The first sunny days brightened up the country and summer is almost in sight. This week I discovered how fast the rhubarb in my garden had grown and was super motivated to create the first summer recipe of the season. That is why I am sharing a wonderful wrapped rhubarb cake recipe with you today!
I have a soft spot for rhubarb. It’s just like asparagus such a seasonal speciality. It barely has any calories and simply such a unique and awesome taste. I love that it grows right in my garden – fully organic.
I wanted to create something extremely special to celebrate the start into my favorite season of the year. Since I love rhubarb and also cheesecake I thought why not combine both of my addictions into one explosion of deliciousness and therefore created a wrapped rhubarb cheesecake.
What I love about this special cake is that it looks so beautiful with its subtle pink colors. Almost too beautiful to cut and eat. The rhubarb stalks give the wrapped rhubarb cake almost a bit of an ombré effect which is simply breathtaking.
This was the first time I made a more difficult recipe and it actually took me quite some time to prepare it. It is by no means a difficult recipe, but there are simply many different steps with a lot of waiting time in between. However, if you have time on the weekend this could be a super fun project for one of your mornings.
Most of the recipe consists of only mixing things together in a food processor. However there is one tricky part which is boiling the rhubarb stalks. The only super important thing is to not let them cook for too long or otherwise you will have rhubarb noodles 😀
Once you have the cake ready you need to make sure to slowly let it thaw in the fridge. Stil serve it cold and impress everyone at your summer party with this easy to make delicious and sugar-free cake!
Tip: Make sure you use a very sharp knife for cutting.
Let’s jump into the wrapped rhubarb cake recipe. You will see, it is easier than it looks! This recipe is adapted from Sprinklesbakes
2 1/2 cups raw cashews (covered with water and soaked for 8 hours)
1 tbsp vanilla bean paste
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
1/4 cup melted virgin coconut oil
1/2 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup water
pinch of salt
Rhubarb Coating
1 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
6-7 long rhubarb stalks
Instructions
In a food processor mix the dates until well blended. Put them into a bowl and set aside.
Now blend the raw walnuts until you also have a very smooth mixture.
Mix both parts together and press into the bottom of a silicone form. The crust should be around half an inch.
Drain your cashews that have been soaking for at least 8 hours and combine them with all the other ingredients for the filling in a food processor. Make sure to mix them until you get a very smooth blend.
Pour into the silicone form and freeze for 3 hours
Now moving on to the rhubarb coating use a vegetable peeler and shave the rhubarb stalks into paper thin strips.
Take a pot and let the sugar and water boil together. Don’t place more than three stalks in the water at the same time and only let them cook for about 20-30 seconds.
Let the cooked rhubarb strips drain on a paper towel.
To decorate the cake, lay the strips on top of the cake first until the whole surface is covered completely. Trim away the excess with kitchen scissors. Since the cake is frozen the stalks will stick perfectly onto the cake.
Now wrap the remaining stalks around the cake. If your rhubarb has different shades of pink you can even create an ombre look.
Place the cake in the fridge and let thaw. Cut with a very sharp knife.
Notes
Don't cook rhubarb for too long.
carinaberry.com https://carinaberry.com/
I hope you enjoyed this wrapped rhubarb cake recipe and will try it yourself someday. In case you are looking for another vegan recipe I can recommend you check out my vegan waffles without sugar or my vegan avocado cheesecake.
The cutest Easter garden cupcakes you will see this spring! The highlight is definitely the turmeric white chocolate dipped strawberry that looks like a carrot on top of the Easter garden cupcakes.
I tried to make this recipe as fitness approved as possible and expect some white chocolate that you will need to dip the strawberries in there is really nothing unhealthy about the delicious treats. So get ready for a guilt free Easter snack this year.
Turmeric carrots
Ready to make your own healthy Easter garden cupcakes? Let’s start off by making the strawberries look like carrots. Since I didn’t want to use artificial food coloring I simply used turmeric powder to get a nice orange carrot color. Melt the white chocolate with a teaspoon of coconut oil and mix in another teaspoon of turmeric powder. Now simply dip the strawberries in the chocolate and place them on a cold plate and put them into the freezer for a couple minutes.
