Pick Me Up (Recipe): Super Easy To Make Ice Cacao Drink with NO SUGAR!

Pick Me Up (Recipe): Super Easy To Make Ice Cacao Drink with NO SUGAR!

Ice Cacao Drink Recipe

A few weeks ago I went to this really cute cafe that was essentially a WALKING VIDEO AD for a wholesome lifestyle. By this I mean every single person that hung out there was clear-skinned, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I was grabbing a coffee for my mum and I wanted something nice to drink for myself, but not coffee since I’ve been off that since my 40 day practice  which was, gosh, ages ago!

Anyway, my beady eye spied the iced cacao drink on their menu and it turned out to taste exactly like Milo! I’m not going to lie, I have a soft spot for Milo where my childhood memories are. We don’t keep it in the house because we don’t keep sweets or snacks or any type of processed food. My Dad has a separate storage area for his snacks but that’s a different story. My Mum was always really strict about what I was allowed to eat when I was growing up and despite my Grandma’s best efforts to sneak junk food into me (like Swenson’s ice cream after ballet class!!!!!!!!!!) those habits are locked in. I’ll have the occasional sweet treat or fried food but I feel better when I’m eating nourishing foods. But MILO, yas, I remember the taste of Milo so when I had a sip of this cacao drink it blew my mind. BUT I was kind of weirded out by JUST HOW MUCH it tasted like Milo… how did it get to taste so sweet? Have you ever tried pure cacao? It’s BITTER. It does not tasteth like chocolate milk. Probably all those antioxidants in it. Methinks there was some form of sugar in it. I couldn’t tell from the menu. It’s like those chai lattes you get from some cafes. They’re made from a concentrate and have milk poured on top. So nice and easy to drink but I wasn’t going to regularly order something that was sweetened beyond my control.

Plus it cost a lot you guys! $5!!!

I did some mulling over and turns out, this is super easy to make and you can totally save your pennies. Buy me flowers to say thanks or something with the money you save haha.

And even though I didn’t use sugar or dairy, it kind of tastes like chocolate milk! Success!

Tip: This is a great go to if you’re trying to replace your coffee habits with something else. Just don’t go crazy and have 3 – 5 glasses a day ok! One a day is plenty!!

Ice Cacao Drink RecipeIce Cacao Drink Recipe

RECIPE

You’ll need:

Almond Milk – half a glass

Cacao Powder – 2 tablespoons

Honey – 1 tablespoon

Ice Cubes (unless you prefer a hot drink)

Boiling Water 

*If it’s possible, use organic ingredients. Make sure the almond milk is UNSWEETENED, that’s kind of the whole point of doing this, right? If you don’t like to use honey, try maple syrup. 

Ice Cacao Drink Recipe

Method:

All you need to do is heap in the cacao powder into a heat proof glass with the honey. Once you add in a splash of boiling water and mix, you have your concentrate. Super easy! I don’t like to heat up honey but I make an exception in this case.

Top up with ice cubes, or if you want your drink to be hot then fill the glass up 3/4 with hot water – you’ll want to have warm almond milk to fill the glass the rest of the way up. 

Pour almond milk over the ice and stir. 

DONE!!! (Keep the change!)

Ice Cacao Drink RecipeIce Cacao Drink RecipeIce Cacao Drink Recipe

P.S. I also like to add in supplements like magnesium oil. Since I’m drinking, right? Just do a quick scan of your supplements to see if they can be mixed beforehand, usually they just don’t mix well with dairy.

Anyway I hope you enjoyed that, if you tried it out, let me know what you think! x

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Ice Cacao Drink Recipe

Now you might be refreshed enough that you feel ready for a yoga (only 10 minutes!) or a Pilates workout! xx

✔️ The Great Vegan Waffle Experiment – Recipe

✔️ The Great Vegan Waffle Experiment – Recipe


So last night I was up late and HUNGRY and decided a good idea was to think about how to make vegan waffles. It made the hunger worse but that’s probably why I was up extra early and stuffing around with making different batches of waffle batter.

A few hurdles in the beginning:

  • Locating our waffle maker (haven’t used this thing in at least 5 years)
  • Blowing the dust off the darn thing and giving it a good scrub.
  • Plugging it in and having the entire circuit to kitchen blow out. WOOPSIES.

But we got our waffle maker working in the end! A lot of people in the house were highly motivated to make this experiment a success because that would translate to waffles for them. The carrot works better than a stick when it comes to adventures in waffle making.

Then came figuring out this batter situation. I came across a recipe that said any flour. Okkkkk…….. let me just tell you that COCONUT FLOUR WILL NOT WORK. Batch 1 was a total letdown. Coconut flour just sucks up any liquid and you just get this crumbly situation no matter how much liquid you add.

No good. Smelled great but hopeless.

So I decided to go with self-raising flour instead. I don’t go for gluten free flours because they sometimes contain random substitute flours that I’m not keen on. I’d rather just use regular flour but that’s ok for me because I can have moderate amounts of gluten without any issue. My main goal was to make waffles that didn’t contain eggs or dairy. I’ve had a few conversations with bakers of some prominent bakeries around Sydney who have said to just stick to the normal stuff rather than go gluten free unless I were a coeliac or otherwise gluten intolerant. One baker was saying he didn’t like the gluten free stuff but he had no choice but to bake it because that was what people were requesting.

