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hot chocolate

Super Easy & Cozy Double Chocolate Granola

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Double Chocolate Granola. Basically the taste of hot chocolate in form of granola on top of your yoghurt, porridge, nice cream or whatever. Pretty amazing. And pretty easy to make. Not convinced yet? Pretty healthy and soso delish! 

It’s been a while since I shared my last granola recipe – which was a mango coconut granola. We are in December now, which makes it kinda unsuitable for me to be eating a tropical granola (tbh this would only make me miss summer ever more) so I needed something else. First I though Chai Granola, because obviously everything chai is unbeatable but then I realised that I maybe already have shared quite a lot of chai recipes sooo – we are doing hot chocolate! And it is not in the tiniest bit less delicious! 

What’s special about this dish?

Not that it is a chocolate granola – no – it is a double chocolate granola. Chocolate before baking and chocolate after baking. Because who could have enough chocolate? Plus, it is really easy to make, and you can really top off anything with it. Or you could, as I do, eat it straight from the jar. And it works perfect for the pre Christmas time but tbh it is delicious at any time of the year!

Is it healthy? 

It definitely is healthyish. Oats are a great source of carbohydrates and protein, nuts provide essential fats and protein too. The cacao powder is extremely high in antioxidants and has actually been shown to have several health benefits. But as any dessert or sweet dish, we need something to sweeten it up and make it delicious! In this case we are using maple syrup or honey. Yes, these both still contain sugar but they also come along other nutrients and therefore are a bit more beneficial for our bodies than refined white sugar. And since we are not using tremendous amounts of it, it won’t hurt anyone. 

How to make this dish: 

This is fairly simple. OK you probably read this in all my recipe blog posts haha buttt it really is. Why? All you need to do is chop the nuts, mix them with the oats. Then you melt together the cacao powder, honey or maple and oil and hat it up. When this is combined well, you need to mix the oat-nut mixture with this and pop it onto a baking tray to bake. 

When done, just sprinkle some fresh chocolate and let it melt into the granola. When this hardens again, you’ll have these super nice little chocolate chunks in your granola, which is so good. Now you just need to toss in the cranberries and that already is it! Super easy right? 

Perfect Christmas gift

Homemade presents always are the most loved ones. And this granola is a perfect idea for such. Just make a bit more of it, pack it into a cute jar along with a kind little letter and bring it to your loved ones. It is not only easy to make for you but it definitely will also make them smile!

I hope that you will enjoy this recipe and make it over and over! Have a beautiful advent and enjoy the time!

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Super Easy & Cozy Double Chocolate Granola

It's like having hot chocolate in form of granola. So easy. Se delicious. Pretty healthy. All you need this winter!

Course Breakfast, Dessert
Prep Time 10 Minuten
Cook Time 10 Minuten
Total Time 20 Minuten
Calories 156 kcal

What you will need

  • 200 g rolled oats
  • 30 g almonds
  • 30 g hazelnuts
  • 30 g walnuts
  • 5 tbsp cacao powder
  • 2 tbsp oil
  • 4 tbsp maple syrup
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • a pinch sea salt
  • 80 g dark chocolate
  • 3 tbsp cranberries

How to

  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

    Roughly chop up the nuts. In a bowl combine them with the oats.

  2. In the meantime heat up the oil, maple, cinnamon, salt and cacao powder until everything has motlen together. Toss the oats and nuts in the mixture.

  3. Lay on a baking tray with parchment paper and bake for about 10-12 minutes till crispy.

  4. In the meantime chop up the chocolate in small chunks (about 0.5cm) and toss them into the baked granola. Let cool completely and then toss in the cranberries.

  5. Enjoy with yoghurt, milk, oatmeal, ice cream, nice cream or just snack it straight form the jar!

Happy cooking,
Love,
Katie // Une Petite Cuisinière

Chai Pancakes with Super Simple Hot Chocolate Sauce

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If December is not the month of hot chocolate, pancakes and romantic Christmas movies in bed, then which month is it? Picture this; you have a huge stack of (healthy & vegan) chai pancakes that are poured with chocolate sauce and topped with some apple or pear. Sounds good? I know! But you know what? You don’t only have to dream about that but you can make it come true!

What’s special about this dish?

First of all, pancakes that are healthy. Kind of special, right? Usually they are packed with fat and refined sugar but not this one! Second, they are vegan! And please, do me a favour; if you think vegan pancakes are boring and cannot be fluffy, try out this recipe. You’ll be proven wrong! Plus, they are easy to make. If you don’t believe me, try it!

