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Gluten-free bread is not available from every bakery. If you have to or want to do without gluten, you will find an uncomplicated bread recipe for everyday use here with teff flour, chia, and psyllium husks.

Those who cannot tolerate gluten-containing products must keep their eyes open when shopping. Getting gluten-free bread or rolls is anything but easy. In the meantime, however, there are baking mixes for gluten-free bread in health food stores, organic markets, or well-stocked supermarkets. If you don’t want to use a baking mix and want to bake your own bread, you can try this rather uncomplicated bread recipe.

Locust bean gum and psyllium husks ensure a nice bond. Organic psyllium husks in particular consist of up to 80 percent dietary fiber. They also contain mucilage. These swell in the digestive tract and bind up to 40 times their weight in water. Flea seed shells, for example, are great as an egg substitute for vegan baking. Why not try the organic psyllium husks from Steinberger! Alternatively, you can use chia seeds as a binding agent for gluten-free bread, for example, which swell into a thick gel when combined with warm water. Caution: The baking time will be slightly longer if you use chia seeds as a binding agent.

The types of flour can be replaced with other gluten-free flour; It is only important that the number of flour totals 500 grams.

Gluten-free bread: the ingredients to bake yourself

  • 500 ml lukewarm water
  • 1 cube of fresh yeast
  • 1 tsp honey
  • 200 grams of rice flour
  • 150 g teff flour
  • 150 grams of buckwheat flour
  • 2 tsp locust bean gum
  • 1 tbsp ground psyllium husk
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp vinegar
  • 2 tablespoons oil
  • a handful of nuts, seeds, or kernels (we used hazelnuts)
  • 1 loaf pan (26 centimeters)

Gluten-free bread: preparation

  1. Put water in a bowl, dissolve yeast and honey in it
  2. Add the other ingredients and knead with the dough hook of the hand mixer until a viscous mass is formed. If the dough is still too dry, add some lukewarm water.
  3. Grease the loaf tin with a little oil and pour in the dough. Cover with a kitchen towel and leave to rise for an hour in a warm place.
  4. Preheat the oven to 220 ° C (fan oven). Place a small pan of water on the bottom of the oven. Brush the surface of the bread with some oil and put it in the oven for an hour. After 10 minutes, turn the temperature back down to 200°C.
  5. Let the bread cool down and turn it out of the pan.

After porridge and overnight oats, the next power breakfast is already on our list: Proats. The quick protein meal in the morning consists of the main components of oat flakes and quark, refined with your favorite fruits and nuts. Making Proats yourself is uncomplicated, delicious, and fills you up for a long time!

What are proats?

The name Proats is made up of the terms “proteins” and “oats” (Engl. oat flakes). Proats is similar in principle to the already known overnight oats. However, this variant is topped with an extra portion of proteins in the form of quark.

The protein and fiber-rich breakfast is quick to make yourself and is the ideal breakfast for morning grouches who don’t have time to make long breakfast preparations early in the morning and still want to start the day well-balanced and fit. Proats are prepared the day before and placed in the fridge overnight.

Proats are so delicious & healthy

After porridge and overnight oats come proats: we tested the trend breakfast in the EAT SMARTER editorial team and were all thrilled. Because the quark topping makes Proats taste a lot creamier than ordinary porridge.

The high protein content of the new breakfast trend provides the body with high-quality proteins that keep you full for a long time and prevent cravings – the latter also applies to oatmeal. The toppings in the form of fruit and nuts provide valuable vitamins and minerals. Here you can find out how to make delicious proats yourself.

Make proats yourself

Ingredients for two servings

  • 80 g tender oat flakes
  • 180 ml buttermilk
  • 1/2 organic lemon
  • 2 pinches of vanilla powder
  • 2 tsp honey
  • 250 g low-fat quark
  • 2 figs or other fruit of your choice
  • 2 tbsp brown almond butter
  • 1 sprig of mint

Preparation

  1. Place the oatmeal in a bowl with the buttermilk. Rinse the lemon in hot water, rub dry, grate some peel and squeeze out the juice. Add the lemon juice, vanilla powder, and honey to the bowl and mix well. Divide the oatmeal mixture into 2 glasses or screw-top jars. Add low-fat quark to the mixture and place covered in the fridge overnight.
  2. Clean, wash and slice the figs the next morning. Take the proats out of the fridge and stir gently. Divide the figs and almond butter between the glasses. Wash the mint, shake dry and pluck off the leaves. Serve
  3. Proats garnished with mint leaves and lemon zest.