The Easter garden cupcakes
The fitness cupcakes don’t contain any of the usual unhealthy ingredients like sugar, butter or four. I substituted the regular sugar for Xylit, the flour for coconut four and protein powder and the butter for organic coconut oil. The last things you need are 100ml of milk, some baking powder and cacao powder to give the cupcake the nice brown earth color. Simply mix everything together and bake at 180 degrees for about 20 min. Don’t fill your cupcake molds up all the way as the dough will rise quite a bit!
Once the cupcakes are baked make sure the let them cool off completely before going onto the next step.
The garden icing
From the picture you might think I used Nutella for the icing. But also here I tried to substitute the unhealthy version for something better. I used a chocolate protein spread I found in the local fitness supplement store. If you don’t have chocolate protein spread at home – which I am guessing most people don’t you can make your own by mixing low fat cream cheese with cacao powder, Xylit and some melted dark chocolate. Or you simply take regular Nutella. I mean it’s Easter – we got to cheat a little bit sometimes 😉
Once you have your three parts we can start building the perfect Easter muffin. Spread the chocolate icing over the muffin and carefully place the dipped carrot strawberry over it. Now you can decorate the cupcake with a couple small flowers. It will make them look even prettier.
Here is the full recipe for you so you can start making these yummy Easter garden cupcakes right away:
Start by making the strawberries. Simply melt the white chocolate with the Kurkuma and 1 tsp of coconut oil. Dip the strawberries in the Kurkuma chocolate and put them into the freezer for 10 minutes.
Now let's make the cupcakes. Mix all the other ingredients together and bake at 180 degrees for about half an hour. Let cool off completely before moving on.
Last but not least put the protein spread or Nutella over the cupcake and place the strawberry on top of it. Decorate with some nice little spring flowers.
Notes
Make sure the strawberries are really cold before touching them and also the cupcakes should not be warm before placing the strawberry on top of it. Otherwise the chocolate will melt!
Are you looking for the perfect weekend in Budapest? Well then this blogpost ist right for you!
In February and March I got the chance to live in the wonderful city of Budapest. Before moving there I certainly never gave much thought to watch actually worth visiting there. It turns out Budapest became one of my favorite cities in the world. I love the epic buildings everywhere, the beautiful river and bridges, the old cable cars, trendy coffee places and incredibly delicious and cheap food.
Since a lot of you have been asking me for recommendations I wanted to summarize everything for you and share my favorite spots in the city with you. I also included the best picture spots that Budapest has to offer in my opinion. If you only have a weekend and you do everything on this list I promise you this is your key to the perfect weekend in Budapest and the best city trip you ever took!
UPDATE: Scroll all the way down for my lastest summer tips!
Day 1 – Friday afternoon
Dinner – Drum Cafe
Once you arrive in Budapest you are probably hungry for some good local food. I recommend the Drum Cafe. You will find the traditional Langosh & Gulash there. I also love their Gualsh soup that comes in the cutest mug ever! You will be blown away by how cheap this place is. As this place is extremely popular make sure to go quite early, as it can get quite packed and you might have to wait a while since they don’t take any reservations.
360 Bar Budapest
To get a first nice glance at the city go up to this gorgeous rooftop bar called 360 bar. They view you get over Budapest is breathtaking. In the wintertime they put up little, cosy igloo bubbles. I believe in the summer time you can just chill outside with some nice music as well. Treat yourself with some nice cocktail. (btw I had a hot chocolate there and it was not very good) and enjoy the view.
Day 2 – Saturday
Breakfast – Vintage Garden
If I had to pick one favorite restaurant it would be this one. Vintage Garden is heaven for every blogger. They have the most amazing decoration, which they switch up according to events and seasons. When I was there they had a whole Valentines setup and a couple of weeks later you felt like witnessing the Japanese cherry blossom festival. Going there is a real experience.
