Pre-SPRING TREAT: Orange White Chocolate Flat Cakes.

This recipe is perfect for this time of the year, with Easter and Spring approaching. It has white chocolate and orange which are popular ingredients for Easter treats like figolli, colomba and chocolate eggs. It's easy to make, doesn't take long and it yields a relatively large number of flat cakes. In reality, I wanted to make cookies and I followed my last cookies recipe. But because I added the orange juice, I should have added more flour but I didn't. So instead of cookies I got flat cakes. My husband loved them, and so did I. 

If you want to make cookies rather than flat cakes simply add an extra 1/2 to 1 cup flour depending on how soft you want you cookies to be. If you'd like to make flat cakes follow this recipe. Replace the milk chocolate flakes or chips with 100g white chocolate flakes or chips. And add the juice of 2 oranges. Follow the rest of the ingredients and cooking steps. The only difference is that the batter will be more runny and once you put the baking sheets in the oven, the batter will spread and you will get giant soft cookies. Let them cook on one side well by moving the sheets on different levels of your oven. When they are browned on one side, take the baking sheet out, cut the giant cookie into small pieces and turn them on the other side. Put them back in the over for few more minutes until they start crisping on the other side. Sprinkle with icing sugar and serve.

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VALENTINE'S LEMON CAKE

Since last Summer I have been loving anything with a lemon flavour. I started putting lemon on my healthy noodles, in my honey drink, in my hummus and of course in my baking. So here is my latest cake recipe featuring lemon juice. I like to use bottled lemon juice because of how convenient and inexpensive it is.

Ingredients

130g all purpose flour

80g cake flour

1/2 cup sugar

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

pinch of salt

113g soy butter

3 small eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla essence

15 teaspoons lemon juice (I would have used some lemon essence as well but I didn't have it)

1 cup milk

Preparation
And now it's a simple matter of mixing the dry ingredients together, doing the same for the wet ones; and the combining the two until you get a smooth but not too runny consistency. You can use an electric beater if you like. Bake for about 20 minutes in your preheated oven, preferably in the middle. And don't forget to grease the tin. I used soy butter.

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You might also want to check the following:

   Healthy Banana                     Perugina & Chinese 

           Bread                                  Cherries Cookies

        

   Valentine's Cupcakes      Valentine's sweet pastry hearts
           

Valentine's Perugina Chocolate & Chinese Cherries Cookies.

Believe it or not, in less than a week it will already be Valentine's day. It seems like Christmas and New Year was last week, yet so much time has already passed. And we are ready to celebrate this romantic day with our loved one. If you are looking for a sweet treat to share with your partner on Valentine's day or during the pre-Valentine weekend here is a recipe I tried few weeks ago which is perfect for this time of the year. It features chocolate and cherries on top of some heart shaped cookies. Perfect!

Ingredients

• Perugina Tablo Ganduia Flavour (80g)
• 80g chinese dry cherries
• cookie pastry (follow my mince pie pastry recipe)

Preparation

This recipe is super easy if you have some leftover cookie pastry. I used the pastry left from my Christmas mince pies, which I had stored in my freezer. And these cookies turned lovely.

1. Make the pastry following my recipe
2. Cut your heart shaped cookies.
3. Bake them for few minutes (about 10 or less)
4. Top each cookie with small pieces of chocolate and few cherries.
5. Bake for 2 minutes or so until the chocolate melts.
6. Let them cool and they are ready to eat.

If you are looking for a healthier Valentine's treat, which is especially great for a healthy Valentine's day breakfast, check this banana bread recipe.

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Low calorie Rusks Pudding

Yesterday I launched my 30 Days Healthy Meal Plan series which will feature one post every day on my food blog, AlessiAs CUEs. That same day I felt I needed a sweet fix, which was healthy and low in calories. So I came up with this healthy rusks pudding. Here is my recipe!

Ingredients
20 wholemeal rusks
about 15 dry prunes cut into 2 halves
1 cup heated soy milk
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
1 teaspoon baking powder
some honey syrup
a bit of water
2 tablespoons carob powder

Preparation
I started by crushing the rusks in a big bowl. Then I added all the other ingredients and mixed well until I achieved a medium soft but sticky consistency. I placed the mixture on a tin covered with baking paper which I greased with soy butter. I baked the pudding for about 15 minutes in my pre-heated oven.

You can sprinkle icing sugar on top, or spread some jam. If you divide this pudding into 8 slices, each slice should have between 150 to 200 calories.

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Halloween Treats....Rame di Napoli (with carob powder instead of chocolate)

Halloween is on its way. All of you who celebrate it must be super excited and planning all your outfits, makeup and organizing scary and fun parties. In Italy I never used to celebrate Halloween but around the same dates we used to celebrate the feast of all saints which was a way to remember our dear ones who unfortunately had left us. In Malta Halloween is being celebrated more and more through kids parties or by simply getting your kids dressed up and we can find scary decorations in most home decor shops. And lots of teenagers and younger as well as older adults celebrate it by attending club and disco parties with scary themes. Anyway, I have never really experienced the real Halloween atmosphere I saw on American films and also on you tube. And I have never done trick and treat around my neighbours' houses. The main tradition linked to this time of the year for me is eating Rame di Napoli which are traditional Sicilian treats for the all saints feast. So this year although I haven't decorated my house for Halloween and have no plans to celebrate I felt the need to relive my one tradition. That's why I made Rame di Napoli, which by the way aren't available for sale in Malta. 

So if you are Sicilian or love Sicily or are simply looking for a new Halloween treat or want to try a different dessert no matter the time of the year, here is my recipe for le Rame di Napoli or i Ram' Napoli in the Sicilian dialect. My recipe used no chocolate which is great for those of you who are allergic or want to avoid caffeine or even try healthier dessert options. Although the taste is not identical to the original ones it is definitely tasty and worth trying.

INGREDIENTS

320g flour 00

1 tablespoon Sweet Freedom natural sweetener syrup

50g granulated sugar

50ml orange juice (2 small oranges)

100 ml soy milk

40g carob powder

1/2 sachet lievito per dolci pane degli angeli (an italian baking powder with vanilla used for desserts)

40g soy butter

pistachios whole but peeled

for the icing:

40g carob powder 

40g soy milk

2 teaspoons vanilla essence

1 teaspoon natural sweetener syrup

1 tablespoon icing sugar

PREPARATION

Simply mix all the ingredients for the biscuits (except those for the icing) until you get a sticky quiet hard consistency. Then spoon the mixture on your baking dish covered with baking paper. Top each biscuit with few pistachios and bake in your preheated oven for about 20 minutes.

In the meantime you can mix the ingredients for the icing in a pot and cook them over heat until you get a creamy consistency.

When the biscuits are ready let them cool and then top with the carob icing. 

This recipe makes 16 medium to large biscuits. Each biscuit has 123 calories if topped with the icing and 108 calories without it. Except for the flour (which is not the healthiest) it is quiet low on sugar and has carob instead of chocolate. So it makes a healthier desert than many other ones. If you want an even healthier but delicious treat check my spelt rock cakes.

Tell me in the comments below which is your favourite Halloween treat? Happy Trick & Treat!

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