Healthier Brownies

I've been trying to eat more healthy lately, and I really don't believe in dieting. Diets never work, and I don't think it's good to deprive yourself of cravings - you just end up overindulging later.

So, I had a wicked craving for chocolate today and went searching the internet for good recipes. I decided I wanted to try a healthier option, as healthy as I could do with the ingredients I have at home at the moment, and I stumbled upon this blog! There are a lot of recipes I want to try on here!

To keep it simple, I chose to try her Chocolate Pumpkin Brownies:

• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2/3 cup + 1 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 cup canned pumpkin
• 3 tbsp oil (I used coconut oil)
• 2 tbsp milk
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips

I decided on this one, because I had a can of pumpkin that we've given to Jaxson for baby food, and he's recently graduated to eating our meals - he flat out refuses to eat what I give him sometimes, but will eat whatever i'm eating. It's good. It's forcing me to eat more healthy, and it also saves me time having to make baby food for him anymore!

Unfortunately, I didn't have any chocolate chips (or I would have just eaten those to serve my craving!), but I did have some butterscotch chips left over from a shortbread I made for Christmas, so I decided to use those... And in-so-doing made this recipe quite a bit unhealthier! I only used 1/4 cup, because these chippits are just way too sweet for me otherwise!

So, anyway, back to the brownies!

I mixed the dry and wet ingredients separately, then combined both well. I melted the coconut oil so it would blend in better.

It was really hard to mix all the ingredients together, and the dough was quite sticky and also hard to spread into the pan. I think that if I had used canola oil instead of coconut, these two steps would have been easier!

Finally mixed well.

I spread it into into a greased 8in square pan and baked it at 330F for about 23 minutes.

I put 1 cup of the leftover pumpkin in the fridge to try this recipe from the blog for breakfast the next day (and it was awesome!), and froze the rest to use later.

I have to admit, I was really impressed with these brownies. Granted, they have quite a bit of sugar in them - next time, i'm going to try supplementing the sugar for agave or maple syrup or something to make them a bit more healthy, and see how that changes things.

But I was impressed with the consistency too, because there are no eggs! It's very nice and chewy and cake-y. A great treat. I'm glad I didn't put more butterscotch chips in, but at the same time, they're really nice in this!

They taste amazing refrigerated!

Rainbow Layer Cake!

My aunt, Twyla, planned a surprise birthday for both my cousins this past weekend.  They've been in the process of building a mansion of a house just outside of Saskatoon, and it's almost complete. Her brothers were coming into town to try help out a bit, so she thought it was a great opportunity to throw a bit of a party, since most of the family would be here.

My mum, in the plans, offered my services to make a cake for Tat's, the younger of Twyla's two kids. Kaelan already had a cake ready to go, but Twyla wanted one for Tats as well.

I was originally just going to do a simple angel food cake and decorate the crap out of it, but I decided to try something a little bit more fun and a little bit more complicated! Both Tats and Kaelan are autistic, and Tats in particular absolutely loves colour - her room is painted 4 different colours, if that gives you an idea.

I've seen rainbow cakes on Pinterest and Stumbleupon for the last couple years, and have been dying for an opportunity to try it out. This was the perfect opportunity - something fun, something that Tats had probably never seen, something really special!

I would have loved to make the whole thing from scratch, but it's already so much work and so very time consuming, so I cheated and bought 2 boxes of cake mix. Eventually, I want to invest in good quality vegetable food colouring, to use for all sorts of things, like baking and homemade play dough and chalk, as Jaxson gets older. However, they are really expensive, and i'm not sure how vibrant they are, so I bought a box of gel food colouring. That's what all the recipes recommend, and they are nice and bright - I actually liked them a lot more than I was expecting!

I made the whole thing at my mum's place, because we were planning on leaving from here the next morning to head up to Twyla's new house for the festivities! And I really wanted to transport this thing as little as possible!

Tons of ingredients and steps!

Before I go into details, I just have to say that this was a huge project - it was tons of fun, but it took me all afternoon. I was really impressed with Jaxson - he was so patient and good and played by himself for most of it, before drifting into his afternoon nap!

For the icing, I decided to make a cream cheese buttercream icing for in between the layers, and then I covered the whole cake in an easy, fluffy marshmallow icing from my childhood.