Obviously if you need a gluten free waffle then PLEASE use your gluten free flour of choice. Just be warned about the coconut flour! Yeesh.

I make it sound like I went through multiple batches, don’t I?! Haha, I got lucky and batch 2 worked just fine. PHEW!

So heeeeeeeeeeeeeere’s the recipe:

The Great Vegan Waffle


Ingredients:

1 cup flour (NOT coconut flour) – I used self-raising flour, plain will be fine too since there is baking soda and salt in the batter but I just used what I had. You shouldn’t need to rush out to buy any ingredients. 

2 tsp sugar – I used 1 tsp of coconut sugar, use even less or none if you like! You can always add any sweetener of your choice after your waffles are cooked, you can’t remove sugar from a batter. Less is MORE when it comes to sugar.  

2 tsp baking soda – also called sodium bicarbonate

1 tsp sea salt – I use Himalayan pink sea salt

1 cup unsweetened non-dairy milk – I initially wanted to use almond milk but that got used up in batch 1 (looking at you, Coconut Flour) so I ended up using just under a cup of coconut milk

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

2 tbsp coconut oil

(Options: 1 tsp vanilla extract, sprinkle of ground nutmeg or ground cinnamon) – I used ground nutmeg

Method:

Mix the dry ingredients first – flour, sugar if using, baking soda, salt, nutmeg or cinnamon if using.

Add the wet ingredients – milk, apple cider vinegar, oil and the vanilla extract (if using).

The batter should look like a gloopy fluid. Don’t worry about lumps. It should NOT look crumbly and dry (glares at batch 1). 

Heat up your waffle iron. 

Spoon the batter onto your iron, say half a cup. 

Cook waffle blah blah. 

Alternatively you can make this as a pancake instead. Don’t go running out to buy yourself a waffle maker, unless that was something that you’ve been planning to do. Just work with what you’ve got going on at home, ok? 

To serve: 

I had mine with berries and maple syrup.


These waffles tasted amazing, however after I took photos, I cut into my waffles whilst I updated my VSCO app, figuring I’d do whatever cropping I needed whilst I munched. As soon as the app was updated, I launched in and found my photos got wiped.

By the time I realised this the maple syrup had already absorbed into my waffles Noooooooooooo, whyyyyyyyyyyyyyy is this happening……..insert much overreacting. I had to dash back to where the light was good and pour even more maple syrup over my waffles to get a few more pictures. I love maple syrup though so I wasn’t even really all that mad. But STILL. A little heads up would have been nice VSCO guy! Sheesh.

They are super filling so even though based on the size of my iron, I got just two waffles out of that batch, I found one waffle was plenty for me.

Overall a success in my household. If you tried it, I hope you enjoy! And if you use a different flour, PLEASE let me know what you used and how it went!

Chat soon xo

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Nog: Vegan Egg Nog in less time than it takes to say Bah Humbug – A Christmas Miracle Recipe

Nog: Vegan Egg Nog in less time than it takes to say Bah Humbug – A Christmas Miracle Recipe


A very cool comedian asked the audience for a show of hands, who was in their twenties. And then she said,”Yer all soft this generation. I could take an entire row of ya out just by feeding you eggs or sumthin’.”

I’ve got a few people in my household with allergies but 100% of us love egg nog at Christmas time. The math just won’t add up tho. 

Christmas Eve is our busiest day production wise. Amongst all the cooking and baking today I was getting through with my mum, I was handed a recipe for dairy free egg nog by my dad. But it contained egg yolks, a no go for another person in my family. And you needed to do this thing with a saucepan and heat things up and oh gosh, I just wanted to throw things in a bottle, shake it a little and shove it in the fridge. 

Which is kind of what I ended up doing and it was a success!!! You’ll want a blender but if you don’t have one just shake the mixture in a bottle to make it frothy. 

I shall name it NOG. 

Ready for it? 

Here we go, VEGAN EGG NOG or NOG

Makes 1 litre ish

Ingredients

1 litre of dairy free milk, I used half almond milk and half coconut milk. UNSWEETENED

Splash of maple syrup

Cinnamon, ground

Nutmeg, ground

1 tsp vanilla extract, or 2 tsp if you like vanilla, I used 2 hehe

Method

Put all the above in a blender (or the bottle) and blitz until frothy. With the cinnamon and nutmeg just shake in as much as you like, you might like it more nutmeggy than cinnamoney or vice versa. 

Pour into a container and store in fridge to chill. 

When you want to serve, give it a shake (the spices tend to settle at the base) and you can add a dash more nutmeg, cinnamon or both on top. 

TA-DAAAAAAAH! 

Of course you can make it alcoholic if you wish, I’d suggest something like Frangelico maybe? (But I don’t think you really need it.) 

Merry Christmas! x

Here’s me at four in the morning wielding saucepans with mascara under my eyes which is weird, I haven’t worn mascara for three days and I wash my face all the time.