Baking is one of my happy places. Whenever I feel like my thoughts are too loud and the whole world is spinning out of control, the simplicity of a few ingredients, a step by step recipe and a yummy end result is the only thing that can really calm me down.
So much about depression and anxiety doesn’t make sense. You do something that should make you happy and you end up crying or something that someone else wouldn’t blink an eye at gives you a full on panic attack. That’s why finding things that do make sense is so important. And, to me, baking always makes sense. It’s almost like a ritual, or watching a movie, there’s a beginning, middle and an end and if you can just follow the recipe you know that everything will work out in the end. And if it doesn’t it’s only baking, so who really cares.
Healthy baking is pretty new to me and I’ve always shied away from it because normally there are too many confusing ingredients involved. This recipe is one of my favourites for a few reasons:
- It only takes about 15 minutes.
- There are only 5 ingredients.
- The end result looks very cute (another reason I normally don’t go for healthy recipes is that they end up looking like guinea pig food. And I’m all about the aesthetics.)
- The end result is also so delicious you would never believe it was good for you.
- But it is.
The title of this recipe says it’s for peanut buttercups but in reality they’re almond buttercups. Just because I prefer almonds. And I only had almond butter in the fridge. But if you’re a true peanut lover feel free to replace the almonds with peanuts and the peanut butter with almond butter.
Very Healthy Homemade Reese's Peanut (or almond) Buttercup Recipe:
Makes about 24 buttercups.
Takes about 15 minutes + 1 hour to harden.
Ingredients:
- 1 cup almonds
- 1 cup pitted dates
- 2 tbsp almond butter
- 1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon coconut oil
- 200g dark chocolate
Method:
1. Grind the almonds and dates together in a food processor or strong blender until they are finely ground and have a sandy texture. Add the almond butter and 1/4 cup coconut oil and mix again until it comes together.
2. Put some mini cupcake liners in a mini cupcake tin and half fill them with the almond mixture. Try to flatten the tops as much as you can with a teaspoon and push the mixture down so it's condensed. Then put them in the fridge until hardened.
3. Melt the dark chocolate in the microwave or a double boiler and mix in 1 tablespoon of coconut oil. Carefully pour a layer of dark chocolate over your almond buttercups and then put them back in the fridge until the chocolate has set.
4. Enjoy your delicious healthy snack and if you want to you can share them with others. You can store them either in the fridge or out of the fridge depending on how hard you like them as they will soften considerably when out of the fridge. Happy Baking!!
If you decide to make some of these please tweet or instagram me a picture and before you go here is a picture of Catsby and the buttercups. He decided baking time was actually cuddle time and thus this picture was born.
