Baked breakfast chremslach

Chremslach are matzo meal fritters that are normally fried and oozing with oil. I've developed a baked version that is 1pp per fritter and lovely for breakfast on chol hamoed. These can be made in advance and reheated, loosely covered, in the oven.

3oz fine matzo meal
Warm water
1 tablespoon sweetener or caster sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp salt
1 oz raisins
1 tablespoon cinnamon

Beat the eggs with the salt, sugar and 2 tablespoons of warm water. Slowly add in the matzo meal interspersed with tablespoons of water until you get a thick batter. Finally add in the raisins and cinnamon, and a little more water if necessary. Drop by tablespoons onto a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper. Spray the tops of the chremslach with spray oil. Bake for 12 minutes on 180', then turn and bake for a further 5 minutes.

All kinds of cupcakes!

INGREDIENTS

These are the ingredients for the basic vanilla cupcake

150g soft margarine
175g caster sugar
3 eggs
140g potato flour
40g cake or fine matzo meal
1.5tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla essence

Mix all the ingredients until you have a smooth batter. Bake in cupcake cases for 15 to 20 minutes on 200'c until golden brown. Makes 20

TO MAKE DIFFERENT FLAVOURS!

1. Coffee: mix 1 tsp coffee granules with 3tsp cold water. Mix half of this amount into 1/3 of the cookie batter. When baked, drizzle the remaining coffee mix over the surface of the cupcakes. Makes 6

2. Marble: mix 1tblspn cocoa powder with 1/6 of the batter. Swirl into 1/6 of the vanilla batter. Makes 6

3. Chocolate pear: if you have any remaining chocolate batter, grate in half a pear and bake. I made enough for 2 of these.

4. Pistachio-coconut - I mixed the remaining crumble topping from my baked apple recipe into 1/3 of the batter. Makes 6

The world is your oyster! Experiment with your own flavours!

These cupcakes are 4pp each.

'Mixed mezonos cookies'

These are really useful if you want to make kiddush without washing on yom tov as they are mezonos (I think you need 3 to make a bracha acharona)

INGREDIENTS

2 eggs
175g caster sugar
125g margarine
150g cake or fine matzo meal
1 tablespoon potato flour
For toppings: nuts, jam, chocolate chips, raisins

Preheat the oven to 190'c. Line baking trays with parchment paper. Mix all the ingredients until smooth and chill in the fridge for half an hour.

Roll into small balls and place 2 inches apart on the trays. Press a nut, chocolate chip or raisin into the top of each one, or make a small indent with your finger and fill with jam.

Bake approx 20 mins until golden and set.

Makes 30 biscuits, 2pp each.

Amazing Biscotti

1 egg 

2 egg whites

10g sweetner

0.5tsp vanilla sugar

80g potato flour

95g matzo meal

0.5tsp baking powder

0.25tsp salt

50g whole almonds

Whisk eggs, sugar and vanilla sugar until thick. Fold in the remaining ingredients. Shape the dough into a log approximately 25cm x 5cm and bake on a tray lined with parchment paper for 25 minutes approximately. Leave to cool and slice into 1cm slices. Bake for approximately 10 minutes and then turn and bake for a further 5 minutes. Recipe is 39pp in total and makes approximately 34 biscotti.

Rich Chocolate Cake

INGREDIENTS

250g dark chocolate

6 eggs, separated

100g ground almonds

75g caster sugar

Preheat the oven to 180’, grease a square cake tin and dust with potato flour. Melt the chocolate over a double-boiler and set aside. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar, add the almonds and the melted chocolate and mix thoroughly. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold into the chocolate mixture. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 35-45 minutes until an inserted skewer comes out clean. The entire recipe comes to 77pp – I cut into 20 small squares of 4pp each.

Pesach Goodies!

Click on the picture to link to the recipe you want.

Fat free ice cream! Yes really!

This recipe was inspired by my friend Ruthie Pearlman's strawberry ice cream. I can't use strawberries because we have allergies in the family, so I made a mango version. Apparently the strawberry one works better (you just replace the mango with a large punnet of strawberries and skip the pureeing stage) but I reckon this was pretty darned yummy! And for 1pp per 60g... need I say more.

INGREDIENTS

1 pouch frozen mango cubes, defrosted
2 egg whites
250g xylitol
splash of lemon juice

Puree the mango chunks with a hand blender. Add the egg whites, xylitol and lemon juice to the mix. With an electric whisk, beat until the contents are well blended and have risen to practically fill your bowl. Then freeze. If you experiment with other fruits and flavours please let me know how they work!

Truffley fun!

I have two Pesach truffle recipes for you here - one very rich and indulgent, at 3pp per truffle. The other is a take on my favourite Nakd bars - thanks to a poster on the Weight Watchers forum for this fantastic idea. They are 2pp each, or 3pp for two.