And obviously, they are chai-flavoured, because how could they not in December?! PLUS: a healthy-ish and easy chocolate sauce. Ok enough now. All the goodies but nutritious! Christmas dreams coming true!

What is Chai?

Chai actually is a tea that originated in India. To be exact, a black tea with spices, that is drunken with milk in it. It has become super popular in the recent years and nowadays you can find a chai, a chai latte, a dirty chai latte and so on in every coffee house!

In these pancakes we are not actually using the tea, as in tea bags, but we are using the spices that also can be found in the chai tea. These spices are cinnamon, cardamon, ginger, cloves and nutmeg. We are using these spices and adding them to our pancakes, to give them this really comforting flavour.

Are these pancakes healthy?

They definitely are way more nutritious than regular pancakes! Why? Regular pancakes are made from butter, sugar, flour and eggs in most cases. Butter, sugar and flour all are not nutrient-dense.

These pancakes are made of apple sauce instead of butter, which has far less fat and calories, chia eggs instead of regular eggs for extra fibre, wholegrain flour instead of white flour for more fibre and nutrients and plant based yoghurt, apple sauce and a little maple syrup instead of white refined sugar. Those still contain sugar but contrary to white refined sugar, they come along other nutrients.

How do we make them fluffy?

Pretty simple. We are using 2 things to make them fluffy; sparkling or soda water and baking powder. The air in the sparkling water gives nice air bubbles in the pancakes and the baking powder makes them rise when cooking!

How do I know when to flip my pancakes?

There is a great trick for that! You need to cook them on medium-high heat all the time. When they start to get bubbles while cooking, it is time to flip them. But also, be aware that the first few never turn out as pretty as the rest, I don’t know why but it’s always like that. 🙂

How to make these pancakes:

This is nothing complicated where you need to get 100 bowls and mixers out. Definitely not. We start by making a chia egg (simply combine chia seeds and plant based milk), then add the apple sauce, maple syrup, plant based yoghurt and soda/ sparkling water. Then you just whisk in the flour mixed with the spices and baking powder and the batter is done!

Noe we just need to fry the pancakes one by one and make the chocolate sauce. For this, combine the coconut milk, maple syrup, cacao powder and plant based milk and bring it to a boil. That’s pretty much it!

When, with what, meal prep?

When – I don’t think that I have to tell you which time of the day you should have pancakes. breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, literally whenever you want, there is no time when you shouldn’t have pancakes!
With what? – I like to add some fresh fruit like pear, apple or banana but go for whatever you want! You could also add some not butter or maple syrup if that’s what you like!
Meal prep friendly? – yes! You can reheat them in the microwave or freeze them and reheat in the pan, microwave or oven! That way you can always make the whole batch and never have to throw something away when making too many!

I hope that this recipe will make you December a whole lot better and that you will enjoy these many many times! Have a lot of fun cooking and a good time eating!

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Chai Pancakes with Super Simple Hot Chocolate Sauce

Christmas on a plate. Pretty much. Healthy and vegan AND good tasting pancakes. Super easy. super quick and heaven with the chocolate sauce on top!

Course Breakfast, brunch, Dessert
Prep Time 10 Minuten
Cook Time 10 Minuten
Total Time 20 Minuten
Servings 6 pancakes
Calories 138 kcal

What you will need

For the pancakes:

  • 1 tbsp chia seeds
  • 3 tbsp plant based milk
  • 50 g apple sauce (Apfelmus)
  • 50 g yoghurt (plant based for vegan option)
  • 2 tbsp maple syrup
  • 100 ml sparkling/ soda water
  • 100 g wholegrain flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp ginger
  • 1/2 tsp cardamon
  • 1/4 tsp cloves
  • 1/4 tsp nutmeg
  • some oil/ butter for frying

For the chocolate sauce:

  • 2 tbsp canned coconut milk
  • 3 tbsp cacao powder
  • 2 tbsp maple syrup
  • 2-3 tbsp plant based milk
  • some fresh fruit for serving

How to

  1. To make the chia egg combine the chia seeds with the plant based milk and let sit for 3-5 minutes until the chia seeds start getting gelly.

  2. In the meantime combine the flour with the spices and baking powder.

  3. Add the apple sauce, plant based yoghurt, sparkling water and maple syrup to the chia egg and give it a good stir until everything is combined!

  4. Whisk in the flour until having reached a smoothed batter. It should have a cake batter like consistency. If too thick, add some more milk or water, if too thin, add some more flour.