This is how I kept Jaxson busy while I was making the cream cheese buttercream icing!

Best baby EVER!

I made the buttercream icing first so that I could freeze it in layers to make it easier to stack the next morning. I traced the bottom of one of the round pans I was using on parchment paper and copied that 5 times. I then spread the icing on, making it a little smaller than the size of the pan, so the icing wouldn't overflow between each layer of the cake. Then I stacked the 5 icing layers and stuck them in the freezer overnight.

The Recipe:

1 cup butter, at room temperature
A pinch of salt
3 tbsp cream cheese
1/4 cup milk
1 1/4 cups icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Cream the butter, salt and cream cheese. Slowly add the milk and icing sugar, alternating. Add the vanilla and whip till stiff.

Buttery yum-ness!

Next, I mixed the cake according to the instructions on the box and separated it into 6 bowls.

All the batter, split into 6 bowls - about 1 3/4 cups each.

From there, I dyed each one a different colour. I was originally going to do the colours of the rainbow, but as I got started, I decided to just do Tats' favourite colours.

Thick gel colouring

This step took almost an hour, because I had to mix each bowl individually, and for most of them, had to keep adding dye little by little until I got the right hue. The red was the most frustrating; I had to use so much dye to get it as vibrant as I wanted, and so it took the longest! And poor Jaxson, I took so long with this step, he started getting frustrated and wanting attention, so he decided to open as many drawers as he could! I had to stop a number of times and rush to him to confiscate items - mainly wipes, which he has discovered he can take out of the box and throw all over the living room!

After finally finding the right colours, I baked them two at a time (I only bought two 8in round pans), wiping the pans out well between batches. I was really impressed that the colours stayed true, even after baking! There was very little difference, and i'm excited to see what this cake will look like cut into!

You can really see my handprint in this one, from taking it out of the pan!

It was right as I put the first two in the oven that Jaxson decided it was nap time and walked over to me (yes, he's walking everywhere now) and 'asked' to be picked up. I nursed him for about 5 minutes, and put him in his play pen and he was out in minutes! I couldn't ask for a better son! Perfect timing, as this is the only time sensitive part and I was a little worried about overcooking the cake!

I baked them for about 16 minutes each, and that was perfect! They came out soft and spongey! I was really happy with them.

I let them cool completely and then wrapped them individually in saran wrap and stuck them in the fridge for assembly the next morning.

These steps alone took about 2.5 hours.

The following morning, things went a lot quicker than I was expecting!

I cut the tops off the cake layers, to level them and stacked them on my new cake caddy, alternating with the frozen buttercream icing!

The final layer!

Freezing the icing worked really well for this step - it was easy to just peel off the parchment paper and plop the icing down on the cake layers!

I ended up pushing 4 straws through the stacked cake, to keep it upright, and then just snipping off the extra. I'm glad I did this! Transporting it in the car was a little bumpy, and without those straws, i'm sure it would have fallen down!

I next made the marshmallow icing. This icing is a favourite of mine from growing up and having angel food cakes for birthdays! It's light and fluffy, incredibly easy to spread on a fragile cake, and it tastes amazing!

Fluffy goodness! It also has a beautiful shine to it that looks amazing on the cake!

I iced the cake at my mum's before we left, but waited to decorate it at Twyla's.

In hindsight I wish I hadn't iced it till we were ready to serve it. On our way to Twyla's, it melted a bit... :-(

Decorated, looking a little droopy, unfortunately.

It still tasted amazing, and while the outside didn't look as good as I wanted it to, the layers were really cool and got a lot of oohs and ahhs!

Fun layers!

I have to be honest, I was pretty proud of myself for pulling this off - it looked great on the plate, and Tats was really happy with it. It also tasted amazing!

Tats was stoked!

The night was a big success, relaxed and fun, the cake was a hit, and the night culminated in us cousins singing songs from Frozen and dancing!

Dancing to 'Let it Go' from Frozen

Attempting the Oil Cleansing Method

Oil cleansing has been all over the blogosphere for quite a while now. My mum has actually been doing it since I was in high school, but I was just too put off by the idea (wouldn't oil make my skin more oily?) until recently.

