Dairy Free

Vegan option

Vegetarian

Vegetarian option

Gluten Free

Vegan

Paleo

It’s no secret – I’m a massive tea drinker. Gasp! A British girl who likes tea? Well I never… Yes, we’re a tea guzzling nation like no other, and I’m just another tea junkie. But in recent years I’ve grown out of my bog standard English Breakfast addiction, after discovering a huge variety of different blends. Who knew there was a whole big, exciting world out there filled with tea?! Fragrant, floral, spiced, iced, fruity, minty – I’ve tried them all.

I’ve become well travelled in this tea world, and toured the diverse landscape of earl grey, green, chai, herbal and fruit blends. I’ve brewed hundreds of tea bags, loose leaf blends and matcha lattes. Each one of them delicious in their own right. Some of my favourite shops and brands to try are teapigs, Whittard and Kandula.

But no matter what the blend, I’m always on the look out for the perfect cuppa accompaniment. Enter  – Apple Spiced Tea Cookies! Are you ready for a tea-cookie sensation? With just the right amount of sweetness from dates, nuttiness from coconut and spice from cinnamon, they partner with loads of different blends.

Not only that, but these Spiced Apple Tea Cookies are so super healthy – you might even be tempted to have one with your morning brew. While these cookies will go with most tea blends, I’ve included some suggestions in the recipe notes that may rock your world. Yes… your metaphorical world of tea.

Apple Spiced Tea Cookies

I have two things to say to the person who decided to put avocado and chocolate together for the first time.

2 – Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Yes, I was skeptical when first trying the combo. But after my first mouthful of avocado chocolate mousse, I was totally converted. Weirdly when you combine avocado and chocolate you get what is effectively a creamy, chocolatey, banana-y (Yes, banana-y!) concoction.

Besides, the avocado has been getting some good press lately too. Mainly due to its high levels of good fat. Avocados also contain high levels of vitamin E, iron and potassium, and can help to lower cholesterol and improve the appearance of skin.

With its super health benefits, and its creamy texture, avocado proves the perfect substitute for conventional dairy when making chocolate mousse.

This avocado chocolate mousse can be whipped up in minutes, and jazzed up with tonnes of different topping combinations. Just check out my notes at the bottom of this post for a list of different suggestions.

I hope you like this recipe! Don’t forget to #heartandbowl if you make this, and let me know if you have been converted too!

Avocado Chocolate Mousse

So here we are! The finale, the pièce de résistance, the ultimate showstopper! Completing my Christmas menu is this rich, dark and sumptuous Chocolate Orange Tart! It also just so happens to be, a raw, no-bake dessert, that’s free-from gluten, dairy and refined sugar. Wowzas. Who said Christmas couldn’t be both indulgent and healthy?

There’s something about the combination of chocolate + orange that screams Christmas to me. Maybe it’s because I always used to receive a Terry’s Chocolate Orange in my stocking each year! I felt like I had to get this classic flavour combo into my festive menu.

I also love the colour pop that the pomegranate seeds add to the dish. These little red jewels are in season during the winter, making for a nice Christmassy touch. They add a sharp sweetness, which works well with the bitterness of the cocao.

I’ve made this tart a few times now, and I love how the crunchy texture of the coconut crust contrasts with the smooth and silky chocolatey filling.

The filling is naturally sweetened with honey, oranges and dates, but still feels oh so decadent.

This tart can be prepped in 20 minutes (not including the soaking + chilling time), leaving you more time to enjoy the festivities. It’s a no-brainer! People will think you’ve spent hours slaving away in the kitchen, when you’ve not even had to turn the oven on!

If you’re hosting a festive dinner party, this is also an ideal make-ahead dessert. Just like my Spiced Parsnip Soup starter, it can be whipped up beforehand, which helps take the stress out of the evening. All you need to do is remove the tart from the refrigerator 10 minutes before serving, then sprinkle over some cocao powder, pomegranate seeds and orange zest to decorate.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my three part Free-From Christmas Menu! If you’ve missed any of my previous posts, you can check out my full menu below:

Winter Beef and Apricot Stew {GF + DF with Vegan option}

Let me know if you make this Raw Chocolate Orange Tart, and don’t forget to #heartandbowl with your creations! But most of all, I hope you all have a very merry Christmas!

Christmas Menu – Raw Chocolate Orange Tart

There’s nothing quite like a good cup of coffee on a peaceful sunday morning. Within the last year, my partner Dan has introduced me to what good coffee really means. Before – my idea of a posh cup of coffee was Douwe Egberts’s Gold Blend instant. Yep. All baristas – cover your ears. Sorry.