  5. Heat up a pan and melt the oil/ butter in it. Once hot, add the pancakes, about 3 tbsp of the batter for each and cook on medium-high for about 4 minutes. Once bubbles start to form on the top of the pancake, it is time to flip and cook for another 2-3 minutes on the other side.

  6. In the meantime make the chocolate sauce by combining all of the ingredients in a pan or pot and bringing it to a boil. Whisk everything so it is combined and take off the heat!

  7. Once all pancakes are done, serve them with teh chocolate sauce and fresh fruit! Enjoy!

Happy cooking,
Love,
Katie // Une Petite Cuisinière

Healthy Protein Hot Cacao

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It is Christmas time and there already is some snow outside which means that it definitely is the season for huge cups of tea and hot chocolate with a mountain of whipped cream. We all love either of that but to make this time of the year a little bit healthier without making it less delicious I am sharing a healthy Protein Hot Cacao Recipe with you, which contains 8g of protein in each serving!!

Drinking hot chocolate for me means sitting in the bed underneath a warm blanket in my PJ´s reading a love story or watching a Christmas movie. Or it means sitting in a ski hut with my friends or family and taking a break from skiing and escaping the cold. Either one of them bring back a lot of beautiful and meaningful memories. This is why I like to drink this since it gives me some good vibes and reminds me of lots of love. 

To be honest I am not a huge fan of hot chocolate, if it is prepared as it is in Italy, with a tiny bit of milk and something like a molten chocolate bar. This is wayyy too rich for me! I am more on the tea side of hot drinks but I also do like hot Cacao. The only thing is that when drinking it, the store-bought ones are often packed with a lot of added sugars, and very little Protein. They are good, but unfortunately not healthy. 

To make them less indulging I decided to change the ingredients a little bit. In my recipe I ask to use raw cacao. This is different from Cocoa because it is not roasted at high temperatures which helps to keep the health benefits of it and not make it lose any nutritional value. Cocoa Powder often contains a lot of added sugar and is a totally processed food. It sometimes even contains food coloring to make it look more appetizing and artificial flavoring. Cacao is the raw product that does not contain anything else then the bean. Without the heating process it is a food very high in antioxidants and a great source of magnesium, potassium, iron, and calcium. It also contains a healthy amount of protein and it is shown to improve memory and lowering blood pressure as well as insulin resistance! What a superfood?!

Ok, now I think we have enough theory about cacao. So next time you go to the store think about what you buy. When buying raw cacao, you can still add sweeteners but YOU know exactly what is in it and it does not contain a billion other add-ins. 

Other than that, I like to use winter spices to flavor the (plant-based) milk, a dried fig to add sweetness and fiber and different seeds to give it a protein kick. To make a health substitute for the whipped cream, you can easily go for coconut whip. You can make tis by buying canned coconut milk. You place it in the fridge overnight and when making it, you open the jar, only take the solid part of the coconut milk, whip it up and tada.. a healthier and plant-based version of whipped cream! I hope that you will enjoy this recipe more than once in December and if you do, it would be great it you could tag me on Instagram with @uneptcuisiniere and leave a rating here on the blog, so I know that you like it!

Have a beautiful Christmas time!

Katie

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Healthy Protein Hot Cacao

The Cacao Recipe to make your Christmas time healthier but not a tiny bit less delicious! Each serving contains 8g of protein!

Course Breakfast, brunch, Dessert, Drinks
Prep Time 3 Minuten
Cook Time 5 Minuten
Total Time 8 Minuten
Servings 2 servings
Calories 170 kcal

What you will need

For the Milk:

  • 500 ml Almond Milk you can use any milk you like
  • 2 sticks cinnamon
  • 4 cloves
  • 1 dried fig
  • a pinch of salt

For the Cacao Mix

  • 3 tbsp raw cacao powder
  • 2 tsp hemp seeds
  • 2 tsp pumpkin seeds
  • 2 tsp sunflower seeds

How to

That is how it works:

  1. In a pot add the milk, along with the cinnamon, cloves, fig, and salt. Bring it to a boil.

    Meanwhile add all of the ingredients for the cacao mix to a food processor and process until a very fine texture is reached.

  2. Through a sieve pour the milk into a blender (preferably a high speed one). This way the spices will be removed since we do not want them to be blended, they should only add flavor. Take the dried fig and add it to the blender aswell.

    Add the cacao mixture and blend everything together until a smooth consistency is reached.

  3. Serve in jars and top with some whipped cream, coconut whip or with some freshly grated cacao! Enjoy!