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February 2, 2013 in Cakes and Cupcakes, Decadent Desserts, Holiday Treats
Sometimes, there is just a need for a truly decadent dessert. And that’s where grain-free, dairy-free indulgences like this tiramisu come in! This was the dessert I made for Christmas dinner this year. Many of the recipes that I work on are recreations of old favorites. This recipe is inspired by this amazing genoise tiramisu that my husband and I used to get at an Italian restaurant close to the first apartment we shared. I’ve always been rather partial to genoise tiramisus (genoise is an Italian sponge cake), which I believe are actually more traditional (compared to ladyfinger versions). This makes a decadent yet light and truly delightful dessert. Serves 8-12.
Ingredients (genoise):
Ingredients (Cream Layers):
Ingredients (tiramisu):
December 22, 2012 in Decadent Desserts, Holiday Treats, Nut-Free Baking
Yes, you read that right. Paleo Chocolate Éclairs. Éclairs were one of my childhood favorite treats. If you aren’t familiar with the éclairs, they are pastry cream-filled puff pastries topped with chocolate. Drool! The recipe is at the bottom of this post, but don’t scroll too fast! Because first are some other great recipes to try too!
The choux pastry is made the traditional French way of creating an egg-rich batter on the stovetop, piping onto a cookie sheet and baking immediately. I’ll be honest up front: this is a bit of an arm workout. Once the puff pastry cools, you end up with hollow pockets of joy. To make éclairs, cut them in half and fill with vanilla pastry cream (I’ve included variations for chocolate and coffee pastry cream as well) then top with melted chocolate.
When I was a kid, a French friend of my mom’s used to make homemade éclairs and filled them with whipped cream instead of pastry cream (she actually used to make the most decadent version of strawberry short cake using choux pastry too). A delightful alternative to pastry cream is whipped heavy cream or coconut cream (sweeten or not, it’s up to you). I’ve also included some variations for flavored pastry creams.
Another possible variation of this recipe is to pipe silver dollar sized circles of choux pastry instead and then use an injector tip on your piping bag to fill them with pastry cream or whipped heavy cream. Voila! Puffballs! Stack them and drizzle with chocolate for a croquembouche to wow your friends.
Yields 16-20 4”-long éclairs. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a day. For longer storage, store in the fridge.
Ingredients (Pastry Cream):
For lighter pastry cream: fold in 1 cup softly whipped heavy cream or coconut cream to cooled pastry cream
For chocolate pastry cream: add 4oz of finely grated bittersweet or unsweetened chocolate to the hot pastry cream. Stir until melted.
For coffee pastry cream: add 1-2 Tbsp coffee powder (super fine grind) to the saucepan with the rest of the ingredients.
Ingredients (Choux Pastry):
Ingredients (Chocolate Coating):
December 13, 2012 in Candies and Confections, Holiday Treats, Nut-Free Baking
This recipe was inspired by a recipe I saw for grasshopper bark on pinterest. I immediately set to researching as many versions of dairy-free homemade white chocolate I could find. The best paleo white chocolate recipe to start with came from this recipe from the Paleo Parents (no weird sweeteners, no bizarre binders, just clean paleo… er, well, paleo with sugar). I have modified the recipe slightly to use less sugar (with that powerful mint flavor, you don’t need as much sugar). I also decided against the use of food coloring to make the white chocolate green, but you could definitely add that if you wanted to (in that case, I would use white sugar instead of evaporated cane juice so you get a brighter color).
I used unsweetened 100% dark chocolate for the base layer in this bark because I liked the contrast of the bitter dark chocolate and the sweet minty white chocolate. You could substitute a bittersweet chocolate if you prefer.
I don’t know how many servings to call this. Respectably, 4 or 5, but too easy for one person to gobble down before anyone even knows it’s been made (speaking from experience here…).