Photo tip:They always set up a super cute photo spot right in the restaurant where you can take pictures.
Once you leave Vintage garden make sure to stop by the little bakery called ‚The Sweet‚ right next door. They make super cute unicorn macarons and adorable little cookies. Their cakes are also to die for!
After breakfast – Deák Ferenc square
You can walk from Vintage garden to Deák. This is a major intersection and transport junction in Budapest. You will also find the Budapest Eye there where you could take a ride if you want (I personally haven’t done it so I don’t know if it is worth it). Walk around the fashion street and downtown area. There is some great shopping here and I found a lot of stores that we don’t have in Austria for example.
Kürtőskalács or chimney cake
Slowly make your way back to the Deák metro station. If you feel the tiniest bit of hunger by now you need to try one of the traditional chimney cakes in the metro station. The stand will say the crazy difficult Hungarian word: kürtőskalács. They are sooooo good. They are only 300 forint, which is like one euro and come in all wonderful flavors – cinammon is the classic and best one in my opinion.
Széchenyi thermal bath and park
Now get into the yellow metro line and go until the Széchenyi stop. This is the largest medicinal bath in Europe. Its water is supplied by two thermal springs. Alone the building is simply beautiful to look at. You can enter and have a look at the open pools through two windows. It’s nice for a little sneak peek if you are not planning to go in yourself, but still want to see what it looks like.
Photo tip: When you exist walk a little to the left and you will find some beautiful stars where you can take awesome pics.
Vajdahunyad Castle
After having looked at the thermal spa make your way across the park to the Vajdahunyad Castle. It was built in 1896 and I promise you will be fascinated by it. Simply walking around it makes you feel like you went back in time.
Photo tip: At the back of the castle you will find a beautiful yellow bridge. If you move far back enough with the camera you will get the perfect picture of the bridge and the castle in the background.
Heroes Square
The Vajdahunyad Castle is in very close waling distance to the Hösök tér. The hero square is one of the major squares in Budapest. It is a really impressing place. You will find a very iconic statue complex featuring important Hungarian national leaders.
Photo tip: It is a great picture spot, so make sure to get a nice photo of yourself there. It is usually quite crowded so if you want to get one without any people I recommend weekday mornings.
Cafe Frei
After all the walking you will probably want to sit down for a nice coffee. Only a couple minutes walking from the Hero Square you will find the perfect place to rest your feet. The founder of Cafe Frei travelled around the world to bring the most exquisit coffee creations together into one place. The drink menu is incredibly broad and it is so much fun looking at all the 70 coffee options from the different continents and countries. They have everything reaching from a cherry-lychee cappuccino coming from Tokyo to a Guatemalan hazelnut latte. Even though I usually don’t like and drink coffee I had such a good time at this café and their creations are amazing!
Great Market Hall
Getting back into the metro, make your way back to the city center and jump into the tram 49 in the direction of the great market hall. This is a big restored neogothic hall for traders with grocery produce. You will find a lot of traditional paprika and Palinka there to take home for friends and family.
Evening – Csendes Vintage Bar
The great market hall is only two stops away from the hipster bar Csendes. I believe they have a couple of snack there so it will be nice for a light dinner. Also, they have a very interesting interior design thats super hipster. The real reason I want you to go there is the CHEESECAKE! Ahh I kid you not I went back several times to eat it again. It is literally on e of the two best cakes I ever had in my life. So you need to order the salted caramel white chocolate cake there. 🙂
Going out – Fogas
Budapest is filled with crazy cool bars and night clubs. A special recommendation is Fogas. The party area is huge and I can’t even count how many different floors they have dedicated to different music. Literally everyone will find something they like at Fogas. I would advice you to go a bit earlier as this can get a bit crowded later and you don’t want to stand in line for very long.
