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Genoise-Style Paleo Tiramisu

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.

Genoise-Style Paleo Tiramisu | The Paleo Mom

Ingredients (genoise):

 

  1. Prepare a 12”x18” rimmed baking sheet by lining with wax paper and heavily greasing the wax paper with extra virgin coconut oil or palm shortening.  Preheat oven to 350F.
  2. Blend evaporated cane juice in a blender for 1-2 minutes, until it’s a fine powder.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5.  Fold yolk mixture into egg mixture, being careful not to lose too much volume, until incorporated.
  6. Spread batter out onto prepared baking sheet.  Take the time to spread the surface evenly and into the corners.
  7. Bake for 16-17 minutes, until top is just starting to turn golden brown.
  8. Remove cake from oven and immediately invert over a couple of wire cooling racks.  Carefully peel off the wax paper.   Let the genoise fully cool on the wire rack.

Ingredients (Cream Layers):

 

  1. Combine coconut milk, egg yolks, honey, arrowroot powder, coconut oil and lemon juice in a large saucepan and whisk together.
  2. Then put the saucepan on the stovetop and heat over medium-low heat, whisking constantly.  You want to heat until just shy of boiling point.  The cream will start to steam slightly and then start to thicken.  Once it becomes thick and gooey, remove from heat (takes 7-8 minutes if you put it on a preheated element).
  3. Pour into two bowls, 1/3 in one bowl (this is about 3/4 cup) and 2/3 in another (about 1 1/2 cups).
  4. To the 1/3 bowl, stir in the grated chocolate and vanilla until melted and fully incorporated.  To the 2/3 bowl, stir in cognac until fully incorporated.  You can let the cream cool and whip in a standing mixer for a lighter texture, or just layer with the genoise as is.

Ingredients (tiramisu):

  • genoise
  • chocolate and cognac cream
  • 1 1/4 cup strong coffee (a good espresso is ideal), cooled
  • 3 Tbsp cognac (again you can substitute dark rum or dry sherry)
  • unsweetened cocoa powder for dusting
  1. Cut the cooled genoise into four equal pieces (you can either do a long rectangle or a wider, shorter one, up to you).
  2. Place the pieces of genoise back on the rimmed baking sheet.  Mix coffee and cognac and pour over the entire genoise, making sure not to miss any! (alternately, you can douse each layer as you assemble the tiramisu).
  3. On your serving plate, carefully move over one piece of coffee-soaked genoise.  Spread half of the cognac cream over the top (the cream is actually easier to spread either warm or cooled and whipped; cooled and not whipped is the hardest to spread).  Place another coffee-soaked genoise layer on top.  Spread out the chocolate cream.  Add Another layer of cake.  Spread out the rest of the cognac cream.  Place the last layer of cake.
  4. Just before serving, dust the top generously with unsweetened cocoa powder.
  5. Enjoy!

 

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Happy New Year! My Resolutions, Some Reflections, and Some Changes…

December 31, 2012 in 2012

Happy New Year!  I hope you are all having a marvelous holiday season, filled with fun, family, friends, relaxation and joy!

I have greatly enjoyed my week off, although it has flown by with me accomplishing very few of the things I wanted to do over the past week.  I did get to sleep in one day, made it to one yoga class, and I did get to go see a movie (like a real movie in an actual movie theater!).  My days were mostly taken up with the bustle of the season–lots of cooking (and eating!), opening presents, overstimulated children, visiting with my mom, and shopping.  But, also my oldest daughter is currently quite ill, which has meant the last couple of days were taken up with a doctor’s appointment, runs to the drugstore, surviving on very disrupted sleep, finding things for a bored sick kid to do, and tons of extra cuddles (she’s getting better though! phew!).

Do I feel recharged?  A little.  But not completely.  If I was a battery, the red light would still be on on the charger and you’d be starting to wonder if I can even hold a full charge any more.  I can.  Just leave me plugged in a little longer…

But, even if I don’t feel particularly rested or energetic, I do feel really jazzed about some upcoming projects and ideas for the blog for the New Year.

This past week has given me the opportunity to spend some time reflecting.  Reflection comes naturally to me this time of year.  I am a resolution-setter (and very typically, I really do follow through with my resolutions too).  I don’t limit resolution-making to New Year’s, but I do have a habit of saving the most challenging resolutions for January.  So, as I contemplate my priorities for 2013, I have been thinking quite a bit both about my accomplishments over the past year but also my plans moving forward.

My blog has grown dramatically over the last year.  I feel so grateful to all of you for reading, sharing and connecting with me.  I am greatly looking forward to continuing with informative and impactful posts.  I love being able to answer your individual questions.   My skills in the kitchen have improved substantially over the past year, as I get more and more comfortable with paleo ingredients.  I have some awesome ideas for exciting new recipes to try out.  At the beginning of last year, I was so nervous to be a guest on Low-Carb Conversations with Jimmy Moore.  Now I co-host a podcast, which I love, both for the time I get to spend with Matt and Stacy from www.PaleoParents.com but also for the ability to reach and help so many.  I’ve been doing guest posts and interviews galore and will be a guest on the Balanced Bites Podcast for a special autoimmune protocol-themed show in late January.  I gave a rockin’ awesome seminar at 4.0 Martial Arts in Sandy Springs (was that seriously only a week and a half ago?) and have plans for more seminars.  Oh yeah, and the new huge project that I’m going to tell you all about in about three weeks.   Whenever I stop to think about what my little blog has turned into in 14 months, I am blown away by how crazy awesome this all is!