Ingredients (White Chocolate Layer):
Ingredients (Dark Chocolate Layer):
December 12, 2012 in Cookies, Holiday Treats
My husband and kids are in love with these gingerbread cut-out cookies. Out of the oven, they have a crisp outside with a soft chewy middle (unfortunately the crispy outside goes away after a day), a perfect texture for cut-outs. They also hold together extremely well, so I think they would even work if you wanted to make a gingerbread house with them (you’d have to adjust the cooking time for bigger pieces).
These are not too sweet (my husband describes them as “sweet enough, but not super sweet”), which is perfect if you want to add some sweeter decorations and great for those of us who have been eating paleo a while.
You could decorate with gluten-free cookie frostings, dried fruit, gluten-free candy, sugar decorations, melted and drizzled chocolate, or chocolate chips. I decorated my little gingerbread men with Enjoy Life brand mini chocolate chips (thanks to Bill and Haley from Food Lover’s Kitchen for the idea, and here’s a link to their gingerbread recipe for anyone who wants to try a different version). I simply placed the chocolate chips on the gingerbread fairly fresh out of the oven and still warm. The chocolate chips melted just enough to stick to the cookies (these didn’t stack terribly well in a cookie jar though). If you wanted to use something more like candies or sugar decorations, you can place those on the gingerbread men (or whatever shape you choose) before putting in the oven.
Yield: 2 dozen 3” gingerbread men
Ingredients:
Hypothetical Gingerbread Man Decorating Frosting: Okay, so I haven’t actually tried this. But, I mapped out a recipe based on traditional sugar cookie frosting, basically subbing out the icing sugar for a mix of powdered regular sugar and arrowroot powder. This would be something you could use to glue a gingerbread house together or do some pretty awesome cookie decoration. I normally don’t share recipes I haven’t tested out, but I thought some of you might like to try this. If you do, please comment and let me know how it works. I think if any adjustment is needed to this frosting recipe, it will be the addition of another 1 Tbsp of arrowroot powder.
Ingredients:
Blend sugar in a food processor or blender for 2-3 minutes until if forms a fine powder. Add sugar to rest of the ingredients. Beat with a hand mixer for 7-8 minutes until stiff. Add food coloring if desired. Use a piping bag to decorate. Store any leftovers with plastic wrap directly on the surface of the frosting.
December 10, 2012 in Cookies, Holiday Treats
(created as a guest post for Kate’s Healthy Cupboard)
Hermit cookies (also called fruitcake cookies) are a traditional cookie for any holiday cookie plate, mainly because they are so pretty with so many different colors of nuts and dried fruit, but still simple to make. They have a soft, cakey texture, a lovely spice that is so reminiscent of the season, and a nice chew factor from all the dried fruit. My version of holiday hermit cookies is technically Canadian-style because of the inclusion of chopped dates, but really, I’ve mixed it up so much compared to more traditional recipes that I guess we can just call these Paleo Mom-style. These cookies were a hit with my family (even my oldest daughter who usually only eats cookies with chocolate in them) so my original plans of freezing half the batch to save for Christmas were thwarted. I guess I’ll just have to make more (insert sarcastic “oh darn”).
I used muscovado sugar to sweeten these cookies. If you aren’t familiar, muscovado sugar is an unrefined richly dark brown sugar with a strong molasses flavor, also called Barbados sugar. I have found that the cheapest place to buy it is off of amazon, but my local Whole Foods sells it too. If you wanted, you could substitute evaporated cane juice with a touch of molasses (you’d have to play with quantities to replicate the texture that muscovado sugar gives these cookies).
You may notice that I got a little inventive with the nut and dried fruit combination with these cookies. It works really well! But, if you have a favorite dried fruit and nut combination for hermit cookies or fruitcake cookies, feel free to make substitutions!