Countless flavors

If you make the Proats yourself, you can refine them with many variations of toppings. Let your creativity and your preferences run free! Here are a few examples of our favorites:

  • Cinnamon + apple + toasted nuts
  • vanilla + blueberries
  • Vanilla + raspberries + toasted nuts
  • Vanilla + Plums + Almonds
  • cardamom + figs and/or dates
  • honey + banana
  • coconut + peach

Still, have an old jam jar handy? Then try it out and enjoy tomorrow morning! By the way: As an alternative to quark, you can also use skyr or Greek yogurt for an extra portion of protein.

Do you prefer overnight oats? Then try one of our recipes!

When it smells seductively again at the weekly markets, then it’s the chestnut time! Did you know that you can collect chestnuts, or chestnuts as they are also called, yourself? So that you don’t confuse them with the common horse chestnut, EAT SMARTER has put together the most important information for collectors.

We probably all collected chestnuts as children to build little people with them or simply to enjoy the deep brown, shiny hand flatterers.

Unlike its noble sister, the chestnut, the horse chestnut is not edible. Not only does it taste unpleasantly bitter, it also causes stomach pains.

The chestnut is completely different: it is a delicious and healthy snack in autumn and winter. If you keep your eyes open, with a bit of luck you will find a chestnut tree around the corner and you can collect the prickly delicacies yourself.

Incidentally, sweet chestnut and horse chestnut are only related by name. Biologically, the two belong to different genera.

This is the difference between horse chestnuts and sweet chestnuts

  • Leaf shape: Horse chestnuts have finger-shaped, lush green leaves whose stalks can be up to 20 centimeters long. Sweet chestnuts, on the other hand, have single, elliptically shaped leaves with serrated edges.
  • Fruit capsules: Horse chestnuts are in light green to brownish shells that have individual spines. If you break it open, there is only a single chestnut in it. It’s different with sweet chestnuts: their shell is densely covered with green spines that later turn light brown. There are several fruits in the bowl.
  • Fruits: If you put a horse chestnut and a chestnut next to each other, the difference quickly becomes
  • clear: While horse chestnuts are uniformly round or oval, chestnuts have a clearly flattened side and taper to a point.

Where can I find sweet chestnuts?

Happy are those who live in the south of the republic: In Germany, sweet chestnut trees grow most frequently in the Palatinate, on the Nahe, Saar, and Moselle. You can also go on a chestnut collecting tour yourself in the western Black Forest, in the Odenwald, on the lower Main, and in the Taunus.

But with luck, you can also find some chestnut trees in the rest of Germany. The website mundraub.org offers a good overview, where users can enter the location of “abandoned” fruit trees, berry bushes, and even chestnut trees. Exciting: The makers of Mundraub also offer discovery bike tours in the city, on which you can discover fruit to pick yourself in unusual places – for example, chestnut trees not far from Alexanderplatz in Berlin.

Tips for collecting chestnuts

The greenish-brown fruit cups of the chestnuts lie in the foliage like little hedgehogs. And they are just as prickly. It is therefore best not to use your hands to crack the fruit cups. The heel of a stable shoe has proven itself. So you can collect the brown, shiny fruits without pricking yourself.

Chestnuts are ripe when the skin is evenly brown. Wrap fruits that still have white spots in the newspaper for a few days and let them ripen in a warm, dry place.

It is also best to store your collected chestnuts between two layers of newspaper. In a dry place, the fruits will last for several months.

How to prepare chestnuts

In my opinion, the simplest method is still the best for sweet chestnuts: cut the skin at the pointed end of the fruit crosswise (this works well with a serrated knife, for example, a bread knife).

Now place the fruit on a baking tray in an oven at 200 degrees for about 20 minutes. The chestnuts are done when the shells are lightly browned and the characteristic chestnut scent can be smelled.

Now let the chestnuts cool down a bit and use your fingers to remove the shells and the furry “skin” around the fruit. Serve with some butter and salt if you like.