But within the last year, we have gone from bog standard instant blend, to a Dolce Gusto coffee machine, to a no frills cafetiere, to finally an Aeropress coffee maker. If you would have asked me what an Aeropress was 12 months ago, I’d have thought you were talking about some kind of space equipment an astronaut might use. Now that the Aeropress is on the scene, we’ve never looked back – and Dan didn’t let us stop there. We stopped using generic supermarket instant brands in favour of grinding our own coffee beans straight from local coffee independents and suppliers.

I’m a big lover and supporter of local produce from my home county of Norfolk. For those of you not familiar with Norfolk – we’re a very remote and quaint (to put it politely) part of the UK. But that’s part of it’s charm for me. So when I found out about local coffee roasters Grey Seal – I was ecstatic. Shocked even. Coffee… being roasted… in Norfolk?! I had to get me some of this. These chaps carefully select and import small batches of coffee from all across the big wide world, but freshly roast it right here in Norfolk – only 2 miles from the sea, and a few miles further from my home. You can even visit the Roastery to have a little chat about coffee, brewing methods or to try some samples. This is coffee with a personal touch.

After months and months of drinking and sampling different batches of Grey Seal Coffee – I decided it was high time I used some of their beautifully rich little beans in a recipe. Especially after recently reading up on some of the quite surprising health benefits of said coffee.

I’ve always enjoyed the classic combination of coffee and chocolate – everyone does right? Ok, well if you don’t – I find that a little bit weird. In the nicest way possible! Hand me a tiramisu or some chocolate coffee cake ANYDAY. Needless to say, I figured chocolate and coffee cookies might be the way forward. Mocha Cookies even. That’s a bit catchier.

As these are flourless cookies, the main ingredient is primarily chocolate!!! So you should definitely opt for a really good quality one for these. I would recommend anything from 70% cocoa upwards, and potentially organic if you can afford that little extra. I’m a big fan of Green and Black’s Organic Dark Cooking Chocolate. But I’ll leave it up to you to choose your favourite!

For the mocha part of the cookies, I ground up some of Grey Seal’s Guatemala Huehuetenango on the day of use, so the coffee was as fresh as possible. The smell alone after grinding the beans was incredible. It was enough to get me salivating before I’d even started prepping the cookies.

Without the mass of flour in this recipe, it really allows the key ingredients of the coffee and chocolate to shine. The flavours are intense – in a good ‘give me more’ kind of way. The cookies have a beautiful crisp and shiny shell when they come out of the oven, but are soft and squishy in texture as you bite into them.

“But how do I get my hands on some Grey Seal Coffee?” – I hear you cry. Well – never fear! The kind folks at Grey Seal Coffee have given me some of their Mexico El Cuarenteno to giveaway! This coffee has rich body, citrus and honey notes and a cocoa aroma. Ideal for making your own flourless mocha cookies!

Enter below in the rafflecopter to be in with a chance of winning. You’ll be introduced to a whole new world of wonderful coffee, that’s for sure.

For postage reasons, I’m only accepting UK entries only. Accept my huge apologies to those readers from the rest of the world!

Flourless Mocha Cookies + A Giveaway

Remember these Fruit Skewers I posted a few weeks back? I designed them for Wren Kitchen’s #LittleKitchen Campaign – aiming to inspire kids in the kitchen!

They went down so well, that I decided to follow them up with these Frozen Banana Pops – the grown-up version!

So how many of you have actually tried frozen banana?

Because if you haven’t, you really should. No, really.

Somehow, just freezing a banana turns it into the most amazing, creamy banana ice-cream. It’ll taste like the best banana ice-cream you ever had, and it’s not even technically ice-cream. Plus, all you’ve had to do is peel a banana and shove it in the freezer. What’s there to lose? There’s no excuse! Now go out and buy some bloody bananas. You’ll thank me later.

These Frozen Banana Pops take seconds to prepare. Just peel, cut and freeze. You can prepare them well in advance too, by leaving them in the freezer overnight. You will need some wooden lolly sticks, or if you can’t get hold of them, double up a couple of wooden skewers.

They make a great healthy treat, but they are also the perfect easy dessert to make in good company. You can make it into a really fun social activity, by inviting your guests to customise their own frozen bananas! They can dip them in the melted chocolate fondant and dunk them in their favourite toppings!

I’ve used a mixture of desiccated coconut, nuts, seeds + goji berries. But really the sky’s the limit when it comes to decoration – use whatever takes your fancy! You can stick to one topping, or try many – it’s totally up to you.

I hope you enjoy these Frozen Banana Pops! Let me know what you think of them in the comments below, or show me your creations using #heartandbowl.

Frozen Banana Pops

This week I’m bringing you a little recipe that I’ve designed especially for Wren Kitchens! They got in touch with me a few weeks ago, and asked me if I’d like to get involved in their #LittleKitchen campaign.

