Healthy Treats

Ok we all know that sugar is the enemy but there are ways to get very tasty but healthy treats.  And healthy treats can be the perfect mix for pre or after work outs, deserts or for the kids. As most of us have a sweet tooth, lets have a look at one of the crowd favourites – the brownie and how to make healthy ones.  Our friends over in LifeCleanse have a whole section of their website filled with delicious and super healthy recipes.  They sent us over the below recipes and the first is the perfect halloween trick or treat for the kids:

Whole Food Pumpkin Brownies

Trick or TREAT! These guilt free healthy treats are a great way to use up the flesh when carving pumpkins. They’re free from dairy, gluten and refined sugar.

Makes 12 small brownies.

Ingredients:
1 cup pumpkin flesh
1 cup organic dates
1 tbsp organic coconut oil
1/2 cup organic almonds
1/2 cup organic pumpkin seeds
1 tbsp organic cacao powder
1 tsp organic ground cinnamon
1 tsp organic vanilla extract

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Soak the dates in clean fresh water overnight or for 6-8 hours. Remove pits.
Grind the almonds and pumpkin seeds together in a blender or coffee grinder.
Mix the dates, pumpkin flesh, coconut oil, cacao, cinnamon and vanilla in a food processor until smooth.
Add in the ground almonds and pumpkin seeds and process until smooth.
Lightly grease a baking tray with coconut oil and spoon in the mixture.
Bake at 170 c (150 c for fan assisted oven) for 35-40 minutes.

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Organic Hazelnut Brownies

These delicious treats are free from dairy, gluten and refined sugar and are best enjoyed warm straight from the oven (or reheated in the oven for about 10 minutes).

Ingredients:

1 and a half cups organic Hazelnuts (ideally soaked and dehydrated)
1 cup organic dates
1 cup organic sweet potato
1 tbsp organic coconut oil (I use VitaCoco)
2 heaped tbsp organic cacao powder
1 tsp organic vanilla extract
1 tsp organic cinnamon

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Soak the dates overnight or for 6-8 hours and remove the pits.
Steam the sweet potato for roughly 20 minutes until soft and chop into small chunks. I usually steam sweet potatoes whole as they are much easier to peel and chop once soft.
Put the dates, sweet potato, hazelnuts, coconut oil and cacao into a food processor and process until smooth.
Add the vanilla extract and cinnamon and process again to allow all of the flavours to mix through.
Spread a teaspoon of coconut oil onto a small baking tray and then add the mix. Use a hot knife to make indentations for 6 brownies and bake at 170 degrees celsius (150 c for a fan assisted oven) for 45-50 minutes.
Enjoy!

Boost your brownies – Adding a supergreen powder to sweet treats is a great way to sneak some superfoods into little ones or unsuspecting guests. I add a heaped teaspoon of Moringa leaf powder to these ones. Moringa is a true superfood packed full of 92 nutrients including 46 antioxidants, 18 amino acids, iron, calcium, magnesium, potassium, omega 3,6,9 and loads of vitamins! You can add this at the same time as the cacao.

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