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Tips for a sustainable honeymoon

Tips for a sustainable honeymoon

This is an update of our article from 21.06.2022 Awareness of sustainable living continues to grow. And that has implications for weddings, honeymoons and honey getaways. Here are practical tips on how to minimize your carbon footprint on your romantic getaway. You will also learn…

Diving and sustainability: an editor’s opinion piece and experience report

Diving and sustainability: an editor’s opinion piece and experience report

Space and the underwater world have more in common than you might think. Or not. In fact, the depths of our oceans are even less explored than the universe. We have no idea what’s down there, what life is there, or how. It is this…

Recipe for Buckwheat Cake – Vegan & Gluten Free

Recipe for Buckwheat Cake – Vegan & Gluten Free

Super moist and simply delicious – that’s the buckwheat cake with chocolate and nuts from Naturhotel Outside. Located in Austria’s Hohe Tauern National Park, the hotel has many nature-loving guests who look forward to coffee and cake after a hike. One of the most popular cakes is the buckwheat cake, whose recipe we reveal here. What makes it special is that it contains no flour, sugar, eggs, or butter – and you won’t miss any of them!

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Trail Running in Europe – Events and Trails around the Sustainable Green PearlsⓇ Hotels | Part 2 of 2

Trail Running in Europe – Events and Trails around the Sustainable Green PearlsⓇ Hotels | Part 2 of 2

Two weeks ago, we reported on trail running as an athletic discipline and introduced you to various running routes of our Green PearlsⓇ partners in Germany. Now we’ve added more routes and events in Italy, Austria, Croatia and Switzerland. So let us inspire you to…

A sustainable weekend alone – Me-Time at My Arbor

A sustainable weekend alone – Me-Time at My Arbor

This is the third part of our series “Tips for a sustainable weekend getaway”. Every three weeks, you can expect a new green idea on our blog! Need some time off? Just to be by yourself and relax? Then treat yourself to a whole weekend…

 

Buckwheat Superfood

Buckwheat is known as a pseudo grain because it is wheat-free and therefore gluten-free. This relatively undemanding plant grows in Europe and is cultivated in Austria, especially in organic farming.

Buckwheat is not only appreciated by people with celiac disease (gluten intolerance), but buckwheat is also considered a superfood. It contains many essential amino acids, fiber, vitamins (E and B12 and other B vitamins) and minerals (calcium, magnesium, potassium). It also contains flavonoids – phytochemicals. These act as antioxidants.

 

Vegan Baking

As we have learned from hotel chefs, the greatest challenge with vegan cakes and pies is not using eggs. The egg is usually the binding agent in the dough and also gives it its fluffiness. However, in this sophisticated recipe with 2 sachets of baking powder and 500 ml of apple sauce, the consistency is both fluffy and moist.

 

Recipe for vegan buckwheat cake from the Naturhotel Outside

BUCKWHEAT CAKE - vegan & gluten-free

Original recipe from the Naturhotel Outside in East Tyrol - Succulent chocolate nut cake without eggs, flour or sugar! Extremely tasty! A highlight of sustainable hotel gastronomy.
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 40 minutes
Course Cake, desert
Cuisine alps, austrian

Equipment

  • 1 Cake ring or springform pan (line it with baking paper and grease well)

Ingredients
  

Dry ingredients

  • 500 g buckwheat flower organic
  • 400 g ground hazelnuts organic
  • 200 g dark chocolate organic, fair trade, vegan
  • 2 pkg baking powder organic

Moist ingredients

  • 400 g margarine vegan
  • 200 g maple syrup organic
  • 500 ml apple sauce organic
  • 4 tbsp apple cider vinegar organic
  • vanilla fair trade
  • orange & lemon zest Wafer-thin strips of the peel

Decoration

  • powder sugar
  • red currant jam or Cranberry jam

Instructions
 

Dry ingredients

  • Mix them all together in a bowl

Moist ingredients

  • Heat the margarine and mix all the ingredients into a creamy mixture

Preparation

  • Mix the wet and dry ingredients into a dough
  • Pour the mixture into the cake ring / springform pan
  • Bake in a preheated oven (170 degrees / = 338 °F - fan oven) for approx. 40 minutes.
  • Finally, garnish with powdered sugar and cranberry jam.
Keyword Buckwheat, Buckwheat cake, gluten free, vegan backing

By the way: At Green Pearls® Hotels, there is an ever-growing range of offers for vegans. You can find out more about this in our blog post about vegan travel.

 


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Recipe for vegan buckwheat cake from the Naturhotel Outside

Recipe for vegan buckwheat cake from the Naturhotel Outside


GREEN PEARLS® INSIGHTS

Rainforest protection – sustainable tips for everyday life and travel

Rainforest protection – sustainable tips for everyday life and travel

The Amazon Rainforest covers seven million square kilometers across nine South American countries and is home to an incredible diversity of habitats and species. It contains more than 40,000 plant and about ten percent of the world’s animal species. In addition, it plays a crucial role in regulating the global climate by sequestering carbon dioxide and limiting the rise in the Earth’s temperature. Despite its importance, it remains threatened by deforestation, forest fires and logging. Reason enough to share some everyday and travel tips you can use to help protect the rainforest. PICTURE © Inkaterra Reserva Amazonica

 

5 tips to help protect the rainforest in your daily life: 

  1. Cut meat consumption: One of the reasons for deforestation is the cultivation of soy as animal feed for domestic cattle and pig breeds. All the more reason to reduce your meat consumption, or maybe even give up meat altogether. But other animal products, such as milk, should also be consumed with caution, as we explain here.
  2. Avoid products that contain palm oil: You’ve probably heard of it in the context of rainforest conservation. In fact, palm oil is found in many products, from cosmetics to chocolate cream to biodiesel, and is a major contributor to rainforest destruction. We recommend that you check carefully whether a product contains palm oil and, if so, choose another product. By the way: As of 2014, the use of palm oil must be declared on every product in the EU.
  3. Save paper: This is true for both regular paper and toilet paper. Large areas of rainforest are cut down for each. Therefore, it is better to use recycled paper and to use it sparingly.
  4. Aluminum: Parts of the rainforest are cut down in the search for aluminum. We recommend that you avoid single-use aluminum whenever possible and make sure that the packaging of the products you buy does not contain aluminum.
  5. Charcoal: Nowadays, tropical wood can even be found in barbecue charcoal. That’s why, especially in the coming barbecue season, you should make sure that the charcoal does not contain tropical wood and look for quality seals such as the Naturland seal.

 

4 tips for a greener stay in the rainforest:

  1. Accommodation: When choosing your accommodation, make sure it is sustainable and supports the local community, like our Green Pearls © partner Inkaterra Reserva Amazonica.
  2. Tours: The same goes for choosing a tour operator, of course.
  3. Protect the environment: When trekking through the rainforest, always stay on the designated trails and try not to disturb the animals. And although we probably don’t need to mention it here: Of course, you should also dispose of your garbage properly.
  4. Support the locals: Whether eating out or buying souvenirs or other products, we can only repeat it again and again – buy local! Not only does it directly support local people, but in most cases it’s also a more sustainable (and better).

 

In the end, we hope we provided you with some useful tips on how to protect the rainforest, and if you want to experience it for yourself, we recommend our Green Travel Guide Peru, which will release next week.