Day 3 – Sunday
Breakfast – Szimpla Farmers Market
Happy third day in Budapest. For the last day on your perfect weekend in Budapest I want you to experience something very special. The local night club Szimpla kert will turn into a farmers market Sunday mornings. It is so worth seeing as local farmers are selling fresh bread, cheese and other produce. A fun way to walk around and soak in the vintage flair at Szimpla. Szimpla is one of the famous ruin bars. It is also a great party location if you have another night to go out in Budapest.
Danube River Walk and Parliament
Take the bus 105 to Széchenyi István tér and walk down to the riverside. Right there you find a beautiful look onto the Buda castle and the chain bridge. Another perfect picture spot. Once you have your perfect pic move along upwards in the direction of the parliament. After a couple of minutes you will find an important historic spot of the city. „Shoes by the Danube“ remind of the cruel past the city has to face during the second World War.
Hungarian Parliament
If you continue walking you will see the magnificent white parliament building on your right side. This is most definitely one of the most fascinating buildings I have ever seen. I recommend you walk along the entire parliament building on the river side.
Photo tip: Take a picture on one of the big stairs. There are always security guards watching – but they don’t mind people talking pictures on the stairs.
Once you have a good picture circle around the parliament to also see the front of it and the beautiful entrance area. Right there you will find the metro that you should take to get to the other side of the river. Take it one stop and you will get a great view of the entire parliament from the other side.
Buda Castle, Matthias Church and Fisherman Bastion
Now take one of the yellow trams for two stops in the direction of the chain bridge. At the bottom of the hill you will find a funicular that takes you right to the top of the castle. I recommend you walking though. It is maybe a 10 minutes walk and you can see more of the city and also save that money. Now you are in the Buda part, which is the old part of the town. You can easily walk from the Buda castle to the Matthias church and the Fisherman Bastion. There you will find a beautiful view as well. Once you have seen everything you can make your way downstairs again and walk over the chain bridge to the Pest side of town where you can continue with a little relax break.
Afternoon – Nassapolya
This was one of my favorite vegan places in Budapest. Perfect for a nice afternoon tea break. Actually you should turn it into a hot chocolate break. They make the best flavored hot chocolate themselves right there in the shop. It is their secret recipe and really worth trying. Also, they have a huge selection of different, amazing vegan cakes. Once you are all charged up let’s hit the streets of Budapest again.
Gellert Hill
This is a wonderful afternoon activity, especially on a sunny day. They tram will drop you right at the bottom of the hill. It is only a short hike up the little mountain. On the way you will also find the cave church. Surely worth having a quick peek insight it. All the way on top of the Gellert hill you will find the Citadella, which was built in 1851 under Habsburg rule after the Hungarian Uprising. It is a really cool statue and fascinating to look at.
Photo tip: There is a breathtaking view over the two city parts Buda and Pest.
Dinner – Mazel Tov
Your second dinner choice should lead you to this super stylish middle Eastern restaurant. The interior design is breathtaking. Mazel Tov is for its amazing atmosphere comparably quite cheap and the food is delicious. They will serve you amazing falafel, sweet potato fries and Shakshuka. This is a great spot to end your perfect weekend in Budapest.
By now you should have reached Sunday night and probably tired from all the awesome things you have done and seen today! Time to head back to your hotel and relax!
This was hopefully the best weekend in Budapest you could possibly have. If you have a couple more days in this magical city I can also recommend you to go to:
Rudas spa (rooftop whirlpool overlooking the whole city)
Kiosk (super trendy restaurant, amazing lunch offer, 3 course meal for only 9 euros!)
Zoska (very cute breakfast setting)
For Sale Pub (sticky notes everywhere, definitely an experience)
After being back for a weekend in Budapest I have more amazing insider tips to give you especially for the summer months that you should not miss out on!
Ice Cream: you will find the best ice cream at „The Sweet“ right next to Vintage Garden, which is also one of my favorite restaurants. As already mentioned above The Sweet makes the cutest cookies, macarons and delicious cakes. Now in the summer they also make their own ice cream and it is heavenly delicious! I can recommend salted caramel 🙂
Sugar Free Ice Cream: A healthy option for ice cream offers the „Hisztéria Cremeria„. It is vegan and sugar-free, which makes it the perfect light afternoon snack.