The campaign aims to inspire kids into the kitchen, to get them more involved in food prep and kitchen activity. For Wren, the kitchen is the heart of the home. They want to show that the kitchen is a place for family to gather, talk, laugh, and most importantly cook + enjoy wholesome, nutritional meals together.

Loving the idea of the campaign, I was super keen to get involved. For my recipe, I wanted to go with something fun, creative and simple – so I came up with these pretty Fruit Skewers!

They make great healthy snacks, that don’t take hours of prep or cooking time, and are an easy way of getting kids to eat their 5-a-day. Or is it 7-a-day now?! Either way – these skewers are the way forward!

This recipe allows kids to do two things they love.

I know that if you offer kids the chance to do either of these things, you’ll find it easy to get your little ones into the kitchen! This is because food prep needs to be something more that just a bunch of boring fruit and vegetables. You need to bring them to life, give them character.

So these fruit skewers allow children to put their personality into their cooking. They get to cut out their own favourite shapes with cookie cutters, and then build-their-own colourful skewers. It’s really fun and interactive for the whole family, and can be made different every time with new fruits or shapes. It’s even a great way of introducing new fruits that they haven’t tried before!

Once the fruit skewers are made, it’s time to get dipping! Kids will love getting messy when they dunk their skewers in the homemade chocolate dip, or coat them with yogurt. Eating these together is a great social activity, where you can show off your creations and share the different dips.

This recipe features in the #LittleKitchen e-book which you can now download for FREE here. It’s packed with so many healthy and innovative recipes, to help encourage your little ones in the kitchen!

Good luck making these Fruit Skewers! Remember to tag your creations with #heartandbowl + #LittleKitchen if you make them, or leave me a message in the comments below!

Fruit Skewers – #LittleKitchen Campaign

You know what? I think – I think… it maybe Easter.

Based on all the chocolate around, and the eggs, and the baby chicks… I’m gonna make an educated guess.

I only have to take one quick glance at my Instagram feed to see the latest Mini Egg or Creme Egg creation. Uuuughh.

Don’t get me wrong, Easter is great and all, but it’s not exactly inspiring for those of us who can’t eat dairy. Thankfully, in this day and age, we have a lot of free-from alternatives to enjoy, but a lot of these tend to be loaded with refined-sugar.

So seeing as this is a season of gluttony – I’ve tried to make some naturally sweet treats that you can enjoy guilt-free! (Instead of crying into that fifth Easter egg, full of chocolatey, chocolatey regret.)

I designed these little treats to be gluten, dairy + refined-sugar free. The natural sweetness comes with the help of some juicy medjool dates. They make the most amazing chewy-fudge chunks too!

They can also be made vegan by swapping out the honey for maple syrup.

In order to make them even more Easter-y, I’ve made some au naturel mini eggs for decoration – with a little ground almonds and almond butter!

I hope you all have a wonderful Easter weekend + enjoy these Rice Crispy Treats! Let me know what you think of them in the comments below, or show me your creations using #heartandbowl.

Guilt-Free Rice Crispy Treats – Easter Weekend

Ahhhh, today is officially Heart + Bowl’s 2nd Birthday!!

Can you believe it’s been two years already?!

The past couple of years have been quite extraordinary. I could never of imagined the opportunities I’ve been given thanks to blogging! In the last year alone, I’ve been featured in not one, but two cookbooks! I’ve also teamed up with some fantastic brands who I really admire, and hosted some really fun giveaways!

It’s crazy to think how much Heart + Bowl has changed me, and in so many different ways. I’ve discovered a new passion for food photography, it’s given me so many fantastic contacts and I’ve made loads of amazing foodie discoveries!

So I thought I better follow up all that awesomeness with something equally awesome, that will kick-off my next year of blogging!

So for this very special occasion, I’ve teamed up with Gnaw Chocolate, to help celebrate my 2nd year blogiversary in styyyyle. As birthdays are basically just an excuse for cake – I’ve made this Chocolate Celebration Cake with the help of some incredible Gnaw goodies!

For those of you who’ve not heard of Gnaw, they are the producers of the most amazing chocolate, and they handcraft it right here in my home county of Norfolk!! They source natural ingredients, and ethnically sourced cocoa beans, to deliver a chocolate bar that’s packed full of flavour and love!

You’ll be spoiled for choice where Gnaw is concerned, From Rocky Road to Lemon Meringue – there’s so many unique and exciting flavours. While I avoid eating dairy, there’s still an impressive range of dark chocolate bars for me to choose from. I’ve pictured just a few above!

While they are all incredible, my personal favourite is the Coffee + Mint bar. I love mint chocolate, and I also love coffee, but I’d never tried or even seen a combination of the two before trying Gnaw. The flavours pair so, so well – and it makes the perfect after-dinner treat!  I love that Gnaw strives for really fun and bold flavours, that you don’t see anywhere else.

