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Paleo Cinnamon Buns

April 9, 2013 in Featured Recipes, Muffins and Coffee Cakes, Paleo Bread

Paleo Cinnamon Buns | The Paleo MomWhen I was a teenager, my Uncle Bill taught me how to make real cinnamon buns.  You know, the kind with yeast-based bread?  It was a revelation and became one of my favorite treats to make.  One batch would make a whole delicious pan, full of thousands of gluten-filled calories.  And last about an hour.  To this day the smell of cinnamon reminds me of family vacations (which often ended up being adventures) to visit my uncle.

My oldest daughter especially loves cinnamon, so I was inspired to try and modify my yeast-based paleo bread recipes to create a paleo adaptation of my once famous cinnamon buns.  It actually took some fairly major modifications to the bread recipes to make a dough elastic and solid enough to roll.  Compared to the regular cinnamon buns that I used to make, these are not quite as fluffy nor as elastic (and capturing that texture wasn’t worth using a gut irritating ingredient like xanthum gum or psyllium husk, since they are pretty awesome as is).  But, I was able to capture the flavor and a nice bready texture.  My kids are in love.

I’ve made these twice now, once more generously filled with sugar and cinnamon and once more stingy.   I think they work better when you’re more generous, but they do work if you want to cut the cinnamon filling in half and makes these a little less sweet.  The photos are actually from the stingier batch, but the recipe reflects the more generous filling.

These roll fairly easily.  They are a little tricky to cut though.  If you want perfect looking cinnamon buns, I would suggests  rolling out each one individually instead of making the usual big long role and slicing off individual rolls.  But, as you can see from the pan, they still look yummy, and they still pull apart enticingly well.

Paleo Cinnamon Rolls | The Paleo Mom

Ingredients (filling):

  1. Combine sugar and spices in a bowl or spice shaker.

Ingredients (bread):

  1. Bring ingredients to room temperature (this is most important with ground nuts, almond flour, eggs and butter).
  2. Proof the yeast (which means wake it up and get it growing).  To do this, combine yeast, honey and warm water (should be luke warm, not too hot).  In about 10 minutes, it should be foaming.
  3. While waiting for the yeast to proof, combine the remaining ingredients in the bowl of a standing mixer (you could also use a Bread Machine to warm and mix your ingredients).
  4. Add the yeast and then mix on low speed for at least 5 minutes (up to about 10 if you get distracted).
  5. While you’re waiting, grease a 9″x13″ pan (you could also use a rimmed baking sheet or a muffin pan).
  6. If you have a silicone rolling mat, use that.  Otherwise, line your counter with parchment (probably two sheets overlapping).  In either case, grease the mat or the parchment with butter, lard or palm shortening.
  7. Pour out your sticky bread dough onto your prepared surface.  Grease your hands and flatten the dough into a big rectangle about 1/2″ thick by hand.
  8. Spread butter over the surface of your rectangle.  Sprinkle the entire surface with the sugar and spice mix.
  9. Now roll the dough into a log.
  10. Using a sharp knife, but 1-2″ thick slices of your dough log and transfer to your prepared pan.  It helps to clean any dough off your knife in between each cut.   Space at least 1″ apart in the pan.  You can cut as man cinnamon buns as you want.  This makes 12 quite large cinnamon buns or 18 smaller ones (I did a baker’s dozen).  Don’t worry if they aren’t perfect swirls.  As you can see from my picture, some are perfect some aren’t.  They all taste good.  If you have a reason why these need to look perfect, roll them out individually instead of the log method.
  11. Let rise in a warm corner of your kitchen for 45 minutes (I let mine rise in the oven with the light on and the door a crack open, and then take out to rise the last ten minutes on the stovetop while the oven is preheating).  It’s normal for them to not rise very much but they will then puff up much more while baking.
  12. Preheat oven to 375F with oven rack in the top third of your oven.
  13. Bake for 25-30 minutes (closer to 20 minutes if you made them smaller).
  14. Enjoy!

Paleo Cinnamon Buns | The Paleo Mom

 

 

 

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Yeast-Based Paleo Bread — Revisited

March 9, 2013 in Paleo Bread

A good paleo bread recipe is worth its weight in gold.   I pride myself on my paleo bread recipes, especially those that utilize yeast (check out my post Is Yeast Paleo?) since the flavor and texture is so, well, bread like!  For anyone with picky kids they are trying to transition or who is having issues with the transition to paleo themselves, having a real bread that is made with paleo-friendly ingredients can make all the difference in the world.