Free Boat Ride on the Danube: During weekdays you can use your public transport ticket to take a boat all the way up to Margaret Island. On weekends you pay 750 forints (about 2 euros). It stops by the chain bridge and right in front of the parliament.
Beautiful view: Visiting the basilica of Budapest should be definitely on your list of things to do in the city. But did you know that you could go up to the final floor for just 2 euros and enjoy an amazing view? No? Well, I didn’t know either, but it is such an awesome experience. You get a 360 degree view around the basilica down on beautiful Budapest!
Summer Update July 2020
After hitting all my favorite spots from this blog post on my last weekend in Budapest I managed to try some of the brand new cafes that opened recently in the city. My new favourites or summer 2020 are:
Franziska Café: This one is actually on the Buda side of the city in a more quiet area. It is so popular right now. Everything is organic and so instagrammable! The perfect spot if you are looking for healthy food in Budapest. It’s also such a blogger hotspot. So you will surely see some foodies instagramming their beautiful dishes. Make sure to reserve a table since it is the spot to be right now.
Cloe Café: this one just opened the week before we visited it. It’s brand new and if you love pink it’s where you need to go. Cloe makes you feel like being inside a designer boutique. Everything is so stylish and classy. We had the best salty caramel pistachio brownie cake there. It was so good we even ordered a second slice of it. This spot needs to be on your list for the perfect weekend in Budapest.
Lupa Beach: if you came to Budapest with the car make sure to check out Lupa lake a little outside of the city. It’s such a chill place to spend a summer day. They have a wakeboard lift and we had so much fun wakeboarding the whole day.
Lupa Wake
Lupa Wake
Franziska Café
I really hope you enjoyed this blogpost and if you do end up going to spend a weekend in Budapest please leave me a comment and let me know how you liked some of the things you have seen there. I hope you will have the perfect weekend in Budapest!
Have you ever tried making blueberry cheesecake bites?
This recipe is EPIC! If there is only ever going to be one thing you will be making of the things I share here, please try this recipe. It is seriously one of the best things I have ever baked and I promise you will not be disappointed if you try this recipe.
A healthy cheesecake alternative
I love this so much because it actually doesn’t have a lot of calories and a ton of protein. People are always looking for a way to make their cheesecake healthier. Well here you go. This is the PERFECT recipe and you NEED to try it out.
The blueberries will make the cheesecake bites really soft and you will get the perfect tart touch. You can also substitute the blueberries for a different fruit. Strawberries and raspberries work really great as well.
Vegan Blueberry Cheesecake – doesnt that sound delicious?!?
Ever since I lived in America Cheesecake definitely is one of my favouite desserts to eat. Not sure if someone has ever been to the Cheesecake Factory in the US, but it is one of those places I like to spend a lot of time in when I’m there.
They have all kinds of magical cheesecake varieties you could only have imagined in your wildest dreams there.
However, since normal cheesecake unfortunately is not very fitness approved or healthy I wanted to develop a recipe that still tastes amazing, but is way better for you than the sugary stuff you get to buy elsewhere.
How I sweeten the cheesecake
Since I am also super fond of vegan recipes I took on the challenge to make a vegan cheesecake with delicious blueberries. I used Xylit as a sweetener which has 40% less calories than regular sugar. Also there is no kind of flour, oil or butter in this recipe, which makes it extra fitness approved! 🙂
This recipe is really easy to make. All you need is a good blender. Since this is a raw cake you won’t even have to bake it. The cashew blueberry filling tastes so incredibly good – you will see! I would pick this cheesecake anytime over a regular one.
Soak cashews in water overnight. The next day drain the cashews and blend them well with the frozen blueberries in a mixer. Stir in the xylit sugar.
For the crust mix the dates with the grated almonds. Take a little pie form and press the crust gently onto the bottom until it covers the whole surface. Now layer the cashew-blueberry "dough" over it. Put the cake into the fridge for an hour and allow it to harden.