However, the peeled chestnuts can also serve as the basis for more unusual types of preparation. For example, the French family I stayed with when I was a student liked to cook chestnuts in buttermilk – different, but not bad either. Chestnuts also taste great caramelized.

Interesting not only for people with gluten intolerance: chestnuts can also be used to make flour that gives bread and cakes a slightly nutty taste. Since this flour has no adhesive power of its own, it can only replace part of the flour.

Don’t let the margarine take you off the bread – especially not if it was made with a lot of love. You can easily do this at home with a trio of ingredients: Here you can find out how you can make margarine yourself!

Margarine – vegetable fat spread

Germans consumed around five kilos of margarine per capita in 2014. Whether pure on freshly baked bread or as a basis for sausage, cheese, or jam sandwich is up to personal taste. Margarine is particularly popular with vegans: the fat spread consists mainly of vegetable oils and water – dairy products such as those used to make butter are not needed here.

If you want to make margarine yourself, you can choose between different oil variants – depending on how intense the vegetable fat spread should taste in the end. Above all, olive, linseed, and rapeseed oil are suitable for the production of margarine, as they have an optimal mixture of fatty acids.

Margarine is so healthy

“good” margarine contains up to 70 percent monounsaturated fatty acids. The body needs these fats for the metabolism and the elasticity of the cell membranes. About half of this percentage consists of polyunsaturated fatty acids. They are not produced by the body itself and must therefore be ingested through food in order to be involved in important metabolic processes.

Anyone who reaches for margarine from the supermarket should pay attention to the label “hydrogenated fats”: These can be unhealthy trans-fatty acids that can arise during the chemical hardening process of the margarine. It’s healthier to make the margarine yourself – that way you know for sure what’s in it! Nadine Burck from the blog dreierleiliebelei has a great and simple recipe up her sleeve for all margarine fans!

Make margarine yourself

The ingredients for 200 grams:

  • 50 grams of cocoa butter
  • 150 g rapeseed oil
  • a pinch of salt

The preparation:

  1. Slowly melt the cocoa butter over a bain-marie at medium temperature and remove it from the heat as soon as it is liquid.
  2. Now stir in the rapeseed oil and salt and pour into a sealable bowl and refrigerate until the margarine is firm.

September is high season for elderberries! It’s worth picking the ripe, dark purple minis because they can be used to make all sorts of delicacies such as cakes, compotes, jellies, and even juice. The latter tastes particularly good as a sparkling spritzer in late summer or as a cold drink in the dark season. EAT SMARTER shows you how you can make elderberry juice yourself.

Elderberries

Now is the time to save summery elderberries, also known as lilac berries, for the fall and winter. Elderberry juice is particularly suitable for this: it is refreshing in warm temperatures as a spritzer, gives sparkling wine and cocktails a fruity note with a small shot, and is great for colds.

Elderberry juice is so healthy

There are lots of healthy ingredients in the tiny berries: They score with plenty of provitamin A, vitamins from the B group, vitamin C and essential oils. Elderberry juice has an antipyretic and diaphoretic effect, which is why it is considered a proven home remedy for flu and colds.

But be careful: elderberries contain sambunigrin, a slightly toxic substance that can lead to vomiting, diarrhea, and dizziness if the berries are eaten raw. Therefore, elderberries should never be eaten raw but heated beforehand. This is how the ingredient is rendered non-toxic.

Make elderberry juice yourself

The ingredients:

  • 2 kg ripe elderberries
  • 500ml of water
  • 200 grams of sugar

The preparation:

  1. Pick the ripe elderberries from the branches or carefully scrape them off with a fork and wash them thoroughly.
  2. Place the berries in a large saucepan and fill with water. Let the mixture simmer gently for about 20 minutes with the lid closed until the berries are soft – let cool.
  3. Strain the elderberry mixture through a fine cloth so that a clear juice remains.
  4. Mix the elderberry juice with the sugar and heat again to at least 80 degrees Celsius. Now the finished juice can be filled into clean bottles and placed upside down to cool down.

