Healthy Valentine's Day pudding

If you’re looking for a special ending to dinner or a Valentine’s treat with a lighter touch, these chocolate goodies will hit the spot

Skinny chocolate muffins

Pre 20 min
Cook 20 min
Makes 12

3 eggs
175g soft light brown muscovado sugar
150g beetroot, peeled and finely grated
175g self-raising flour
50g cocoa powder
1tsp baking powder
100ml low-fat natural yogurt
1tbsp vanilla bean paste
100g plain chocolate (70% cocoa solids), chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan 160°C/gas 4. Line a muffin tray with 12 paper cases.

2. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar together for 10 min to make a light and fluffy batter that has expanded in volume. Gently stir in the beetroot.

3. Sift over the flour, cocoa and baking powder, then carefully fold into the mixture. Fold in the yogurt, vanilla bean paste and chopped chocolate.

4. Spoon the batter into the muffin cases until they are three-quarters full, then cook in the oven for 15–20 min.

5. Remove the muffins from the oven and allow to cool slightly in the tin. When they’re cool enough to touch, remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Per muffin
196kcal
5.3g protein
6.5g fat
3.3g saturates
31.6g carbs
19.4g sugar
2.5g fibre
0.4g salt
96mg calcium
1.6mg iron

VEG

How to make a gluten-free chocolate cake

A chocolate cherry loaf cake that’s low calorie and gluten and dairy free – we’ve found the ideal lighter treat for the bank holiday 

By Hannah Sherwood

I’m in Bake Off mode, but with an eye on a growing baking trend – gluten-free cakes. So I’ve eschewed my usual sugar, butter, flour and chocolate cake for a lighter recipe, using cocoa and black beans…

In her book Cut the Carbs! Tori Haschka proves you can cook without white carbs and the result will still taste good, filling you up without making you feel bloated or sluggish.

Not that we’re advocating cutting out carbs – a healthy diet needs bread, pasta and rice, preferably wholegrain. Tori adopted a carb-free lifestyle for health reasons, so her book is good for people who have intolerances, particularly to gluten. She says her chocolate, black bean and cherry cake is the simplest cake ever, so I just had to give it a go to see how it compared to a standard chocolate cake.

The prep…

After reading the method and weighing out the ingredients, I begin to understand why Tori declares it a breeze to make; it’s a bung-everything-in-the-food-mixer-jobby (apart from the cherries) and blitz. That’s it!

There’s no flour – instead, you use a tin of black beans (rinsed). It’s also fat free, but there are three eggs so the mixture is rather runny. Unlike some chocolate cakes, this recipe only uses cocoa powder, again helping to keep the fat and sugar levels down. The only slight labour involved was pitting the cherries, but really it was a minor task.

The bake…

The batter was runny, nothing like a normal cake batter, which is thick and creamy, so I was dubious when popping the loaf tin in the oven. 35 minutes later and it had risen slightly and smelt chocolatey and, more importantly, like I wanted to eat it! It turned out of the tin easily, almost resembling a brownie. It’s best enjoyed warm and, as Tori says, would be great served as a dessert with a small dollop of reduced-fat crème fraîche.

The taste factor

The flavour was still good the next day and if I hadn’t told the HFG team it didn’t have flour or any fat in, I’m not sure they would have guessed.

It’s a fab, easy bake and at only 97 calories a slice (based on 10 servings), could almost be classed as a cake that is actually healthy! Compared with a standard slice of chocolate cake with butter icing, you’re saving 210 calories, 15.7g fat, 5.2g saturates and 11.3g sugar…

See and enjoy the recipe here:

1 x 400g tin of black beans, rinsed

3 eggs

100g caster sugar

1 shot (30 ml) espresso or 1tbsp strong filter coffee (you can use decaf if you prefer)

3tbsp cocoa powder

1tsp baking powder (check it is gluten free if cooking for a coeliac crowd)

125g cherries, pitted (can be frozen, and you can also substitute other berries), plus extra to serve

Icing sugar, yogurt, crème fraîche or fresh cherries, to serve (optional)

Equipment

20 x 12.5cm loaf tin, greased and lined with baking paper

1 Heat the oven to 180˚C/fan 160°C/gas 4. Using a stick blender and mixing bowl, blender or food processor, combine all the ingredients except the cherries and blitz until smooth. The batter will appear quite runny, but don’t worry. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf tin and scatter the cherries over the top. Bake the loaf for 35 min, or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out with a few fudgy crumbs on it.