Now take out the cheesecake and evenly cover it with sugarfree blueberry jam.
To decorate the pretty cheesecake place some blueberries on top of it and sprinkle some coconut flakes over it.
Today I would like to share one of my favorite low carb recipes with you. Let’s make some low carb filled zucchini – perfect for your fitness diet!
This is super easy and fast to make, doesn’t have a lot of calories and is perfect if you are on a low carb diet. I was even eating this while I was on my ketogenic diet. It will provide you with clean protein and good fiber through the zucchini.
I like to fill zucchinis but you can also use sweet potatoes, pumpkin, peppers or whatever veggie comes to your mind. Lately I have been seeing those awesome round zucchinis. They look so cute and are the perfect size.
What I also like about this recipe is that you really don’t need a lot of ingredients or time to make it. You literally just throw everything together in a bowl and fill the zucchinis with it.
In this blog post I want to share some of my favorite food blogging tips with you! I brought a very specific example with me today. I will show you my food blogging tips while preparing coconut bowls with you!
Food blogging is an art for itself.
Don’t you think that most dishes look extremely hard to make? Looks like we spent hours doing it?
I will explain some simple steps by showing you how to make pastel coconuts. Anything with yoghurt is usually a good choice for a great foodpic. It stays in place and doesn’t start melting like if you were for example taking pictures of nice cream.
The simplest thing is to give the white yoghurt some color. You can do different shades of one color or in our case have an array of pastel colors. If you look at the picture on your left even the simple colored yoghurts already look like art for themselves. Don’t they?
Tip #1: yoghurt always works
Tip #2: add some color
Once you have your basics go and find a good place to take the pictures. Once you have got the dish ready you won’t have that much time to start preparing your setting or find the right light. So before you start giving your dish the final touches explore your apartment to find the perfect picture lighting spot. Make sure to take pictures with natural light, using flash for food pics is a deadly sin 😉
Tip # 3: prepare the setting before you finish your dish
Tip #4: shoot with natural light, no flash
Another simple trick that I love to use is pouring the yoghurt, chia seed pudding or nice cream into tropical fruits. Coconuts work extremely well, as they usually give great contrasts to your pictures. But you can also use pitayas, pineapples or melons. All of these will be a true eye-catcher.
If you work with nice cream, make sure to freeze the coconuts or any other fruit you will use as your bowl before so your ice cream won’t melt that quickly when you are trying to take the perfect picture.
Tip #5: Use tropical fruits as bowls
Tip #6: freeze before filling
Now we come to the most important part: the decoration. What always works wonderfully is to freeze berries. Once the thaw a bit they will have a beautiful silver shimmer. Make sure to spend a lt of time on the decoration. This can make or break your dish. This can turn your plain boring yoghurt into a piece of art. So get creative and have an eye for details.
Tip # 7: freeze berries for decoration
Tip #8: get creative and have an eye for detail – personally I think a great decoration is the most important thing!
So now you know some of the basic super important food blogging tips and tricks. Please let me know if you want me to write more blogposts on this topic. Is there anything you would like to know in specific? Let me know in the comments!
We all see them on Instagram – the famous unicorn super smoothie bowls. It always looks like a magical creation sent from a different galaxy for you to enjoy.
Today I want to show you with this very simple blogpost how easy it is to make a unicorn bowl all by yourself. There are only a couple of simple tricks you need to know in order to make a beautiful creation and impress all your friends with it.
What I love about nice cream is that it is really so super easy to make. It takes about ten minutes and you have a delicious low fat snack. Working with frozen stuff however is also a great challenge – at least for me – as ice cream simply will start melting and you need to be fast before everything runs away.
But a little practice and soon enough you will be making the most magical bowls yourself.
So lets jump right into the recipe 🙂
This is what you will need:
3 frozen bananas
100ml any kind of milk
4g of blue spirulina powder
4g of pink pitaya powder
And that is literally it. If you want you can add an extra scoop of protein, coconut flakes or a teaspoon of almond butter. There are many ways you can pimp the basic recipes.