Cloud Bread – This fluffy bread is an indispensable part of the low-carb kitchen. The low-carbohydrate and gluten-free “cloud bread” is made from just four ingredients and is, therefore, a great alternative to bread for the evening and for all those who want to save on carbohydrates for fitness or health reasons. EAT SMARTER shows you how to make Cloud Bread yourself.

Cloud Bread – The fluffy low-carb bread

Many people consciously avoid eating carbohydrates for a certain period of time. Conventional bread is taboo for the supporters of the low-carb movement, especially in the evenings: After all, carbohydrates block the proper fat-burning process. If you still don’t want to do without your evening meal, you should definitely try the Cloud Bread!

The low-carbohydrate, high-protein, and gluten-free version of the flatbread is baked entirely without flour and is ideal as a temporary bread substitute. Refined with delicious spreads, it is perfect for breakfast or in combination with fresh vegetables as a sandwich for the lunch break. The cloud bread also tastes great as an accompaniment to curries or as a burger bun.

That’s how healthy Cloud Bread is

If you want to cut back on carbohydrates from time to time, you are welcome to use the homemade Cloud Bread. Thanks to its high protein content, it keeps you full for longer and stimulates fat burning – this is particularly beneficial in the evening hours. In combination with fresh or steamed vegetables, the low-carb flatbread is a delicious alternative to bread.

In the long term, however, Cloud Bread should not replace complex carbohydrates from whole grains or potatoes, as these also provide filling and digestive fiber – you won’t find these fibers in Cloud Bread. Here is the Cloud Bread DIY recipe.

Make Cloud Bread yourself

The ingredients:

  • 3 eggs
  • 100 g double cream cheese
  • 1 teaspoon Baking powder
  • Salt

Preparing the Cloud Bread:

  1. Preheat the oven to 150 degrees. Separate the eggs and mix the yolks with the cream cheese.
  2. Now add the baking powder and mix thoroughly again.
  3. Beat the egg white with a pinch of salt until stiff and fold into the egg and cream cheese mixture in portions.
  4. Now put about six to eight round flat cakes on a baking tray lined with baking paper and bake for about 20-25 minutes – depending on the desired degree of browning. If required, the finished Cloud Bread can be sprinkled with herbs such as rosemary.

What is fluffy, not too sweet, and fits perfectly on every cake board? The Angel Food Cake! With a handful of ingredients, a little patience, and loving preparation, this cake sensation can be conjured up in a short time. And best of all: This pleasure is not a calorie sin! EAT SMARTER shows you how to make the Angel Food Cake yourself.

Fluffy cake love

The special thing about Angel Food Cake is its unique consistency: it is tender and soft, like a pillow you want to sink into. A piece of cake can be easily squeezed together without breaking into a thousand crumbs – it springs back to its original shape just as undamaged and is by no means rubbery but absolutely fluffy!

The angel cake is so healthy

If you would like to treat yourself to a piece of cake, you can cut yourself a slice at the Angel Food Cake! A piece of angel cake contains around 200 kilocalories and little fat – a treat that you can enjoy with a clear conscience! The topping made of cream and low-fat quark makes the Angel Food Cake extra creamy. The berries bring a subtle sweetness and the taste of summer to the plate.

Make Angel Food Cake yourself

The ingredients:

For the dough:

  • 80 g wheat flour type 405
  • 70 g cornstarch
  • 270g powdered sugar
  • 10 egg whites (use the yolk for something else)

For the topping:

  • 200 ml whipped cream
  • 100 g low-fat quark
  • 1 tsp powdered sugar
  • 250 g berry mix
  • Powdered sugar for dusting, if desired

The preparation:

  1. In a bowl, sift the wheat flour, cornstarch, and 70 grams of the icing sugar finely four times. Then preheat the oven to 180 degrees top and bottom heat.
  2. In a large bowl, lightly beat the egg whites until stiff, and then sprinkle in the remaining 200 grams of the powdered sugar. Continue beating until stiff and glossy.
  3. Sift half of the flour mixture over the egg white mixture and carefully fold in. Do the same with the other half of the mixture.
  4. Pour the batter into an Angel Food Cake mold (not greased), smooth it out, and tap it twice on the work surface to close the last air gaps. Bake in the oven for about 25 minutes.
  5. Take the Angel Food Cake out of the oven and turn it upside down on its metal feet – leave it to cool completely (at least four hours). If the cake has not slipped out of the mold by itself after this time, you can carefully help with a knife.
  6. Whip the cream until stiff, stir the low-fat quark until creamy and mix together carefully. Stir in the powdered sugar. Spread the cream and quark mixture on the cake and garnish with berries and powdered sugar, if you like.