This cookie recipe is also what launched me into the holiday cookie-baking spirit this year. The simple act of making these cookies seemed to create the inspiration for a half dozen other recipes (I will be posting holiday cookie recipes all week this week and maybe next week too!). Maybe it was how great the house smelled while these were baking. Somehow these cookies make it feel like Christmas time. I hope you enjoy them as much as my family did! Yield: 2 dozen.
Ingredients:
October 20, 2012 in Decadent Desserts, Holiday Treats
Pumpkin pie has always been my all-time favorite dessert (and breakfast, for that matter). And, I have to admit that I am a bit of a pumpkin pie snob. In my pre-paleo days, I was well-known among my friends and family for making The Best pumpkin pie. It was a pie that converted many non-pumpkin pie lovers. Many people would say that the only pumpkin pie they liked was mine. My recipe was a secret, but it was based on my mother’s recipe, which was a family recipe modified to accommodate my brother’s extensive food allergies.
I can give you the secrets to my old pumpkin pie recipe now, since I won’t be making it that way ever again. Because my brother was allergic to cinnamon, the spices were modified to replace it. As chance would have it, leaving the cinnamon out actually enhances the flavor of the pumpkin rather than hide it (you could of course, substitute my spices in this recipe with your favorite combination for pumpkin pie). Because my brother was allergic to dairy, the standard evaporated milk was replaced with soy-based baby formula, which added a wonderful richness and slight nuttiness to the pie. These modifications made the tastiest, creamiest, most awesome pie ever. And it was always our tradition to have pumpkin pie for breakfast the morning after Thanksgiving. Yum!
So, when I embarked on my adventure to paleofy pumpkin pie, I didn’t want to create just another pumpkin pie recipe. Plenty of people have paloefied pumpkin pie simply by replacing the evaporated milk with full fat coconut milk and throwing it into an almond flour crust. No, I wanted to recreate MY pumpkin pie. The Best Pumpkin Pie. I wanted to make a pie that you can serve your non-paleo friends and family and they would never know! A pie that can convert non-pumpkin pie lovers!
This pie is a very creamy-style custard pumpkin pie, which has always been my preference (think thick mousse). If you prefer a more solid pumpkin pie, simply reduce the water (you can add more pumpkin to replace the volume if you wish, but it is not necessary).
Because the goal was a pie so good that you can serve it to non-paleo company, this is a bit sweeter than I would normally make for a paleo dessert (not that it’s super sweet, it’s actually the same amount of sweeteners as other paleo pumpkin pie recipes out there– but you will definitely feel like you’re having a treat). You could cut the honey and maple syrup down to 1/3 cup total if you wanted and just add a couple extra tablespoons of water.
I actually got the custard the way I wanted it on the third try with this pie. The biggest trick was the crust. I tried a few different paleo pie crust recipes (anyone who follows me on Pinterest knows I was collecting different versions of paleo pie crusts to use as a foundation to build from). And tried several tweaks of a shortening-based version, which tasted great but remained too soft and crumbly. In the end, I came up with a crust that tasted great (especially in combination with the pumpkin custard), had the right texture, and held together beautifully. I hope you enjoy my version of pumpkin pie as much as my family and I do!
Note: If you want to just make the pumpkin custard, you don’t need the extra yolk leftover from making the crust. It will work just fine with 3 whole eggs.
Makes one 9” pie.
Ingredients (Pie Crust):
Ingredients (Pumpkin Pie):
April 6, 2012 in Holiday Treats, Paleo Bread
I associate hot cross buns with Easter even more than I do candy and chocolate (even creme eggs!). We used to buy these amazing traditional buns full of raisins and candied citrus rind
A note on candied citrus rind: The recipe for candied citrus rind below makes enough rind for two batches of paleo hot cross buns. You could also buy this
Ingredients (Candied Orange and Lemon Rind):
1. Zest the oranges and lemons using a Channel Knife
2. Place zest into a small saucepot. Cover with water and bring to a boil. Reduce temperature to low and simmer, uncovered for 30 minutes, until tender.