There is only one thing you need to prepare before you can start making the recipe. You will need to cut the bananas into slices and freeze them overnight. Also, you will need four bowls. Make sure to also put them into the freezer so they will be cold once you start working with the nice cream.
Now pour the milk into the blender and add a couple of banana slices. Start mixing and keep adding more frozen bananas. You might have troubles mixing it at first. Stop the blender, use a spoon to mix up the frozen blend and start mixing again until you get a very smooth consistency.
And that is literally it. If you want you can add an extra scoop of protein, coconut flakes or a teaspoon of almond butter. There are many ways you can pimp the basic recipes. There is only one thing you need to prepare before you can start making the recipe. You will need to cut the bananas into slices and freeze them overnight. Also, you will need four bowls.
Make sure to also put them into the freezer so they will be cold once you start working with the nice cream. Now pour the milk into the blender and add a couple of banana slices. Start mixing and keep adding more frozen bananas.
You might have troubles mixing it at first. Stop the blender, use a spoon to mix up the frozen blend and start mixing again until you get a very smooth consistency.
Take out the cold bowls from the freezer. Divide the nice cream into three different bowls.
Now its time to add the color. Put a teaspoon of pink pitaya powder into the first bowl and mix it well until you get a beautiful pink color.
Add the blue color to the second bowl and again stir well. Take the third bowl and add a bit of the blue and a bit of the pink powder until you will get a nice purple color.
Now you need the fourth bowl. Divide the bowl mentally up into thirds and pour in the different colors from different sides. Take a spoon and slowly swirl the colors together.
Almost done! The final step is decorating your bowl. You can use bananas, strawberries, blueberries, granola, coconut flakes, sprinkles, macarons and what ever else you can think of!
Now quickly take a pic – it melts fast. and enjoy your beautiful bowl.
If you try this recipe please send me a picture of your bowl. I would love to see your wonderful creation.
Since I am currently on a keto diet, which is a very extreme form of a low carb diet, I wanted to share one of my favorite sweet recipes with you. When you are on keto it is seems to be quite hard to still satisfy your sweet tooth, however, with these delicious low carb keto bounty bars you won’t even miss the real sugar! <3
My take on a keto diet
Being on a low carb diet can be quite tricky. Especially when you are trying to eat something sweet. On a ketogenic diet especially you have to cut out most of your carbs and replace them with fats. These tasty keto bounty bars will provide you with a good amount of healthy fats from the coconut. Your nutrition intake should be somewhere between eating 60-70% fat each day. Research says proteins should take up 25% and carbs only 5%.
The longest I have been on a keto diet was for 5 weeks. It has helped me tremendously to fix a bacterial problem I had in my stomach as the bacteria was survived by eating carb. Once I cut out all the carbs I was able to starve the harmful bacteria and was fine again. So a keto diet can actually have great health benefits. I would not suggest this diet to be your general way of eating though. I find it to extreme and at some point I believe your body will be missing valuable nutrients you get from eating fresh fruit for example.
How to make keto bounty bars
So, this is another really easy recipe. As you know my recipes usually don’t take longer than 15 minutes and this also a really quick one – no cooking skills required!
First you start out by making the filling. Simply put all ingredients together and mix well until you get a crumbly mixture. It should be moist and stick together. Shape the filling into little bar shapes and place them on a baking sheet. Let them harden in the fridge for 2 hours. They should be really cold when you take them out! You can even put the keto bounty bars in the freezer for a bit so they will harden faster.
The next step is to make the chocolate coating. The darker your chocolate is the less carbs you will have. Of course a 99% dark chocolate also tastes bitter. I usually shoot somewhere between 75 and 80%.
Melt the chocolate in a medium heat proof bowl. I usually do it in the microwave because it is faster, but if you want to do it the proper way then melt it over the steam of boiling water or at 45 degrees in the oven. I like to add a bit of coconut oil to my coating so it is easier to distribute over the keto bounty bars and also hardens better after.