I've been using a natural soap for years now, that I really like, but I thought that now is as good a time as ever for me to try something new like this! I'm already oil moisturizing, so cleansing is a natural step forward.

I know that oil dissolves oil, and I also know that as long as you're careful about which oils you use (both olive oil and coconut oil are comedogenic, so a lot of people break out if they use them, myself included) you should have no issues with this method. Since i'm already oil moisturizing, I know this to be true - the oil you use does make a difference!

From Crunchy Betty:

Jojoba oil: great for all skin types, but especially for acne-prone skin
Sweet almond oil: for all skin types, but especially oily
Grapeseed oil: for all skin types, especially oily
Avocado oil: for dry and aging skin
Sunflower Seed oil: for all skin types
Apricot Kernel oil: for dry, aging, and normal skin
Argan oil: all skin types, especially aging skin. This stuff is very expensive though!
Tamanu oil: for all skin types, but this is also very pricey too.

My oil moisturizer has grape seed oil in it, and my skin has responded really well to that, so I decided that I would try cleansing with it too.

I did a lot of reading, as usual, and found that once again, Crunchy Betty had the best information on this method, in one spot… well two: check out her articles here and here.

I learned that if you can handle it, castor oil is an extremely beneficial addition to your cleansing blend. Castor oil is more dissolving and cleansing, and it apparently has antibacterial properties! Be careful though, because castor oil can be drying, so use less if you have dry skin, and more if you have oily skin!

To start off, I decided to try a 1:1 ratio, which is what's recommended for normal/combination skin. (For dry skin, try 1/3 castor oil, 2/3 other oil and for oily skin try 2/3 castor oil and 1/3 other oil)

The Recipe:

2 tsp castor oil

2 tsp grape seed oil

The Method:

Everything i've read about this cleansing method has said the same thing about the procedure:

1. Put about a quarter size drop of the oil in the palm of your hand. Rub together to warm it up and then massage thoroughly into your face. This method will take off makeup naturally, so don't worry about taking it off beforehand! However, if you're wearing a lot, you may want to put a bit of oil on a cotton ball and gently wipe your eyes to remove the makeup before you cleanse.

2. Soak a wash cloth (microfiber* if you have it, but any clean face cloth will do) in as warm water as you can stand (this will be warmer than you would normally wash your face with, so it can really dissolve the oil) and drape the facecloth over your face for 15-20 seconds. This will help warm up the oils and open up your pores for deep cleaning!

3. Rinse your wash cloth and proceed to gently wipe all the oil off. Repeat until your face is oil free. I have noticed that it never feels like i've got the oil completely off, because my skin feels moisturized immediately. As long as you feel clean and you've washed your face very well, i'm sure you'll be fine.

4. Follow up with your choice of toner (important to close your pores so they won't clog) and moisturizer, if you desire. Some people may not need a moisturizer, but I think that's a personal preference, and really depends on where you live! I definitely need the added moisture here, so I follow up with witch hazel toner and my oil moisturizer (though I have found I don't need as much of it, which is great!)

Quarter sized drop of the oil, and letting the water run hot to wipe off with my awesome, neon microfiber cloth!

I've been using this method for just over a week now and for me, that's usually enough time for my skin to either like something or absolutely hate it. Thankfully, my skin and I are loving it! My face feels so soft and smooth and it looks fantastic, blemish-free. It's also very radiant!

Within the first two days, I noticed that any spots I had had cleared up overnight, and within a week, I even noticed that this has reduced the appearance of blackheads!

I have noticed that the castor oil is drying and I think if I wasn't us using my oil moisturizer blend afterwards, it would be too drying, which is good to know! If I do decide to go with a lighter moisturizer, I will definitely need to cut back on the castor oil.

I have read that there may be an adjustment period as your skin detoxes and gets used to the new regimen. I think this is more true when you've been using chemical cleansers. Since i've been using an all natural soap bar, I didn't have any adjustment (which actually surprised me)! (whew)

*I read that microfiber is better for deep cleaning, and I have tried both and have to say I am sold on microfiber! It does clean nicely, gets the oil off better and more gently than regular face cloths, and if feels so nice and soft!

Note: clean your face cloth (very well) regularly… like every 4 days or so so that the oil doesn't start building up on the cloth and clog your pores!