With Gnaw having such high quality, natural ingredients – it also means it’s great to bake with! I’ve used two plain Dark Chocolate bars in this cake recipe to make this Chocolate Celebration Cake extra special! The cake is also gluten, wheat and dairy free – and made from all natural ingredients!!!

The cake does however, use a craaazzzyyy amount of eggs. But shhhh, I won’t tell if you don’t. Although, the eggs are vital to make this cake super springy, airy and delicious! With that being said, I think this has to be my best attempt at free-from baking yet! Even my normal-cake-eating-friends enjoyed it, and couldn’t believe it was gluten and dairy free!

Ok, so now I’ve talked for hours about cake and chocolate… Hungry yet?! I just wanted to finally say a MASSIVE thank you, to all my amazing readers. You really are the most important people of all! Without your support and enthusiasm over the last 2 years, I would not have been able to keep on going! So thank you for all the comments, retweets, likes and double-taps! It means the world.

Here’s to the next year of blogging, and all the exciting, new opportunities it brings!

Heart + Bowl's 2nd Birthday – Chocolate Celebration Cake

I’ve always loved matcha green tea, and not just because my favourite colour is green. I love it’s subtle earthy tones, and it’s never bitter, unlike a lot of conventional green teabags.

Matcha is a stone ground green tea that forms a super-concentrated fine powder. It’s rich in antioxidants and nutrients, and is widely known for improving energy levels, memory and concentration.

While I’ve been drinking matcha for years, I’ve never actually used it in cooking or baking. Booooooo.

So I took to the kitchen, started experimenting, and crafted these Raw Matcha Macaroons!

They combine the healthy fats from coconut and the uber superfood of matcha, to create a nutrient-dense sweet treat. These little guys are packed full of good stuff, that will keep you full and energised throughout the day.

The creamy sweetness of the coconut balances really well with the earthy tones of the matcha, and the bitterness of the dark chocolate. They are also stupidly easy to make. You basically just bung a few things in a food processor here and there, and BOOM! You’ve got healthy snacks in minutes.

I hope you enjoy these Raw Matcha Macaroons! Don’t forget to #heartandbowl if you make this, and let me know if they keep you energised!

Raw Matcha Macaroons

You know that feeling when you come across the most perfect recipe in the world, and you just HAVE to tell everybody about it? Well a couple of weeks ago, thanks to my latest copy of Good Food magazine, I found these Raw Millionaire’s Shortbread.

For all us gluten + dairy-free peeps out there, finding a recipe that’s as good as the original can often be an impossible find. So when I stumbled across this one, it felt like I’d struck gold big time. It was like winning the bloody lottery. CHA-CHING!

These vegan, gluten-free chocolatey treats are made with dates, cashews + maple syrup, and are so sticky and moreish, that they rival your everyday Millionaire’s Shortbread. They are also raw, refined-sugar free, and made with all-natural ingredients – so they don’t feel as naughty!

I’ve made these little beauties a few times now, and each time they’ve turned out perfect!

I think these nutrient-rich sweet treats are easy enough to whip up for any occasion, and would be perfect for a bake-sale. I recently made them ahead of time, before some friends came over for dinner. With them already chilling in the fridge, they made for such an easy dessert! All I had to do was cut them up and serve with some vegan ice-cream, and they went down a treat!

I hope you have as much fun making these Raw Millionaire’s Shortbread as I did! Let me know what you think by tagging your creations #heartandbowl, or leaving me a message in the comments below.

These vegan, gluten-free chocolatey treats are made with dates, cashews + maple syrup, and are so sticky and moreish, that they rival your everyday Millionaire’s Shortbread. They are also raw, refined-sugar free, and made with all-natural ingredients – so they don’t feel as naughty!

Raw Millionaire's Shortbread

Ok, so I’ve use the word “Truffle” very loosely here. In all honesty, these are nothing like truffles – I’m not even going to pretend. There’s not a chunk of chocolate in sight. Sorry Willy Wonka!

But if like me, you’re looking for a healthy alternative to cocoa, these little guys are the golden ticket! They are pretty damn healthy and will fuel you with energy, as well as satisfy your sweet cravings.

Aside from ditching the cocoa, these Vanilla Coconut Truffles are also gluten, dairy, nut and refined sugar free! Yep, Willy Wonka is really not happy.

Soaking the dates is a really crucial step. Don’t forget or miss this out, as it will completely ruin EVERYTHING. Make sure you do this right so you’re not sobbing over the dry mush in your food processor. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya’

When you’ve finished baking the truffles, you can present them in cute little cases like I have, or simply transfer them into a bowl. Alternatively you can just inhale them straight off the baking tray…

While these Vanilla Coconut Truffles are delicious, I’ve included some different options for flavours and decoration in the recipe notes, incase you wanted to mix things up! Go on, live on the edge.

Sweets + Treats