Create your own chocolate bar with this easy dark chocolate bark recipe. Wrap it up in cellophane for an impressive homemade gift idea, or break up into chunks to enjoy with a coffee after dinner. Customise with any topping you fancy, from crushed nuts to dried fruit or a decorative white chocolate swirl.
Soft and gooey with thick chunks of melting dark chocolate and zingy cherries, these gluten free blondies are an indulgent treat. Made with dairy-free butter and a sprinkle of gluten-free flour, the vanilla flavoured batter is a nice change to the classic brownie, while still giving you a chocolate hit.
Soft and slightly chewy, these easy to make peanut butter cookies are ready to eat in less than 20 minutes, with barely any cooling time needed. With just three main ingredients, they’re the perfect healthy snack when you’re craving something sweet but still low in sugar and free of any nasty added ingredients.
PREP TIME: 10 MINS
COOK TIME: 8 MINS
TOTAL TIME: 18 MINS
The beauty of these peanut butter cookies is in the utter simplicity of the recipe. The main base just consists of peanut butter, an egg and a sweetening agent (honey, maple syrup, agave syrup or even sugar if preferred – take your pick), while recommended extra flavours are as simple as a pinch of salt, some mixed spice or cinnamon and vanilla extract.
The best part is that they are low in sugar, free of absolutely anything refined, and take most of their calories from the peanut butter. Calorie content aside, PB is rich in inflammatory-fighting antioxidants and a great source of plant protein.
The higher fat content also helps slow the digestion of the sugars in these cookies, giving you much less of a blood sugar spike and subsequent crash than shop-bought cookies loaded with refined sugar.
Peanut butter – ideally, use 100% natural peanut butter with no added sugar or preservatives. Crunchy or smooth versions both work great for this recipe. You can easily swap it for any other nut or seed butters that you have on hand – almond, cashew or seed butters are all delicious substitutes.
Egg – use one egg per 160g peanut butter to bind the mixture together into a cookie dough consistency.
Honey – for a natural, unrefined sweetener, honey works really well. It’s also sticky enough to help give the mixture some added squidginess (a very technical baking term)
Salt – if using unsalted peanut butter, add a few pinches of salt to bring out the flavour. Otherwise, omit this ingredient to avoid making the cookies too salty
Mixed spice or cinnamon – an absolutely key ingredient in my opinion, but can be omitted for a plainer cookie. Feel free to mix up different ratios of cinnamon, mixed spice and nutmeg
Vanilla – again, an optional extra, but adds an extra something to the final taste
This recipe is my favourite kind of super simple, all-in-one mix method.
Initial preparations – cover a baking tray with non-stick baking parchment (easiest to do this first, as you will have oily hands by the time you need the prepared tray). Then preheat the oven to 350F or 175C.
Beat the egg, using a fork and a medium sized bowl.
Then add the peanut butter, honey, vanilla, spices and salt and continue to beat together until fully incorporated. The final dough should be very thick and hard to stir.
Scoop a small spoonful of mixture and shape into a rough ball using clean hands. Place the ball on the prepared baking tray and repeat for the remaining mixture (see image below)
Using a fork, press firmly down once or twice on each dough ball to squish into a flat cookie shape.
Then, place in the oven to bake for 8 minutes, or until a pale golden brown on top. Depending on the quality of peanut butter used, you will probably see some oil bubbling around each cookie on the baking tray – this is fine. Don’t overbake as this will cause the cookies to dry out too much.
Leave to cool for at least 5 minutes, then enjoy. These cookies are great on their own, or dunked into a glass of cold milk.
These cookies are best enjoyed straight away, but can be stored in an airtight container for up to 5 days after baking.
They can also be easily frozen – just place in a sealed container in the freezer for up to 6 months. To defrost, remove and leave at room temperature for 2 hours until fully thawed.
Check out some more delicious gluten-free, dairy-free bakes below!
