This is a very easy and fast to make chocolate cake.
1/4 cup ground almonds
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons of granulated sugar substitute eg Splenda
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 tablespoon water (or Da Vinci syrup)
1 egg
splash of vanilla essence
Method:
Mix in a 2 cup size pyrex cup or jug – cover with plastic wrap – cut a small slit in covering – cook 1 to 3 minutes in microwave – should look dry on top.
Entire recipe has about 18 grams carbs and 5 gms fibre
While perusing the shelves of Holland & Barrett recently (a hobby of mine), I discovered these no-sugar chocolate chips.
I’m not much of a low-carb baker as the results are usually disappointing (perhaps apart from the low-carb fudge) and I’m not keen on the after-taste you get from sweeteners, but I thought I’d try out the chocolate chips in a cookie recipe and they turned out not ‘alf bad…
It is a mistake to think you are going to get comparable results to traditional baking and cookies when you try de-carbed baking, but you will get something that might help add a little more variety to your diet. The recipe is also gluten-free so will please any coeliacs you know.
I adapted this recipe slightly from one I found in the Low Carb High Fat diet book by Laura and Veronica Childs.
½ cup granulated sweetener (I used Asda’s Stevia blend)
2-3tbsp no-added sugar chocolate chips
Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees C.
Melt the butter in the microwave, allow to cool slightly and mix with the egg, sweetener and vanilla extract.
Mix the ground almonds, bicarbonate of soda, Xanthan gum, coconut flour and the pinch of salt. Add the wet ingredients, the chocolate chips and mix well. You will get a sticky-ish dough.
Divide the dough into 12 equal-sized balls and flatten out to a cookie shape. Place on a cookie sheet or baking tray and cook in the oven for 15-20 minutes, until they are golden brown. Cool for five minutes on the tray before removing to a wire rack and cooling completely.
So I think we are all agreed that eating the low-carbohydrate way is the best diet for health and wellbeing if you have diabetes (type 1 or type 2)..?
Inevitably, however, there will be times when the dreaded carb cravings strike. And as we have Christmas ahead of us, there will certainly be temptations a-plenty calling our name.
It is very easy to over-eat carbohydrates. They don’t have the same satiating effects that protein has on the body, and the soaring blood sugars you get afterwards are horrible (and it can take a long time to get them under control again).
So, general advice given to beat cravings often mentions general avoidance tactics such as going for a walk, or phoning a friend. That’s the kind of advice, I suspect, written by people who don’t suffer from cravings. If you get them, you’ll know they can be very, very powerful indeed.
Trigger Foods
The first thing to do is to work out your trigger foods* – bread, crisps, chocolate or perhaps all three – and don’t keep them in your house, if possible. Cravings often strike in the evening (will power fatigue has set in) so having to go out of the house to buy your temptation of choice adds obstacles to the path. Continue reading “How to Cope with Carb Cravings”→
Here at the Diabetes Diet, we recommend you try out low-carb baking. Those who embark on a low-carb diet often feel they miss out on the sweet stuff, so low-carb baking can fill that gap – plus it comes with the added bonus that you won’t be eating the nasties that go into commercial baking.
Here’s a recipe for peanut choc chip cookies.
Peanut choc chip cookies
125g/4.5oz of chunky peanut butter
185mls/6fl oz of double cream
75g/2oz chopped pecans or peanuts
35g/1oz plain chocolate drops (70% cocoa solids is best) or chunks
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
2 tablespoons of granular sugar substitute (see notes below)
2 tablespoons soy flour or coconut flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Pre-heat the oven to 190 deg/375deg/gas 5 and grease a baking tray or use a silicon liner on a baking tray.
Mix all the ingredients together in a mixer or by hand in a bowl, but put the nuts and choc chips in last.
Put teaspoons of the cookie mixture on the tray and bake for 10 minutes.
These biscuits are very crumbly. Store them in a biscuit tin in the fridge and place layers of kitchen towel between each layer of biscuits. Like a lot of low carb baking, they will last a long time in the fridge, 2-3 weeks.
If you double the recipe up, the amount of peanut butter is just short of a jar, so just use up the whole jar.
You can either use straight Splenda or in place of one tablespoon of Splenda ¼ tablespoon Splenda and ½ tablespoon of xylitol or erythritol. Another substitute is 1/3 tablespoon of Truvia.
Makes about 8 – with a carb count of 5g per biscuit.
What’s your favourite low-carb cookie recipe? We’d love to know… Tell us in the comments, or email us a pic of your cookies and the recipe and we’ll feature it on our website.
Let’s start off with a recipe for low-carb bread. Ask most people what they miss when they limit carbs and the chances are that most of them say “bread”.
But normal bread is very high in carbs – a single, mingy-whingy slice of it comes in at roughly 16-18 carbs – more if you’re going for home-made or artisan bread – and who eats one slice of bread?! So here’s a great recipe for low-carb bread from the fabulous thelondonerme blog…
I’ve used cup measurements (as per the original recipe) because cup measurements are usually easier for baking. Most supermarket home sections and cookery shops stock cups and you can pick up a set relatively cheaply.
As an added bonus, a low-carb loaf takes much less time to make than normal bread because you don’t need to knead it or prove it.
Heat your oven to 200 degrees C and grease and line a 2lb/900g loaf tin (you do need to line tins when it comes to low-carb baking).
Mix together the eggs and water (beat well) in one bowl, and the dry ingredients in another. Combine the two and mix well.
Pour the mix into the prepared tin (I’m afraid it looks pretty unappetising at this stage…) and cook for 25-30 minutes. Leave to cool for a few minutes in the tin and tip out onto a wire rack to cool thoroughly.
You can store either in the bread bin or the fridge.
Now top with everything you haven’t been including in your low-carb diet because you’ve been avoiding bread. My favourite topping is butter and Marmite (might be a British thing), or cheese melted on top under the grill.
What’s your favourite low-carb bread topping? We’d love it if you let us know!
This is a very easy and fast to make chocolate cake.
Diabetes Diet 