Take out the cold bars from the fridge or freezer and dip them into the chocolate. Let the superfluous chocolate drip off the bars and gently place them on the baking sheet again. If you want you can sprinkle them with coconut flakes now. Best you let them cool in the fridge again for another hour.
You see how easy this recipe is. Done are your easy keto bounty bars. 🙂 I hope you will try this low carb recipe soon!
Below I have summarized the recipe in a printable version for you:
Put the coconut flakes into the over at 180 degrees for about 7 minutes until they turn golden.
Put them into a bowl and stir liquid coconut oil, Philadelphia cream cheese, whey protein and the Flavdrops in. Now form little bars and put them on a baking sheet.
Put them into the fridge for half an hour.
Melt the chocolate with the extra coconut oil. Pour chocolate over the bars and sprinkle with more coconut flakes. Now cool them again in the fridge.
Notes
Nutrition values for 1 bar: 120kcal, 35g fat, 2g carbs, 15g protein
carinaberry.com https://carinaberry.com/
I hope you enjoyed this easy recipe. You can store them in the fridge for like a week and always have a low carb snack at hand! Check out my super clean protein Rafaello snack recipe too. I am sure you would love it!
And did you know I am also on YouTube? I am sharing tons of helpful food blogger advice there and show you some of my favorite recipes as well!
Have you ever calculated your Instagram engagement rate? It is a very important number that shows you how active your audience is! The easiest form of engagement is a like, followed by a comment.
Engagement rates
Engagement varies as your account grows, but generally you can say that anything between 2-4% is acceptable engagement. Anything above 5% is excellent. I noticed that accounts under 10k usually have a much higher engagement somewhere around 8%. I also know many micro-influencers who have less than 10k but 10-20% engagement and are often getting more likes than accounts with 50k!
This is a weird phenomenon I still haven’t quite figured out yet. It seems like the more follower you have the less engagement you get. Some accounts with millions of followers only get 1-2% engagement.
Crazy right?!
I did some research and found some interesting insights from the influencer marketing platform Markerly who reported that accounts with less than one thousand followers have a like rate of about 8 percent.
This drops increasingly as influencers become more popular. Between 1.000 and 10.000 followers the influencer can record a like rate of about 4%. The like rate keeps decreasing within the range of 10.000 to 100.000 followers to only 2,4%. Once reaching the 1 million followers mark the rate drops to 1.7%. According to Markerly the rates for comments follow a similar pattern.
I wanted to show you the graphic here where you can see the decrease of likes and comments compared to increasing followers.
I also found a super interesting fact in a book called „influencer marketing“ where the authors established a 90-9-1 rule regarding user engagement. They looked at social communities and found out that 90% of all followers are people who view information but never or rarely take part in the conversation. The next 9% of followers contribute a little and the final 1% are those that create almost all the engagement and conversations.
I have to say this something I totally notice on my own account as well. I always have those couple super engaged followers who comment and like every single one of my posts, then I have a couple who occasionally will write a comment and then a big amount of people who just look at the content, but won’t take any action.
So now finally how do you actually calculate Instagram engagement rate?
You can calculate your engagement rate by dividing the number of likes you get by the number of followers times 100. (E.g.: 1.500likes : 34.000followers x 100 = 4.4%)
Make it your little assignment today to calculate that number, it is a very interesting info into your accounts health 🙂
If you don’t want to calculate the engagement rate yourself I have a great tip for you. There is a free tool called Kicksta that will calculate the engagement rate for you.
I hope this article was helpful and I simply wanted to show you that you don’t have to start getting worried if you notice a decrease in engagement once your account starts growing. Even the statistics show that it is a normal thing that happens. Check out my other Instagram growth blog post for more info:
Buda Castle, Matthias Church and Fisherman Bastion 
Dinner – Mazel Tov 
DID YOU MAKE THIS RECIPE?
Tip #1: yoghurt always works 
Tip #5: Use tropical fruits as bowls