What does the new year bring? Maybe a fortune cookie can tell us. The little lucky charms from your own oven taste much better than the ready-made variant. And the great thing is: You can make your loved ones happy with personal wisdom.

Full of hopes and wishes we start the dewy year on New Year’s Eve: A new love… a new job… the longed-for marriage proposal… What will it bring?

Hardly anyone is immune to kitsch and superstition on New Year’s Eve. How else could it be explained that adult humans hold up misshapen drops of lead to the light and claim they are seeing a dragon/sword/flower?

Chinese fortune cookies are also very popular at the New Year’s Eve party. Bake the little crescents yourself this year! It’s very simple and your place as a lucky fairy is guaranteed.

Sayings for your fortune cookies

Before you start preparing the cookie dough, it is best to write down the small wish lists. Song lyrics, Bible verses, the funny saying on the house wall: Everything is allowed. For anyone lacking inspiration, we’ve rounded up some fortune cookie all-time favorites.

Of course, the best thing is if you make the sayings for the fortune cookies as personal as possible. If you don’t have much time or are going to a larger party where you don’t know all the guests, these evergreens are suitable, for example:

  • “If the old year was successful, then look forward to the new one. And if it was bad, then even more so.” (Albert Einstein)
  • “The new year has a clean slate until you put it on.” (Hans Fallada)
  • “Greet the new year with confidence and without prejudice, then you’ve already half won it as a friend.” (Novalis)
  • “Is it getting better? Is it getting worse?” is the question asked every year. “Let’s be honest: life is always life-threatening!” (Erich Kästner)
  • Note: This cookie may contain traces of happiness.
  • “He who knows how to enjoy life does not need riches.” (Chinese proverb)
  • “Before you set out to change the world, go through your own house three times.” (Chinese proverb)
  • “Anyone who asks is a fool for five minutes. He who does not ask remains a fool forever.” (Chinese proverb)
  • “Don’t be afraid to walk slowly, just be afraid to stand still.” (Chinese proverb)
  • “Habits are first cobwebs – then wires.” (Ancient Far Eastern wisdom)
  • Bake fortune cookies yourself – this is how it works

Ingredients

(for about 20 fortune cookies)

  • 1 egg white
  • 1/8 tsp vanilla flavoring
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • 30 grams of flour
  • 30 grams of sugar

That is how it goes:

  1. Using a hand mixer, beat the egg whites with the vanilla essence until fluffy but not too stiff.
  2. Sift the flour into the egg white mixture and also add salt and sugar. Whisk everything well until a liquid dough forms.
  3. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
  4. Grease a baking sheet and place teaspoonfuls of batter on it. Using the teaspoon, spread out the dough in a thin circle.
  5. Place the sheet in the hot oven for 3-5 minutes, until the edges of the cookies are brown.
  6. While still hot, remove the biscuits from the tray with a spatula. Now put a small folded sheet of paper with a motto on each biscuit and fold the biscuit loosely into a crescent.
  7. With a glass or mug rim, you give the fortune cookie its characteristic crease.
  8. Let the cookies cool and harden on a wire rack.
  9. Look forward to the surprised faces of family and friends on New Year’s Eve! 🙂

Autumn is just around the corner – with falling temperatures and cold, wet days in the luggage. How nice when you can make yourself comfortable at home with freshly baked pumpkin waffles and a hot cup of tea during this time! The pumpkin puree in the batter of this special waffle variant ensures more juiciness and a great sweetness. Make pumpkin waffles yourself: The simple and quick recipe tells you EAT SMARTER.

Pumpkin alarm in the waffle iron!

A wonderfully sweet scent spreads in the room when the homemade pumpkin waffles are done baking in the hot iron. The recipe for this autumn delicacy is very simple: under the conventional waffle batter – in our case, of course, prepared smarter – some pumpkin puree is stirred and the mass is supplemented with an orange splash of color. This ensures a lot of juiciness and fewer calories in the waffle – a great deal in our opinion!