INDULGENT TRUFFLES

INGREDIENTS

4oz plain chocolate

2oz soft margarine

2 egg yolks

2oz ground almonds

6oz icing sugar

Melt the chocolate and the margarine together and stir in theremaining ingredients. Mix to a stiff paste and refrigerate for at least anhour. Roll into little balls and roll the balls in either icing sugar,chocolate vermicelli, coloured sprinkles or ground nuts. Makes around 25truffles. Can be frozen and actually taste great frozen – they lastmuch longer that way! Very rich so you won’t need more than 1.

HEALTHY TRUFFLES

80g dried dates

40g pistachio or cashew nuts

10g cocoa

40g ground almonds

28g raisins

A few drops of flavouring - I used vanilla

Put into food processor and blitz till mixed. Roll into balls and refrigerate. Makes 14. 

Matzo meal, be gone...

We always have a version of this dish on Erev Pesach for lunch - very low in propoints so great for filling you up before the seder. As it's made with no matzo meal it's also a brilliant chol hamoed meal for those who don't have gebrokts.

INGREDIENTS

4 tins of tuna in brine
2 egg whites
20g low fat mayonnaise
40g potato flour
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tblspn oregano
Paprika

Drain the tuna and squeeze out in a sieve or a colander to ensure it's as dry as possible. Mix in all remaining ingredients except paprika. Roll into small balls and spray the tops with spray oil. Sprinkle with paprika. Bale on greaseproof paper for 30 minutes on 180'. 1pp each or 5 patties for 4pp.

Pesach starts here!!

Over the next few days I hope to blog lots of my Pesach recipes, as I go along in the kitchen. Apart from chargrilling my thumb while preparing chicken breasts, coming up with this recipe is about the most exciting thing that's happened to me today! I often make baked apples with a crunchy oat topping, and wanted to come up with a pp friendly alternative for Pesach. See what you think - each apple is 2pp in total and makes a special, but really healthy, dessert for your yom tov meal.

INGREDIENTS

7 medium Braeburn apples
60g sultanas
20g honey
40g pistachio nuts
25g dessicated coconut
1 tablespoon powdered sweetener
25g potato flour
Spray oil

Core the apples - if you can, leave a little bit in the base of each apple so the hole doesn't go all the way through and the filling doesn't fall out! Mix the sultanas with the honey and stuff into the centre of each apple.

In a food processor, combine pistachio nuts, coconut, potato flour and sweetener until the mixture resembles a crumble topping.  Place each apple in a little foil dish - I used mini pie dishes scrunched around them to fit the shape, but you could make these yourself out of tin foil.Spray each apple with spray oil and sprinkle 10g of topping over the top - press down gently with the back of a spoon. Place all the apples in a larger dish with about an inch of water at the bottom. Bake at 180' for 30 minutes. Can be frozen and reheated. (NB you will have a little topping left over).

How low can you go? 2pp lunch!

I've been seeing recipes for risotto everywhere I look recently; I even made a super declicious one from last month's Weight Watchers magazine - but it was 9pp a portion and I don't often like spending that much on a meal during the week.

Yesterday in a moment of inspiration I did some googling and found a method of making risotto with miracle rice. The resulting dish was only 2pp and it was incredibly filling and really tasted like proper risotto. The broccoli soup is 0pp a portion (2pp for the whole thing) and the broad beans gave it a creamy consistency that I really enjoyed.

BROCCOLI AND BROAD BEAN SOUP

650g frozen broccoli
1 onion, chopped
1 leek, sliced
1 sachet 10 calorie Knorr 'chicken' soup
Salt, pepper to taste
2 garlic cloves, chopped
80g broad beans

Add all the ingredients to a large saucepan. Cover with boiling water but stop just before you reach the surface of the broccoli - as it is frozen it will start to shrink very quickly and if you add too much water at this point the soup will be watery. Simmer until all the veggies are cooked and softened, then blitz with a handblender. Makes 5 portions.

LEEK, MUSHROOM and 'CHICKEN' RISOTTO

1 leek, finely sliced
Half a punnet of mushrooms, sliced
1 bag miracle rice
1/3 tsp onion soup powder
90g firm silken tofu
15g light grated cheese
 Fry light

Rinse the miracle rice well and dry fry in a saucepan for 3 to 5 minutes. Add half a cup of  boiling water and the onion soup powder, and leave to cook until the liquid has reduced by at least a half.

Meanwhile fry the leek and mushrooms in frylight. Just before they are completely ready, add in the tofu and crumble into small pieces as you stirfry. Pour the contents of the pan into the reduced miracle rice and stir in the cheese. Serves 1 - large portion, as a side dish this could stretch to 2 people.