Yeast-based paleo bread is one of the few recipes that I have developed that I make frequently.  I mean really frequently.  It takes a week to ten days for us to go through a loaf.  It is a staple breakfast food for my oldest (who had the hardest time with the transition to paleo and still clings to a few paleo versions of her old staples) and an occasional breakfast food or treat for my youngest and husband.  So, I’ve had plenty of opportunity to tweak and play with the recipe over the nearly one year since I posted the original version.

Yeast-Based Paleo Bread Revisited | The Paleo Mom One of my priorities was to develop a version of my original yeast-based paleo bread that didn’t include flax seed.  This is because I have learned that flax is very high in phytoestrogens, chemical compounds that have the ability to mimic estrogen in the human body even as absorbed from dietary sources.  And while I don’t worry about the occasional bit of paleo baking that includes flax, I do worry about the daily consumption of flax for my growing girls.  Doing away with the flax introduced all kinds of issues with texture, which took quite a bit of experimentation to sort out. The secret turned out to be to use half very finely milled blanched almond flour (such as Honeyville Farms or JK Gourmet) and half courser milled almond meal (the best was the almond flour I bought locally from NaturAlmond but making my own by processing whole almonds in my food processor worked well too).

The other issue with the original bread recipe is that it made a fairly squat loaf.  While this didn’t really matter that much for our purposes, a taller loaf means the bread lasts longer and it’s a more familiar size/shape for all of you!

My Bread Machine does 2-pound loaves, but I am very confident this would work in a 1.5-pound loaf machine (I would suggest cutting the recipe in half for a 1-pound loaf machine). As with all gluten-free bread recipes, it doesn’t rise much.  That’s okay.  It also will never have a dome top.  That’s okay too. I make this bread in a Bread Machine, which is certainly the easiest way to make this bread (gluten-free bread can be tough to get a pretty surface with made the old fashioned way, but it’s certainly possible!).

As with all homemade bread recipes, the temperature, humidity and altitude of your kitchen can impact how the bread rises.  You may need to subtract or add 1 Tbsp (or even 2 Tbsp!) of water to this recipe to make it work in your kitchen.  You’ll know to subtract a little water if your loaf is a little concave on top (like a trench).  You’ll know you need to add water if the top is crumbly looking.  You can optionally use Mineral Water to add a little extra rise and lightness to your loaf, but the difference is small compared to regular water, which is what I am in the habit of using.

Yeast-Based Paleo Bread Revisited | The Paleo Mom

Ingredients:

  1. Mix  water, eggs,  salt, honey, and vinegar in the bottom of your Bread Machine pan.
  2. Add coconut oil, almond flour, almond meal, tapioca and arrowroot flour on top of wet ingredients.  Sprinkle yeast on top of the flour (or follow your bread maker’s directions).
  3. Use the whole wheat cycle on your Bread Machine if it has one (if not, just use a regular cycle).  Very Important:  My Bread Machine had a hard time mixing these ingredients because the dough is fairly stiff.  Check during the initial knead that the ingredients are mixing well and none are sticking to the edge of the pan (if they are, use a spatula to gently push them down into the rest of the dough and maybe even help mix the dough, depending on your machine). 
  4. Remove promptly after your Bread Machine is done.  Enjoy!

If you want to bake this bread without a Bread Machine, these instructions reflect the best results reported by those of you who left comments on my original yeast-based paleo bread recipe or sent me emails to report on your success:

  1. Proof your yeast by warming the water (should feel comfortably warm and not too hot) and adding the yeast to the water.   You can do this in the bottom of your mixing bowl.  It should start to foam in 5-10 minutes.
  2. Add  the wet ingredients to the proofed yeast and stir
  3. Add your dry ingredients and stir to fully incorporate (you may want to use a standing mixer with a paddle attachment or you could do this by hand).  It would be helpful if your ingredients were room temperature or slightly warmer.
  4. Pour the batter into a greased standard-sized loaf pan.  Spread out the top evenly.
  5. Let rise in a warm corner of your kitchen for 45 minutes to 1 hour.  A great way to rise bread is to put in on your oven with the oven off but the oven light on.  Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 350F.
  6. Bake for 55-65 minutes, until golden brown on top and a toothpick comes out clean.