For the pumpkin puree, the berries simply have to be cut into small pieces, baked on a baking tray lined with baking paper for around 20 minutes at 180 degrees until soft, and then pureed, and the precious mush is ready. If some puree is left over, it can be further processed into a hot soup, for example. So nothing goes unused! But between us, no batter is wasted when making pumpkin waffles yourself.

That’s why pumpkin is so healthy

Pumpkin not only provides a cheerful splash of color in autumnal dishes, but it is also incredibly healthy! Pumpkin is an important supplier of beta-carotene (the precursor of vitamin A), minerals such as potassium, magnesium, calcium, and iron, as well as filling fiber.

In addition, the pulp of the pumpkin is very low in calories and, due to its good digestibility, can be excellently prepared in the diet kitchen as a light food or for small children – and as a puree, the pumpkin is also an unbeatable ingredient in these waffles!

A little tip: It’s that easy to test the degree of ripeness of your pumpkin. Gently tap the skin of the squash with your clenched fist. If you hear a hollow sound, the pumpkin is ripe!

Make pumpkin waffles yourself

The ingredients:

  • 200 g wholemeal spelled flour
  • 1 tbsp baking powder
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 vanilla pod (Mark)
  • 3 eggs (size M)
  • 160 ml milk (alternatively plant milk)
  • 150 g pumpkin puree (e.g. Hokkaido pumpkin)
  • 2 tbsp maple syrup (more if needed for garnish)

The preparation:

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the wholemeal spelled flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and the pulp of one vanilla bean.
  2. In another bowl, beat the eggs until fluffy. Then mix first the milk, then the pumpkin puree, and the maple syrup with the egg foam.
  3. Now add the egg-pumpkin mixture to the flour mixture and mix thoroughly.
  4. Preheat the waffle iron. Then, depending on the size of the appliance, pour about two tablespoons of batter into the middle of the hot waffle iron, close the lid and bake for about three to five minutes until golden brown.
  5. Serve the finished pumpkin waffles drizzled with maple syrup, if you like.

What smells so good of gingerbread? You simply have to try this Christmas gingerbread milk! Whether as a quick gift or for your own Christmas treats – EAT SMARTER reveals how you can make the delicious gingerbread milk yourself.

“Gingerbread milk is coming to town!”

Christmas time without gingerbread is unimaginable for most people! So, gingerbread fans watch out! This Christmas gingerbread milk is prepared in no time and is also a lot healthier than other drinking treats for the holidays.

Because fresh milk replaces greasy cream and pure gingerbread has an average of only 12 grams of fat per 100 grams. If you want to save even more calories, simply choose low-fat milk and use almost sugar-free baking cocoa.

Three healthy facts about gingerbread!

Gingerbread scores with its relatively low-fat content. But the type of fat can also be praised: Almonds, which are rich in unsaturated fatty acids, are an essential ingredient in Lebkuchen.

In addition, there are the unmistakable spices that make up the typical gingerbread taste. Cardamom, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, and ginger are really good for us. It is not for nothing that the pastry is also called “stomach bread” in some places – the ingredients of the spices actually help the digestion, which is very stressed during the Christmas season.

Plus point number four is the gingerbread milk itself: super delicious Christmas taste without any alcohol!

Make Christmas gingerbread milk yourself

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 banana
  • 1 gingerbread (without glaze)
  • 200 milliliters of milk
  • 1 tablespoon sugar beet syrup
  • 1 tsp cocoa powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon gingerbread spice

Preparation:

  1. Peel the banana, cut it into slices, and put it in the blender.
  2. Remove the wafer from the gingerbread and crumble it into a banana. Add the milk, beet syrup, cocoa, and gingerbread spice and mix everything into a creamy smoothie.
  3. If necessary, add a little more milk and fill it into a small bottle, for example, and serve with gingerbread.

Our tip!

If you prepare your gingerbread yourself, not only do you have additional treats, but you also know exactly which ingredients you used. Our gingerbread building blocks recipe scores with only seven grams of fat per 100 grams and spelled flour is used here instead of wheat flour. So, off to the Christmas season and let’s have a snack!