Chocolate Sugar Free Pikelets

At the beginning of this year I committed to radically reducing the processed sugar in my diet, which meant my love affair with some desserts were shelved but never forgotten.

With Donna and Nigella no longer on standby I now grab my well thumbed copy of 'The Sweet Poison Quit Plan' by David Gillespie or peruse Sarah Wilson's 'I Quit Sugar Cookbook' when I crave something yummy.

Pikelets are a great option for morning tea, so I adapted the Pancake Recipe from David's book and the kids couldn't get enough.




Chocolate Sugar Free Pikelets

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups self-raising flour (I actually used Jimmy's Arta Flour, which I love)

1/4 cup of cacoa raw chocolate powder (you can use cocoa powder as well)

1/4 cup dextrose* (optional)

1 teaspoon baking powder

3 eggs, lightly beaten

1 1/2 cups of milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence

50g butter, melted and cooled

Get Cooking
1. Sift dry ingredient's together in a bowl.
2. Mix wet ingredient's (except butter) together in a large jug.
3. Add dry ingredient's and butter to the jug and mix. Don't bother to stir it too much it can be lumpy.
4. Grab a frying pan (non stick if you have it) otherwise make sure you grease it well.
I find it's best to heat the fry-pan on high reducing it to medium heat to start cooking.
5. Pour the batter into the fry-pan to the size that makes your heart sing!
I use my 1/4 measuring cup to make sure my pikelets are kind of the same size.
6. Cook on one side until you see bubbles forming, then flip the pancakes to the other side to finish cooking.
7. Serve these with butter or with fresh fruit(bananas or berries) and fresh whipped cream.

Let me know how you get on.
Happy Cooking!
-- Hannah

*Dextrose
Yes this is a technically a 'sugar', and yes if you add this they are not technically 'Sugar Free'.
I've marked this optional as I don't always add the dextrose when making the pikelets as my kids usually eat these with some Fruit or Rice Malt Syrup. If their very lucky Sarah Wilson's Sugar Free Nutella.

Toys need love too

Stickybeak with Lizzie in happier times

Every night Stickybeak goes to bed with his toys - he has Lizzie the Lamb, Bill the Bear and Bunny, which is self explanatory. No, I guess we aren't that creative with toy names in this house.

Every night Stickybeak throws them out of his cot and on to the floor. Every night. Well, except for last night because he was so tired he went straight to sleep without doing the usual toy exodus ritual. Of course the first thing he did when we woke up was to throw his toys out of the cot and on to the floor.

He doesn't seem to want them back but at the same time he likes his toys. I have to say, I really don't get this game or understand my role in it. I'm obviously not about to be given the rules any time soon so I'm putting this behaviour into the 'babies are weird' category.

Do your babies do this too?

ps: seeing his toys abandoned on the floor makes me sad. I fear that soon I'll start putting them in my bed.

-- Natalie