2 Leave to cool in the tin for 5 min, then turn it out. Dust with icing sugar and serve warm with more cherries, yogurt or half-fat crème fraîche for dessert, or allow it to cool and enjoy it with a cup of tea.

 

Per serving (based on 10): 97kcal, 2.3g fat, 0.6g sat fat, 12g sugar, 0.2g salt

Low cal, low sat fat, low salt, vegetarian, gluten-free, dairy-free

Could chocolate and wine save us from type 2 diabetes?

By Tracy Kelly, Diabetes UK clinical adviser

According to research just published, eating high levels of flavonoids is linked to a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Flavonoids aren’t only found in healthy food such as berries, apples and pears, but also in wine and chocolate – so can it possibly be true?

The study does seem to show an association between flavonoids and lower risk of type 2 diabetes. Almost 2,000 women completed a food questionnaire designed to estimate total dietary flavonoid intake, then their blood samples were analysed for evidence of both glucose regulation and inflammation and were used to give an indication of insulin resistance. The researchers found that those who consumed plenty of anthocyanins and flavones (two specific types of flavonoids) had lower insulin resistance and were also less likely to develop type 2 diabetes.

But we need to interpret the findings with caution. For one thing, there have been contradictory findings from other studies. For another, even if high flavonoid consumption and lower type 2 diabetes risk do tend to happen together, it doesn’t necessarily mean one is causing the other.

So what should people be doing to reduce their risk of type 2 diabetes? Diabetes UK already recommends a healthy lifestyle that involves doing regular physical activity and eating a healthy diet to help maintain a healthy weight. This includes eating plenty of fruit and vegetables, many of which are rich in flavonoids. But we don’t advise going mad for red wine and chocolate, which also contain them.

Our advice is to limit your consumption of these – and that’s unlikely to change, even if further research does demonstrate that flavonoids reduce type 2 diabetes risk. That’s because any health benefit from the flavonoids would be dramatically outweighed by the calories in the chocolate and the alcohol in the wine!

So although this is interesting research, the findings don’t alter our recommendations for lowering your risk: eat a healthy, balanced diet and get plenty of physical activity.

Give kids 5-a-day… in a chocolate drink?

By Andrew Wilson

You want your child to get all the nutrition they need, but they simply refuse to eat any fruit or veg. Encouraging children to eat a wide variety of foods can be a battleground and one faced by many parents at mealtimes.

So could the launch of new chocolate-flavoured drink Kidz 5 A Day help tackle the issue? The drink promises to give children all the vitamins and minerals they need for healthy growth – and kids love it!

While there is limited nutritional information about this product available on the Kidz 5 A Day website, the ingredients are essentially fruit and veg, which provide vitamins, minerals and phyto-nutrients. However, there is added cocoa (presumably to give it it’s chocolate flavour) and sea salt. 

Achocolate drink with extras might seem like a great option, but don't be tempted to rely on it as a replacement for fruit and vegetablesas such sweet-flavoured tactics may lead to bigger problems later. 

Regularly giving children drinks that taste of chocolate, for example, will encourage them to eat and drink more chocolate, which is not conducive to good eating habits. And trying to break these habits later in life can be very difficult.

However, forcing a child to eat fruit and vegetables may cause them to eat less of these healthy snacks, strengthening their preference for the unhealthy options you are trying to limit.

But don’t be disheartened – when a child is hungry, they will eat. If a new food is rejected the first time, offer it again later. The more often a child is offered something new to eat rather than told to eat it, the more likely they are to accept it. This could take several attempts – eight to 10 times – so patience is definitely required, but it will teach your child to choose healthy options. And remember, children will be more likely to try and enjoy new foods if they see their parents eating them.

Chocolate flavours aside, it is important for children to drink plenty throughout the day to prevent dehydration and tiredness. Water and milk are the most suitable options; pure unsweetened fruit juice, well diluted (one part juice to eight parts water), can be offered at mealtimes, but are not recommended between meals. Meanwhile, ordinary and ‘diet’ varieties of squashes, juices and fizzy drinks are best avoided, but if they are consumed, keep them to main meals only as they can erode the surface of the teeth.

Andrew Wilson is a registered dietitian and spokesperson for the British Dietetic Association.