Gluten Free Chocolate Strawberry Bites

This is an Easter activity that I have combined with www.whatcanieat.com.au, to think of fun Easter ideas, with this idea, you simply replace the strawberries with easter eggs to make a very cool and home made Easter treat!

Chocolate Strawberry Balls

Ingredients:
6 eggs
1 heaped tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. bicarb soda
200g almond meal or ground almonds
250g caster sugar
60g of cocoa
1 1/2 punnets of strawberries
Slug of Baileys (to your liking)
1 block of milk chocolate
100g unsalted butter
1/2 punnet or more of strawberries (for decoration)
Easter Eggs

Method:
Preheat the oven to 150 degrees Celsius. Cut strawberries in half and put in food processor with Baileys until blended through and cut into small pieces. Add the remaining ingredients and mix until ingredients is combined. Now this is the part where you must grease the 20cm spring form cake tin and use baking paper and bake for 1 hour. Let the cake cool before removing. If you want to do the smaller delightful strawberry chocolate balls, remove the cake from the tin, while still warm, the cake will fall apart. Break the cake into smaller pieces, place in a bowl cover with cling wrap and put in the fridge. Get our your patty cake holders and roll the cake mix into small balls and place inside the cup cake holder. Melt the chocolate and butter in the microwave, checking at 30 second intervals, and stirring each time. Add the melted chocolate and butter and top with a small section of a strawberry, or Easter egg, you might like to alternate to create something rather cool! Repeat with remaining mixture. I think this is a delightful way to ensure such a rich cake, in small bite size portions. The only problem is, you are more likely to go back for seconds and thirds! If you do make it as a whole cake, I would cut strawberries in half and decorate around the side of the cake after using the chocolate and butter to make a delicious ganache icing

I hope you enjoy this cake and the original recipe was part of a  wonderful Blog Hop, hosted by the Hungry Australian. Remember you can find me on Twitter @MMOAGFL. The lovely Jennifer at Delicieux is running a great comp to win an awesome set of Kitchen appliances, just head to her website to enter!

Good & Easy Eats Amazing Competition

I'm so excited to announce my very first competition! I've recently had the pleasure of reviewing a fantastic, healthy and delicious e book, by the wonderful Kim Wilson, 'Good & Easy Eats'.There are an amazing 70 recipes included in this fabulous e book. It's not only a recipe book, but a guide to healthy wholesome living, equipping the reader with all the tools to change your eating habits and adapt to a healthy living lifestyle. Kim has kindly offered a copy of this book for one lucky reader!

I've had the pleasure of using the recipes in this great book! One of the great things I've learnt from using Kim's recipes, is that nuts of various forms, can be used in smoothies. Kim's recipe for juice smoothies are delicious, and I've made the smoothie numerous times with a variety of fruit, always including either crushed nuts or pistachio nuts. Kim recommends soaking the nuts as it softens the nuts to begin the process of germination and increases the digestibility and nutritional value of the nuts. I have to be honest, I always forget to soak the nuts but will make sure I do tonight, for my smoothie tomorrow.

I'm from Australia where sorghum is very hard to find, I've tried everywhere and have been unsuccessful. The lovely lady from the blog 84thand3rd, has told me that sorghum flour is available at some health food stores, the brand is Bob's Red Mill Ranges, please let me know if you find it and what store from. I baked Kim's Banana Muffins, which called for sorghum flour, for Australian readers, I used 1/2 cup of gluten free corn flour and 1/2 cup of arrowroot flour, the muffins turned out beautiful. Unlike any other muffin I have tasted, you could taste the goodness in these wholesome muffins. Once again for Australian's some products that you may need to go to a health food shop are; apple cider vinegar, ground flax (I brought Flaxmeal). I highly recommend purchasing this delightful e book, it is not just a recipe book, but will inspire you to change your lifestyle habits. Since I began to read this book, I have already begun to make healthier lifestyle changes. I have replaced lunch with a smoothie, and the banana muffins are perfect for either breakfast, or a wholesome snack in between meals! The muffins taste best warmed up, a quick zap in the microwave, makes them taste even better.

For Australian readers, the USA has different standards for gluten free products, they produce certified organic oats, which you will find in some of the recipes in this book. At present in Australia, oats is something that is still being debated if it contains gluten. My advice for Australian readers, is to avoid oats, you could use another grain such as quinoa in place of oats. Kim's website is: http.://www.simplynaturalhealth.com/
Any questions you have about the competition just send me an email or contact me on twitter @MMOAGFL. Goodluck with the competition.

Delicious Wholesome Banana muffins.

I'm very excited to announce that Mishaps and Mayhem of a Gluten Free Life, will be running our first compeitition, commencing this Friday! I have had the pleasure of reviewing 'Good & Easy Eats' by Kim Wilson from http://www.simplynaturalhealth.com/ . On Friday I will be revealing more of my thoughts on this wonderful and inspiring e book.

Until Friday, this is a preview of one of the delicious and healthy muffins. Everyone who has tried them, has commented on our nice they are and you can actually taste how wholesome they are, not filled with sugar. For Australians, some of the products aren't as easy to buy, I found the apple cider vinegar, brown rice flour, and Flaxmeal from a great health food shop.

Banana Muffins

Ingredients:
4 bananas mashed                                                    1 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup water                                                           1/2 cup of arrowroot flour
1/3 cup honey*(I used Maple Syrup)                          1/2 cup of gluten free cornflour
1/3 cup oil or butter (I used vegtable oil)                     1 tsp. cinammon 
 1/3 cup ground Flax (In Australia it's Flaxmeal)           2 tsp. baking powder
Opt. up to  1 cup chopped walnuts                              1/2 tsp. baking soda                                                                                     1/2 tsp. sea salt                                              
Method:
Combine ingredients in left column (except for walnuts if including). In a separate bowl combine ingredients in right column. Lightly mix the two together and then fold in walnuts. Scoop into oiled muffin cups. Bake at 180-200 degrees celiscus for about 20 minuts. Makes about one dozen muffins * maple syrup (I used this, or agave (I'm unsure if this can be found in Australia Note: The original recipe called for 1 cup of sorghum flour, unfortunately in Australia, I have not been able to purchase this flour, the arrowroot flour and gluten free cornflour is my subsitiute, and it worked well and tasted delicious!

Don't forget you can follow me on twitter @MMOAGFL or like our Facebook page. Any questions, write a comment or simply email me.

Remember the wonderful #SABH is running another blog hop, this time hosted by http://hungryaustralian.com/, the theme this month is Death By Chocolate (delicious!!), entries open on 16th January, you just have to be a food blogger, click on the link I have provided for more information. I will be entering as well, a delicious and choc filled surprise, so the information you will also be able to find here.

Enjoy these wholesome muffins, I'm making more to put in the freezer, to have healthy snacks ready!