Fudgy dark chocolate & raspberry gluten-free brownies The ultimate gluten-free brownie recipe – gooey, fudgy and intensely chocolatey. With just a small amount of gluten-free flour mixed with heaps of melting dark chocolate, muscovado sugar and fresh raspberries, this is an incredibly rich and squidgy…
Ever fancied eating a chocolate orange for breakfast? Well, now you can. This gluten-free granola is infused with fresh orange and cocoa powder to make delicious chocolatey orange oaty clusters, then tossed with toasted cashews and dark chocolate chunks.
Change up your usual morning porridge with a comforting dish of gluten-free baked oats, served warm from the oven. This recipe is stuffed with fresh raspberries and creamy dairy-free yoghurt for a filling, tangy breakfast.
PREP TIME: 10 MINS
COOK TIME: 15 MINS
TOTAL TIME: 25 MINS
Most people are familiar with the concept of porridge or oatmeal, but baked oats don’t tend to be a common breakfast staple. Depending on how you make it, baked oats can range from a cake-like breakfast bar, to a gooey, creamy pot that feels quite similar to normal oatmeal.
For me, the biggest difference comes from whether you chose to add yoghurt or not. This recipe mixes yoghurt with oats and egg, which makes a gooey, creamy dish that you’ll need a spoon to eat.
However, my first recipe for baked oats without yoghurt produced a low-sugar breakfast cake bar that could be sliced into squares.
Baked oats are a fantastic healthy breakfast option. They’re made with whole, natural ingredients and are very low in sugar. Proportionally, they contain more protein and fewer carbs than standard oatmeal or porridge, due to the addition of egg and yoghurt, meaning you need less oats to bulk it out.
They’re also a great option as part of a sustainable weight loss diet. Thanks to their balance of healthy fats, protein, and slow release carbohydrates, they help keep you fuller for longer and ward off cravings for a mid-morning snack. In fact, this recipe yields one really large bowl for only 376 calories, and that’s even including some extra honey to sweeten it up.
Baked oats are a super simple, one-bowl recipe. All you need to do is mix together the oats, yoghurt and egg in a bowl, plus any fruit, spices, sweeteners or other flavourings. Then spoon the mixture into an oven-proof dish and bake for 15-20 minutes. Individual dishes work best for this recipe, but you could bulk bake in one larger roasting tray.
Oats – this recipe uses gluten free rolled jumbo oats for a nice chunky texture. Instant oats really don’t cut it, unless you like the thick pasty consistency they produce.
Milk – you might need to add a splash or two of alt-milk to loosen the mixture up, particularly if you’re adding protein powder. If you don’t want to use the yoghurt, then you’ll need to add about 100ml of milk. You can substitute for water if desired but it won’t be as creamy.
Egg – this helps to bind the mixture together, but you can choose to omit and make this vegan. Substitute with a mashed banana or try it with a flax egg instead.
Add protein powder – To ramp up the protein even further, mix in a scoop of unflavoured or vanilla protein powder into the wet mixture. I like adding unflavoured soya isolate protein to this recipe, but any other vegan or whey-based powder should work fine too.
If you opt for this version, you’ll also need to add a couple of tablespoons of alt-milk to loosen the mixture up, then bake as normal.
Stir in fresh fruit – this recipe is great with almost any kind of fruit. I’ve made it with fresh apple chunks stirred into the raw mixture before baking, or mixed berries and mashed up banana. Adding banana is a great, fibre-rich way to sweeten this recipe up without adding extra sugar or honey.
Add a surprise filling – one of my favourite things to do is hide a large spoon of baked peanut butter in the middle of the oats. You can easily do this by spooning enough raw mix to cover the bottom of the dish, before adding a generous dessert-spoon of peanut butter on top. Then cover it up with the remaining mixture before putting in the oven.
(Try adding a spoon of Nutella or dairy-free chocolate spread if you want a really indulgent melting filling)
Prepare in advance – I wouldn’t recommend preparing the raw mixture ahead of time, as the oats will end up soaking up all the liquid. Instead, try baking it in advance and reheating later.
Reheating – you can reheat baked oats without any issues. Just zap them in the microwave for about 60 to 90 seconds until fully hot through. Alternately, reheat in the oven at 180°C or 350°F degrees for 10 minutes, or until fully heated. You might need to add a splash of alt-milk to loosen up the mixture a little bit.