3. Drain water (This is tasty stuff, so keep it and find a use for it. I used mine to flavor some kombucha, but you could also substitute some of the mineral water in the hot cross buns recipe). Add honey to the saucepot. The honey should come up to a simmer fairly quickly even on low heat.
4. Simmer on low, uncovered, for 30-40 minutes, stirring very occasionally.
5. Drain honey syrup off the rind, but keep this honey for the bread dough. Store in the fridge until ready to make hot cross buns.
Ingredients (The Cross Dough):
1. Mix all ingredients together in a small bowl. Place into a Piping Bag
Ingredients (Hot Cross Buns):
(or currants)1. Mix mineral water, eggs, ground flaxseed, salt, honey, pectin and spices in the bottom of your Bread Machine
2. Add coconut oil, almond flour, 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 dough cycle on your Bread Machine. 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).
4. When your bread machine signals time to add ingredients (toward the end of the initial knead), add the raisings and citrus rind.
5. Grease two muffin pans generously with palm shortening (18-20 of the cups). When the dough cycle is complete, spoon large spoons of the sticky dough into the muffin cups (should fill 18-20 muffin cups about two thirds of the way to the top). It can help to grease your spoon with palm shortening. Grease your fingers with palm shortening and smooth out any bumps in the dough surface. Don’t give into the temptation to try and squeeze all this dough into one dozen buns (trust me!).
6. Let rise in a warm corner of your kitchen for 50 minutes to 1 hour. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 375F.
7. Pipe the Cross Dough in a big X over the top of each bun.
8. Place in the oven and bake 18-20 minutes until golden brown.
9. Remove from muffin tins fairly promptly after removing from the oven (say, within 5 minutes). I use a butter knife to gently pry each one loose instead of just dumping them all out because the crosses are a bit fragile (less fragile once it cools). Enjoy!
Do you need help finding any ingredients? Check out Important Pantry Items for the Paleo Baker.
March 30, 2012 in Candies and Confections, Holiday Treats
Cadbury Creme Eggs are my all-time favorite treat. In the past (like when I was 120 pounds heavier than I am now), I would start buying them as soon as they were available in the stores before Easter and stock-pile them for the months afterward (I would literally eat 2-3 every day for months). So to see them appear in the stores this year (full of crazy amounts of sugar and dozens of ingredients that my family and I just don’t eat anymore) filled me with a mixed sense of nostalgia, revulsion, and temptation. It quickly became my obsession to create a version of these with something like one third the sugar content and without any gut-irritating ingredients. Now, I feel like I can indulge that creme egg craving, without causing serious damage to my gut and without completely derailing my efforts to be healthy.
Yes, this recipe contains sugar. If you’re wondering about the use of sugar in a paleo treat, you might want to check out Is Sugar Paleo? and maybe TPM Tidbit: How I Feel about Paleofied Baked Goods. Also, this recipe makes at least 4 dozen creme eggs, so it works out to just less than 2.5 tsp of sugar per egg (compared to about 6 tsp of sugar in the Cadbury version).
The first step for making creme eggs is to make a fondant. Two tools that you absolutely need for making fondant are a Oil & Candy Thermometer
This fondant recipe makes enough fondant for about 4 dozen creme eggs (depending on the size of your Candy Mold
A note on assembly: the instructions are lengthy, but I assure you these are quite easy to make. This was my first time making fondant and my first time working with Candy Molds
Ingredients (Honey Fondant):
, but your “whites” won’t be as light)
(you will get even whiter “whites” than I did if you use Clear Vanilla
)1. Combine sugar, honey and 1 cup of water into a pot with a Oil & Candy Thermometer
2. Bring to a boil over low heat. You might want to stir a couple of times at the beginning but once it starts to simmer, don’t stir it.
3. The temperature will slowly increase. Bring it up to 238F-240F and then immediately remove it from the heat. It should take something like 15 minutes to get up to temperature.