Yeast-Based Paleo Bread Revisited | The Paleo Mom

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Guest Post from Kate’s Healthy Cupboard: Grain-Free Skillet “Corn” Bread

November 28, 2012 in Nut-Free Baking, Paleo Bread, Uncategorized

Have you met Kate Criswell from www.KatesHealthyCupboard.com ?  Kate is the one who started me on my plantain kick with her recipe for plantain “tortilla” chips.  It was only natural for me to follow-up with an invitation to create a guest recipe post!  And I’m so glad that Kate accepted!  Kate’s follows a gluten-free, dairy-free (paleo/primal-inspred) diet and many of her recipes are completely paleo.  She aslo owns her own nutrition bar line – Vixibar.  Visit her blog  for more great recipes or follow her on Facebook or Pinterest.  

As many of you know, I have used plantains as a base for some of my recipes. I quickly found that plantains have a bit of a corn taste to them when cooked. When I made this “Tortilla” Chip Recipe, I knew I had found a corn meal replacement…and a substitute for my corn tortilla chip addiction! A couple years ago, tortilla chips were my go to snack since they were gluten free. Today, I won’t touch anything made with corn for many reasons, including that it can be irritating to the gut and it’s one of the main GMO foods sold today!

Recently I created a simple Grain Free “Corn” Tortilla Recipe made from roasted plantain chips ground into a meal. This got the creative juices flowing…what else can I make with “corn” meal? How about some skillet corn bread to serve along side your favorite soups and stews this winter (maybe try The Paleo Mom’s Hearty Beef Stew, Offal (But Not Awful) Stew or Paleo Pumpkin Chili)! This dense bread was a huge hit served straight from the oven with some grass-fed butter!

Recipe: Grain Free Skillet “Corn” Bread

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350
  2. Combine the flour, plantain meal, soda and salt in a bowl
  3. Cut 1 1/2 tbsp of cold butter into small pieces and toss into the flour mixture. With hands, work the butter into the mixture so it’s crumbly
  4. In a small bowl, whisk the eggs, lemon juice, vinegar and honey
  5. Melt the remaining 1 tbsp of butter over medium heat in a cast iron skillet
  6. Dig a little hole in the center of your flour mixture and pour the egg mixture in the flour. Mix until a dough is formed
  7. Turn off the skillet. Make sure the melted butter is covering the entire bottom of the skillet
  8. Place the ball of dough in the center of the skillet and press down until it’s about an inch and a half high
  9. Transfer the skillet to the oven and bake for 20 minutes

Quick notes

*About 2 cups of chips yields 1 cup of meal. Roasted plantain chips can be found in the bulk section at Sprouts or in the pre-packages bulk section of Whole Foods. They should only contain plantains, palm oil and salt.  If you can’t find them in stores, try these ones from Amazon.

Variations

Solidified coconut oil may work in place of the butter, but I have not tried that.

Feel free to spice this up with some jalapenos or other spices!

Kate's Healthy Cupboard - Gluten Free Recipes

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Nut-Free Yeast-Based Paleo Bread

August 18, 2012 in Paleo Bread

My original yeast-based paleo bread recipe has received so many enthusiastic comments.  I know that having a delicious paleo bread recipe has been essential in my home.  It can be a life saver with kids and for people struggling to adhere to a paleo diet.  Many of you have reported success making it without a Bread Machine, using the recipe as the base of a pizza crust, adding raisins and cinnamon to make cinnamon bread, and even using the recipe to make dinner rolls! 

This recipe is very similar, except it has no nuts.  I had several reasons for creating a nut-free yeast-based paleo bread.  Many of you have asked for a nut-free bread recipe for you children with allergies or to send with your child to their nut-free schools.  My mother-in-law is allergic to nuts and I want to have a good bread option for her visits.  I seem to be very sensitive to almonds especially, so while I can eat a slice of this bread occasionally, I can’t even eat a bite of my original yeast-based paleo bread recipe.  Plus, almond flour is very expensive.  This loaf is definitely cheaper to make.  Why use yeast?  Because that’s what makes this really taste like bread.  If you haven’t read it yet, you may be interested in my post Is Yeast Paleo? (hint: the answer is yes).