Shelf life – cooked baked oats will last for up to 6 days in an airtight container in the fridge. Make sure to seal and refrigerate them within 2 hours after baking. I wouldn’t recommend leaving them out at room temperature for longer than 2-3 hours, as bacteria grows very quickly at these conditions.
Freezing – you can easily freeze and defrost baked oats at a later date. Just place in an airtight container in the freezer and store for up to 6 months. You can safely freeze them longer than this, but the quality may not be the same. To defrost, place in the microwave on medium-high for 60-90 seconds until defrosted.
Onwards to the recipe! Please do leave a rating if you end up trying this out!
Why not try out these other delicious breakfast ideas?
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Berry coconut-flour pancakes A decadent stack of soft, fluffy gluten-free pancakes, made with a blend of buckwheat and coconut flour and stuffed with juicy blueberries. Serve topped with rich raspberry compote and thick cream or dairy-free yoghurt for an epic breakfast. PREP TIME: 10 MINS…
A gluten-free, dairy-free take on the classic dessert. Serve topped with dairy-free custard to get through those cold winter evenings, or with fresh yoghurt or cream for a summertime twist. If you don’t have any rhubarb on hand, simply swap it out for any other fruit of your preference.
PREP TIME: 15 MINS
COOK TIME: 45 MINS
TOTAL TIME: 1 HOUR
For as long as I can remember, my family has been in the habit of growing and cooking our own fruit. Growing up, supermarket-bought jam or bread was a rarity in our house, and we always seemed to have jars of home-bottled marmalade and elderflower cordial stacked in the cupboard.
Although in recent years we’ve lost the allotment that used to supply endless boxes of raspberries each summer, we do have a few things growing in the back garden. One of them happens to be a rhubarb plant, which is finally producing a multitude of large, vibrantly coloured stalks.
As yesterday marked the first day of fresh rhubarb in the house, it was felt by all that turning it into a crumble was a completely justifiable way to spend the evening.
I’m a big advocate for recipes with minimal ingredients that are simple to prepare, and this one doesn’t disappoint. There isn’t any separate cooking of the filling, so it barely leaves any washing up to do either. It’s literally as simple as:
This recipe uses a mix of gluten-free flour and jumbo rolled oats for the crumble topping. This is mainly because the oats give it a nice texture, but also because GF flour can taste a bit funny in large quantities. I find the mixing up the two gives you a nice, traditional crumble texture.
Be sure to use rolled jumbo oats too, rather than instant ones. Jumbo oats blend in so well with the flour that you wouldn’t know they were there. I haven’t attempted a version with different kinds of oats, but I’m imagining the texture would be a bit boring if you used puree-like instant oats.
This particular recipe does have some added sugar to combat the natural tartness of the fruit. However, as with anything, you can enjoy it as the occasional one-off here and there without hindering your weight-loss efforts or otherwise impacting any training.
To reduce how much sugar you need, try swapping the rhubarb out for a fruit which is naturally sweeter. Certain types of apple for example, don’t need much extra sugar at all. In fact, a crumble that I made a while back using Pink Lady® apples (the actual variety is called Cripps Pink) didn’t need any extra sugar in the filling at all – just a bit to liven up the topping.
Crumble is a fantastic dessert to prepare in advance. This is because none of the raw ingredients need any separate cooking before you put the whole thing in the oven. All you need to do is chop up the fruit, prepare the dry crumble topping and assemble it in a dish. Then cover with clingfilm or tin foil and leave in the fridge for up to 24 hours before baking.
Store any leftovers in the fridge for up to 5-6 days. You can reheat the crumble with a quick zap in the microwave or by oven-heating it at 180°C / 350°F degrees for around 15 minutes, until heated through. If, however, for some crazy reason you still have some leftovers, you can quite happily freeze this crumble and defrost it within 2 months. Just put back in the oven and bake until thawed all the way through.
Easy gluten-free Easter fruit cake A moist, rich gluten free fruit cake with a hidden layer of baked marzipan. Top with mini eggs for a delicious Easter cake, or deck it out with snowmen and ribbons to double it up as a Christmas cake. PREP…