4. Pour into the metal bowl of your standing mixer and mix at low speed with flat beater or paddle blade.
5. During the first five minutes of mixing, slowly add the extra ¼ cup water and then the vanilla (just a few drops at a time).
6. Let the fondant slowly mix while it cools down to room temperature. This will take roughly forever, depending on the temperature of your kitchen (well, maybe 30 minutes, but it will likely feel like forever). Pour into an airtight container and let it sit at room temperature for 12 hours, or overnight.
Ingredients (Creme Egg Center):
)
1. Mix room temperature fondant with palm shortening. Divide creme into two bowls, roughly 2/3 in one bowl (for the whites) and 1/3 in the second bowl (for the yolks).
2. Add turmeric to the 1/3 bowl. Mix well (makes a lovely yellow color but the dominant flavor is still the vanilla).
3. If you are going to use molds for assembly, chill the yellow creme in the fridge for at least 1 hour but leave the white creme at room temperature. If you are going to shape my hand, chill both in the fridge.
Ingredients (Creme Eggs):
and 2 squares of Semi-Sweet Chocolate
to get about 85%).Candy Mold
1. Melt chocolate on low heat in a small saucepan, double boiler or in the microwave on medium power. Let it cool until quite thick (the warmer it is, the thinner your chocolate shell will be)
2. Using the back of a teaspoon, a small spatula, a pastry brush, or a clean paint brush, coat your mold.
3. Place in the freezer for 1-2 minutes for the chocolate to harden. Remove from the freezer.
4. Spoon enough white creme into the mold to fill about ¾ of the way to the top (a little more than 1 tsp in my molds).
5. Use a spoon or small scoop (a Melon Baller
6. Coast the second mold with chocolate. Place in the freezer for 1-2 minutes to harden.
7. Using a small paint brush or back of a spoon, add a little melted chocolate around the rim of each egg half (this is the glue that will hold the two halves together).
8. Spoon white creme into the molds, filling about 1/2-3/4 of the way. You might want to try one or two to get the amount right. Too much will spill out when you assemble the two halves, too little won’t be the end of the world but you’ll have a bit of a hollow egg.
9. Remove the yolk halves from the freezer. Gently pop out of the molds and ease it onto the new halves you just made.
10. If you have molds like mine with a stick hole for lollypops, use a little melted chocolate and a small brush to paint over the hole with chocolate. Also paint over any part of the seam where you can see the two halves didn’t join well.
11. Put the eggs back in the freezer and let harden 20 minutes before popping out of the molds.
12. Repeat until you have used up all your creme (or have as many creme eggs as you want). Store in the fridge or freezer until you are ready to eat them (they taste best at room temperature but don’t take very long to thaw).
Free Form Method (for if you don’t want to buy molds):
1. Make a small ball of yellow creme (a Melon Baller
2. Use about twice as much white as you have yellow and use your hands to press all around the yolk and form into an egg shape (remind you of playing with play d’oh?).
3. Place on a baking sheet or plate gently insert a toothpick or kabab skewer into one end of your creme balls.
4. Put in the freezer for at least 20 minutes to harden.
5. Melt chocolate on low heat in a small saucepan, double boiler or in the microwave on medium power. Let it cool until quite thick (the warmer it is, the thinner your chocolate shell will be)
6. Remove creme balls from freezer and dip into melted chocolate. Roll back and forth while the chocolate hardens. Place back on the plate and put them back into the freezer for another 10-20 minutes.
7. Remove from the freezer. Remove the toothpick or skewer. Paint over the hole with a little extra chocolate.
8. Repeat until you have used up all your creme (or have as many creme eggs as you want). Store in the fridge or freezer until you are ready to eat them (they taste best at room temperature but don’t take very long to thaw).
