Chocolate Chunk Brownies

Makes 12 small brownies

Inspiration from In Sock Monkey Slippers

Ingredients

150g dark chocolate

1/3 cup milk chocolate chunks

1 cup Greek yogurt

½ cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

¾ cup flour

2 eggs

½ teaspoon baking soda

Pinch salt

Recipe

1. Preheat the oven to 350F/175C and line an 8”x8” baking tray with parchment paper. If you don’t have any parchment paper, you’ll have to generously grease the dish so your brownies don’t stick.

2. Melt the dark chocolate in the microwave. Remove every 30 sections and stir to make sure it doesn’t burn.

3. Separate the eggs. Beat the whites until you have stiff peaks – this is best done with an electric mixer.

4. Stir together the yoghurt, melted chocolate, sugar, egg yolks and vanilla extract.

5. In a separate bowl, sift the flour, baking soda and salt. Gently fold this into the chocolate mixture until just combined.

6. Carefully fold in the egg whites and chocolate chunks. Folding is the best method here – if you over-mix the batter at this point, you’ll end up with flat brownies.

7. Bake for around 18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out with a few crumbs sticking to it.

8. Using the parchment paper as a handle, remove the brownies from the baking dish and allow to slightly cool on a wire rack. Cut into squares and serve warm.

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Healthy Cookie Dough Dip

You may remember my previous attempt at making a healthy dessert with garbanzos – Healthy Deep Dish Cookie Pie. That was pretty much a disaster because the hard-to-miss garbanzo flavour was embedded in that pie and my Official Treat Taster wouldn’t touch it. Even I wasn’t too keen and thought it tasted much more like a health bar than dessert.

Luckily, things worked out better this time. Much better. I blended and blended and blended this until I thought my food processor was going to give out, just so I could gorge on cookie dough and tell myself I was being healthy. I offered a scoop of this on a cookie to my Official Treat Taster (without telling him it was made with garbanzos, but that goes without saying). He absent-mindedly ate it then looked at my funny and politely said “It’s unusual, isn’t it?” I told him the main ingredient and he threw me his favourite I-can’t-believe-you-tried-to-poison-me-with-something-remotely-healthy look and went back to playing games on his phone.

I loved this recipe and was literally eating it by the spoonful. For several days it was my lunch at work. That’s it – just cookie dough eaten out of a plastic container with a spoon. I advise you to run out to the store and stock up on garbanzos because once you try this, you’ll want to be making it again and again!

Healthy Cookie Dough Dip adapted from Chocolate-Covered Katie

Ingredients

250g garbanzos

Pinch of salt

Pinch of baking soda

4 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 tablespoons peanut butter

2 tablespoons milk

10 tablespoons oats

2/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup chocolate chips

Recipe

Add all the ingredients except the chocolate chips to food processor and blend until completely smooth. Stir in the chocolate chips and serve with cookies, crackers or fruit.

This also makes a great healthy topping for chocolate cupcakes – don't take my word for it, try it yourself!



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Healthy Oreo Ice Cream

A thick and creamy ice cream tickled with crunchy Oreo chunks – you’d never guess this Oreo ice cream was healthy! The Greek yoghurt and light cream cheese provide the thick, smooth ice cream texture, whereas the vanilla extract and hot cocoa powder sweeten it up. This recipe doesn’t call for an ice cream maker, either – you can make it all by hand in a matter of minutes.

I’m not really bothered about ice cream – I’m much more of a brownie or cupcake girl – and when I think of all the cream and sugar that goes into it, I’m even less keen on it. This recipe tackles those issues – it calls for only a small amount of sugar and replaces double cream with a healthy substitute – Greek yoghurt.

My Official Treat Taster and I were having a discussion about the definition of a healthy recipe. I was arguing that I think a healthy recipe is one that’s pretty low-cal with hardly any fat and sugar. He was insisting that in order for a recipe to be healthy, it has to have nutritional value. For some reason, he would not humour my attempts to convince him of the uncountable health benefits of Oreos.

What’s your definition of a healthy recipe?

Healthy Oreo Ice Cream

Ingredients

250ml Greek yoghurt

4tbsp Light cream cheese

1tsp Vanilla extract

4tbsp Sugar

4 Crushed Oreos

1tbsp Hot cocoa powder

Recipe

1. Mix together the yoghurt, cream cheese and vanilla extract.

2. Stir in the sugar, hot cocoa powder and Oreos.

3. Place into a tub suitable for freezing and leave in the freezer for around 4 hours to set.

4. Remove from the freezer at least 15 minutes before you want to serve.

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Deep-Dish Cookie Pie

Most of my recipes are full of the good stuff – eggs, butter, chocolate, sugar and cream – but this recipe really grabbed my attention. A healthy deep-dish cookie pie made with garbanzos and oats? I really like garbanzos anyway, so I was more than happy to attempt this butter, egg and cream-free recipe.

I read the reviews by people who had made the pie and had convinced their friends that it was an ordinary fat-filled cookie pie. I decided I would try it out for myself. Ian really hates garbanzos so I thought this was going to be a tough challenge, but I could do it!

I blended everything together out of his view and banged it in the oven. As soon as I opened the door, the kitchen was filled with the smell of baked garbanzos and his taste buds were immediately on alert. After the healthy deep-dish cookie pie had cooled, I tried it for myself and could easily taste the garbanzos.

Ian tried it, but from the face he pulled, it was evident he wasn’t going to have another bite. I really enjoyed it, but that’s probably because I really like garbanzos anyway. I recommend this recipe for anyone looking for a healthy alternative to a calorie-packed dessert, but definitely not if you’re going to try and fool anyone into thinking it’s an ordinary deep-dish cookie pie.

Deep-Dish Cookie Pie 

Recipe adapted from Chocolate Covered Katie

Ingredients

500g garbanzos

1 cup oats

3tbsp oil

2tsp vanilla extract

1/2tsp baking soda

2tsp baking powder

Pinch salt

1 cup sugar

1 cup chocolate chips

Recipe

1. Preheat the oven to 170C and blend all the ingredients – except the chocolate chips – really well together in a food processor.

2. Stir in the chocolate chips and pour into a greased 20cm baking dish. Place in the oven and bake for around 40 minutes.