Christmas Berry Trifles with Orange Custard (Sugar-free and Paleo)

I love Christmas, and my enthusiasm has been further invigorated by having a three-year old who wakes up every morning and asks; ‘Is Santa coming TODAY?’ For me, Christmas is mostly all about the food. In the past this has meant indulging in a lot of over-processed sweets, so I’m genuinely excited about my first sugar-free, real food Christmas. A Christmas about good food with lots of flavour.

This Christmas is all the more exciting because my husband will be home – as a shift-worker in emergency services he’s worked every Christmas since we had our first son. Mr 3 is right at that age where he is very caught up in the magic of it all, and it’s our littlest baby’s first Christmas too – so I’m very happy that their dad will be home to enjoy it!

I made these individual trifles to have when my Mum came over for lunch, on the day we put up the Christmas tree. I always have a very romantic notion of ‘putting up the Christmas tree’, and the reality is always far more chaotic, with this year being no exception. But these trifles are fructose-friendly, and by happy coincidence also grain, gluten and dairy-free, so they are also suitable for those living a paleo lifestyle. They are also very adaptable, so take or leave or change whichever layers you want to! 🙂 For vegetarians, the jelly could possibly be substituted with a berry chia pudding – noting that I haven’t tried this. Continue reading →

Lime and Macadamia Coconut Truffles

These are very moreish. To the point where I ate too many, so now I’m ruined for a while. I started out trying to recreate the popular coconut and almond Raffaello balls, using natural ingredients, and I really just tried these as a variation. But they were the clear winner.

These truffles use only a few ingredients – coconut (in a few different forms), vanilla, honey, lime and macadamia nuts. This means they also happen to be dairy-free, refined sugar-free, gluten-free, grain-free, vegan (when substituting honey with rice malt syrup), vegetarian, and paleo. Everyone’s happy! Except for people who are allergic to nuts. Or coconut. Sorry. Continue reading →

And I’m not even Paleo: A delicious 5-minute healthy chocolate mug cake

The gorgeous 5-min healthy chocolate mug cake, image courtesy of An Edible Mosaic.

I recently discussed my concern that the language we use in relation to particular diets (vegan, gluten-free, paleo, sugar-free etc) may contribute to furthering the stigma against those diets, because they focus on which foods are absent, rather than which delicious ingredients are included.

This 5-minute chocolate mug cake from An Edible Mosaic proves my point.

It fits the paleo, gluten-free, grain-free, refined sugar-free and dairy-free criteria. And it’s delicious. AND nourishing, with ingredients such as eggs, cacao, ground nuts and seeds. Continue reading →