Chocolate Buckwheat Pancake Stack with a Sweet Berry Sauce

Happy Pancake Day! If you're looking for a better alternative to the traditional pancakes today then this is the perfect recipe to try. Its so versatile and I love waking up to a huge pancake stack just for me!

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Makes around six small pancakes

Ingredients:

Pancake mixture

2 flax eggs (2 tbsp ground flaxseed combined with 6 tbsp water)
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
2 tbsp rice flour
1 tbsp baking powder
2-3 tbsp raw cacao powder
1 tsp organic burst maca powder
3/4 ripe banana
1/2 cup almond or other non dairy milk
1 tbsp brown rice syrup
Coconut oil for frying

Sweet Berry Sauce

1-2 handfuls mixed frozen berries
1 tbsp maple syrup
1/4 sliced banana


To Make:

1. Combine the ground flaxseed with the water in a small bowl or ramekin and place in the fridge for at least thirty minutes to thicken up. You can either do this the night before or in the morning. 
2. Sift the flours, baking powder, cacao powder, and maca in a large bowl and mix together. 
3. Mash 3/4 of the banana in a seperate bowl and add the milk, flax eggs and brown rice syrup. Then combine. Add to the flour mixture and fold in gently until fully mixed in. Avoid over mixing as you still want your pancakes to be nice and fluffy! 
4. Take a medium sized non stick frying pan and add some coconut oil. Once the pan has heated up, spoon some of the mixture onto the pan (about 1 pancakes worth) and cook on each side on a medium heat until ready. Then repeat with the rest of the mixture. Then stack nicely on your favourite plate. 
5. While you are cooking your pancakes, in a small pan, make your sweet berry sauce. Place your frozen berries and maple syrup and leave to cook slowly on a low to medium heat. Keep mixing this now and again so it doesn't stick to the pan. Try to time these right so it'll be ready at the same time as the pancakes. Slice the rest of your banana up and top the pancakes along with the sauce and all your favourite toppings. Serve with some soy yoghurt or Coyo coconut milk yoghurt.

Enjoy!

Emily X

Valentines Goji Heart Chocolates

Instead of the typical box of chocolates from the shops for Valentines day, why not treat your loved one (or yourself in my case) to some pretty homemade chocolates that you've made yourself? In my opinion the best gifts are always those that have had extra effort and time taken over them. Not only are these delicious and easy but they are also super good for you. One or more of these and you'll be high in the clouds with happiness, not to mention love!

The recipe below is just an estimate of what I used. Adjust the recipe to be as runny, thick, bitter, or sweet as you like. To make make more runny, add coconut oil, to make more thick add some more cacao powder, and to make more sweet if the cacao powder is too bitter add some more maple syrup or vanilla. Keep tasting as you go along so the chocolates will taste just the way you like. Also make sure to do it all quite quickly as the chocolate will begin to set if you make them too slowly. How do I know? My first batch didn't turn out so pretty. Haha :) The thing with this sort of recipe is trial and error-once you've done it a few times you'll get the hang of it.

I get my cacao butter and cacao powder from The Raw Chocolate Co and the coconut oil I use is Lucy Bee that I get from Sainsbury's for £6. To make these you'll need any kind of silicone mould. I used one that I found from M&S but there are some from amazon that are great for this sort of thing that you can get for really cheap and Lakeland do one thats really good too. If you don't have a silicone mould you can also use an ice cube tray or some bun cases. If you use bun cases make sure that they are firm enough so that the mixture won't spill out as soon as you move them. To take extra precautions place them on a mat or something solid to transfer them to the fridge.

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Makes 6 large or 20 small chocolates

Ingredients:

100g Cacao butter
4tbsp Coconut oil
2tsp Vanilla extract
100g Cacao powder
6-8 tbsp Good quality maple syrup (add more or less to your personal preference)
2-3 phandfuls Goji berries or other nuts/dried fruits (raisins would work really well)

You'll also need: Heart or other shaped silicone moulds and a sieve

To Make:

1. Fill up a medium sized saucepan with water and bring to the boil. If you can, try not to let the pan get hotter than 45 degrees Celsius so all the ingredients contain their original nutritional value.
2. Chop the cacao butter very finely (this way it will melt easily) and set in a glass bowl with the coconut oil.
3. Take the boiling water off the heat and place the bowl on top of it. 
4. Let the cacao butter slowly dissolve and melt down to a liquid. When it has all melted, stir in the vanilla.
5. Sieve in the cacao powder and mix until smooth with a wooden spoon. Add the maple syrup and goji berries. 
6. Slowly pour into moulds and leave in the fridge for thirty minutes to an hour or until firm. When they are ready push out of the moulds and put in a plastic container/box. The chocolates will stay fresh for up to three months in the fridge, though I doubt they'll last that long!

Happy chocolate making!

Lots of love,

Emily X

Review: Dee's Vegan Sausages

I first came across Dee's foods when me and my mum were shopping on Ocado a few weeks ago as they were on offer and were a brand we'd never heard of before so we thought we'd order a couple packs of her sausages and give them a go. As vegans it is a wonderful thing when we find new brands and healthy alternatives we like, as it can be pretty boring if we find ourselves eating a lot of the same things all the time. Dee is a nutritionist and first started her business at a farmers market which for starters, I really admire. Her foods are all free from meat, wheat, soy, eggs, gluten, artificial additives, palm oil, and nasty GMO's and made from the best quality natural and organic ingredients. All of which is a winning combination in my eyes.

Needless to say we really enjoyed them and despite some of the other negative reviews on Ocado, thought they were brilliant. Unfortunately we enjoyed them so much that they were all gone within a few days (oops!) and I said to myself that I would write a review sometime soon on my blog because I believe Dee's Wholefoods is a brand that likeminded people should know exists. I'm not too keen on her burgers as I am the sausages, but it might just be because of the ingredients and flavours that were used. I don't like to be negative at all but I do think that the burgers needed a bit extra flavour and seasoning, and I didn't find them that appetising. If I were to give feedback I would say that these things would definitely need to be changed.

Leek & Onion, and Coriander, Pepper & Ginger

Now onto the review. For starters, I love the packaging, the colours and fonts used really appeal to me and give me the impression that what I am about to eat is actually going to do me good and I'm not going to feel rubbish afterwards. The sausages are wrapped in a vegan casing made of rice flour and they have quite a different texture to a lot of other veggie/vegan sausages on the market. Personally I find it refreshing to have found a different take on veggie sausages that aren't the same to all the rest but thats just me. Other members of the family weren't so keen but I do think they are nice, not the best I've ever eaten, but nice. They are quite light so you could probably have 2-3 with some veggies and beans or something on your plate and you wouldn't leave the table feeling all horrible. In one pack you get six sausages and the price in my opinion is a bit too much money and they wouldn't be something we'd buy every week. Only occasionally for a treat. 

When cooking, because of the texture, they are quite prone to crumbling in the pan and matters are made worse if you miss out heating the pan up on a low heat first before you try to cook but as long as you have the pan heated up before you start cooking them they'll be okay. So overall these are really quite nice sausages that are definitely worth a try as everyone is different and although one person who tries them may not like them another might.

Emily X