December 15, 2011 in Cakes and Cupcakes, Decadent Desserts, Holiday Treats
It may seem a bit strange to follow a post on eating low-carb with a recipe for a dessert! But Christmas is only 10 days away and I felt it was important to provide you with a wonderful paleo dessert recipe that, while maybe being higher carb than you would want for a regular night, is way way way lower carb than most traditional holiday desserts (there is less than a cup of sugar in the whole thing!).
Ingredients (jellyroll filling):
1. Place berries and mango pieces in a saucepan and bring to a simmer over low heat.
2. Simmer uncovered for 20 minutes, until juices are thick and mango is very soft.
3. Blend with an immersion blender or food processor until smooth.
4. Cool completely before spreading on cake.
Ingredients (jellyroll cake):
1. Prepare a 12”x18” rimmed baking sheet by lining with wax paper and heavily greasing the wax paper with extra virgin coconut oil. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. In the large bowl of a standing mixer, beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Add 1/3 cup sugar gradually and continue to mix until stiff peaks form.
3. In a separate, small bowl, beat egg yolks with the remaining 1/3 cup sugar and vanilla until thick. Whisk in coconut and almond flour.
4. Fold yolk mixture into egg mixture, being careful not to lose too much volume, until incorporated.
5. Spread batter out onto prepared baking sheet. Take the time to spread the surface evenly and into the corners.
6. Bake for 16-17 minutes, until top is just starting to turn golden brown. Meanwhile, lay out a piece of parchment paper (roughly the size of your baking sheet), cover with a large tea towel and another layer of parchment paper.
7. Remove cake from oven and immediately invert over parchment. Carefully peel off the wax paper. Starting from one of the shorter sides, roll the cake up in the parchment/tea towel. Let the rolled-up cake fully cool on a wire rack.
8. Once completely cooled, gently unroll the cake. Remove the parchment and tea towel. Spread the top side evenly with the cooled jellyroll filling. Roll the cake back up.
9. Wrap up the jellyroll in parchment or wax paper and refrigerate, seam side down, until ready to assemble the trifle (at least 1 hour, or overnight).
Ingredients (Coconut Custard):
1. Split vanilla bean down the middle and place in a saucepan. Add coconut milk and bay leaves.
2. Heat coconut milk slowly over low heat until very steamy and just shy of simmering.
3. Add a ladle of the hot coconut milk to the beaten eggs while stirring the eggs vigorously. Then add the egg mixture back to the saucepan, stirring constantly.
4. Continue to stir constantly until custard thickens (should coat a wooden spoon), about 4-5 minutes.
5. Remove from heat. Remove bay leaves and discard. Remove vanilla bean halves, scrape the inside of the vanilla beans with a sharp knife to collect the vanilla seeds and add back into the custard. Discard the vanilla bean pod.
6. Once cooled, add honey and mix well.
7. Refrigerate until cold before assembling the trifle.
Ingredients (the trifle):
1. Slice the jellyroll into ¾” slices (so you see the lovely spiral of the fruit filling).
2. Line a glass bowl with the jellyroll slices. For a really nice presentation, you might want to cut a few jellyroll slices in half for the bottom to help prop the other slices up on the sides. Place any extra cake in the bottom of the bowl.
3. Carefully drizzle each piece of cake with rum. (For family-friendly option: heat ¾ cup good quality dark rum in a wide-bottomed saucepan or skillet on the stove on low heat. When it starts to steam, remove to a well-ventillated area (like outside!) and carefully light it on fire (use a barbecue lighter, extra-long match/taper, or kitchen blowtorch). Let it burn, swirling the pan gently every once in a while, until the flames go out by themselves. You should be left with about 1/3 cup of lovely very low-alcohol rum. Let it cool before drizzling on the cake.)
4. Fill the inside of the bowl with the fruit (slice any bigger berries, if needed)
5. Poor the cooled custard over the fruit in the middle of the bowl. Place some extra fruit on the top for a garnish. Garnish with mint leaves, if using.
Do you need help finding any ingredients? Check out Important Pantry Items for the Paleo Baker.
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