I spent over two months baking 2 or 3 variations of this recipe each week.  This recipe was much trickier to perfect than my original yeast-based paleo bread recipe (which wasn’t easy either!).  As such, I recommend measuring your ingredients carefully.  You may be able to get away with some substitutions (I think sunflower seeds would work in place of pepitas, for example), but if you make a lot of substitutions, I can’t promise your bread will turn out.

This bread holds together beautifully, so it’s great for sandwiches and toast (it takes a while in the toaster, but be patient because it’s worth it).  It’s also closer to a normal loaf size than my other recipes.  My loaves are typically a little over 3” high, equivalent size or slightly smaller than a 1.5 pound loaf in your Bread Machine (but it is denser).  My Bread Machine does 2-pound loaves, but I am very confident this would work in a 1.5-pound loaf machine (if anyone tries it in a 1-pound loaf machine, please comment as to whether or not it cooks through and fits into the loaf pans for those machines).  As with all gluten-free bread recipes, it doesn’t rise much.  That’s okay.  It also will never have a dome top.  That’s okay too.

I make this bread in a Bread Machine, which is certainly the easiest way to make this bread (gluten-free bread can be tough to get a pretty surface with made the old fashioned way, but it’s certainly possible!).  As with all homemade bread recipes, the temperature, humidity and altitude of your kitchen can impact how the bread rises.  You may need to subtract or add 1 Tbsp of water to this recipe to make it work in your kitchen.  You’ll know to subtract a little water if your loaf is a little concave on top.  You’ll know you need to add water if the top is crumbly looking.  You can optionally use Mineral Water to add a little extra rise and lightness to your loaf, but the difference is small compared to regular water, which is what I am in the habit of using. 

I hope you love this bread as much as my family does (it’s now the only bread recipe I bake on a regular basis).  I store this bread in a plastic resealable bag with a piece of paper towel wrapped around it in the fridge.  I’ve also sliced and then frozen loaves with great success.

Ingredients:

1.    Pulse pepitas in a food processor or blender until powdered (should be anywhere between the consistency of sand and finely ground nut flours). 
2.    Mix water, eggs, ground flaxseed, salt, honey, and vinegar in the bottom of your Bread Machine pan.  Use a fork to break up the eggs and mix the ground flaxseed in well.  Let sit 2 minutes before adding the dry ingredients.
3.    Add coconut oil, coconut flour, ground pepitas, tapioca and arrowroot flour on top of wet ingredients.  Sprinkle yeast on top of the flour (or follow your Bread Machine’s directions).
4.    Use the whole wheat cycle on your Bread Machine.  Very Important:  My Bread Machine had a hard time mixing these ingredients because the dough is fairly stiff.  Check during the initial knead that the ingredients are mixing well and none are sticking to the edge of the pan (if they are, use a spatula to gently push them down into the rest of the dough and maybe even help mix the dough, depending on your machine). 
5.    Remove promptly after your Bread Machine is done.  Enjoy!

If you want to bake this bread without a Bread Machine, these instructions reflect the best results reported by those of you who left comments on my original yeast-based paleo bread recipe or sent me emails to report on your success:

1.       Proof your yeast by warming the water (should feel comfortably warm and not too hot) and adding the yeast to the water.   You can do this in the bottom of your mixing bowl.  It should start to foam in 5-10 minutes.
2.       Add the flax meal and the rest of the wet ingredients to the proofed yeast.  Let sit for 2 minutes.
3.       Add your dry ingredients and stir to fully incorporate (you may want to use a standing mixer with a paddle attachment or you could do this by hand).  It would be helpful if your ingredients were room temperature or slightly warmer.
4.       Let rise in a warm corner of your kitchen for 45 minutes to 1 hour.  A great way to rise bread is to put in on your oven with the oven off but the oven light on.
5.       Pour the batter into a greased standard-sized loaf pan.  Spread out the top evenly.
6.       Let rise another 45 minutes (toward the end of that time, take it out of the oven if that’s where it was and preheat your oven to 350F).
7.       Bake for 55-65 minutes, until golden brown on top and a toothpick comes out clean.

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