All of this started in my spare time while my kids were napping and in the evenings after they go to bed.  But over the last few months, the time commitment has increased dramatically (and my youngest gave up naps, dangit).  I seem to have slowly made the transition from full-time stay-at-home mom to full-time working mom (but without the paycheck to go with it).  And trying to do and be everything for everyone has started to impact my health.   It’s time for me to start evaluating the best uses of my time and sort out my priorities.

When I started my blog, I never imagined I would ever have to choose what I spent my time on.  It’s amazing to me and I consider this dilemma a privilege. Thank you!!!

Don’t be afraid!  I am not stopping!  Blogging has become part of my identity.  I love it.  I love researching topics, writing, drawing, sharing.  I love developing and sharing recipes and hearing about your successes with them.  I love connecting with you all through blog comments, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.  And my blog will continue to be and will always be completely open and free (ugh, unless you are viewing my blog with IE and then there’s a compatibility problem that I would totally fix that if I had any idea how to do so).  But, I do need to scale back to free up time for my growing list of other endeavors.

I’m going to scale back one post per week (from 6 to 5 posts per week).  Even just posting one less post per week is going to free up 6-8 hours of my time for my other projects, and for making sure that sleep, exercise and spending time with my kids remains a priority.  My plan is to try this for a few weeks and then reevaluate to see if I need to scale back more (fingers crossed that this will give me enough time to work on my other projects!).

Making sure I keep balance in my life is my number one New Year’s Resolution this year.  I’m not sure if an earlier bedtime is realistic for me right now, so I’m tweaking my supplements (mainly adding some adrenal support supplements) and am going to reduce my consumption of green and black tea (with my adrenal glands in mind).  I am going to try to find more short time commitments for exercise on a daily basis (since at best I seem to be making it to only two yoga classes each week and only two good walks per week), which means simply finding small chunks of time to add things like a few sun salutes, or some push-ups, burpees, and/or lunges scattered throughout my day.  I am also going to commit to doing at least 5 minutes of mindful meditation every day.

I have one more BIG resolution.  I am going to do a modified 21-Day Sugar Detox starting tomorrow (Wednesday’s post will be dedicated to talking about why, what and how).   I am excited to be joining the biggest group of 21-Day Sugar Detoxers ever this year and will be the featured blogger for January on The 21-Day Sugar Detox Blog (woot!).  I will be sharing my experiences through the next three weeks here on the blog and also on my Facebook page, the 21-Day Sugar Detox Facebook page and Twitter.  If you are interested in learning more about the 21-Day Sugar Detox, click here.

I hope that you understand my need to scale back on the number of posts I produce each week.  I really just need to free up time for my other endeavors that doesn’t take away from things I need to do to stay healthy (like exercise, sleep, and enjoy life).  I figure I wouldn’t be very inspirational, if I didn’t practice what I preach.  Plus, I feel that most of you appreciate quality over quantity, if you have to choose between them.  But, I really see this change as being positive.  What started as “just” a blog has become so much more.  And I don’t mean more in terms of actual projects or time commitment (although that’s true too)… I mean more.  More important, more meaningful,  more fulfilling.  And that makes me so excited for 2013!  Happy New Year!

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Orange-Cranberry Muffins

December 17, 2012 in Muffins and Coffee Cakes

The inspiration for these muffins came from a coffee cake that my mom used to make every year during the holidays.  Slices of orangey yellow cake with bright red cranberries were always so beautiful on any Christmas baking plate.  My mom used to also make loaves of this bread and wrap in beautiful paper to give to neighbors.  It’s just one of those flavors that makes me feel like it’s Christmas.

This simple holiday treat turned out to be a very challenging recipe to adapt to paleo ingredients.  And I really wanted to make something that tasted like my mom’s orange-cranberry bread (which meant I wasn’t willing to give up any of the components of her recipe that contribute to that perfect combination of orange, cranberry and almond).

A whole lot of experimentation with this recipe as a coffee cake ended up with many failures (they either tasted great but were too crumbly to slice or they sliced well but didn’t taste great and a couple of variations were too crumbly and also tasted terrible!).  The move to muffin form saved this recipe.  These muffins are sweet but have a wonderful tart zing (yes, that’s the technical term).

If you want to eat these muffins warm (which is pretty wonderful), use paper or silicone muffin cup liners in your muffin pan.  If you are patient enough to let them cool completely before removing from the pan, a well-greased muffin pan will suffice (I suggest greasing with palm shortening, but coconut oil works relatively well too).

Yields 12 muffins.

 

Ingredients:

  1. Preheat oven to 350F.  Prepare a muffin pan by either greasing very well or by lining with paper liners or silicone muffin cup liners.  (you could also use a silicone muffin pan)
  2. In a small bowl, combine coconut flour, almond flour, salt, baking soda, and cream of tartar.
  3. In a large bowl, combine eggs, melted coconut oil, orange zest, orange juice concentrate, and sugar in a bowl.  Mix well.
  4. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and stir to combine.
  5. Fold in cranberries and almonds.  Spoon into prepared muffin pan.
  6. Bake for 30-35 minutes.  If not using muffin cups, cool completely in pan before removing.

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Dark Chocolate Shortbread Cookies (Sandies or Meltaways)

December 15, 2012 in Cookies, Nut-Free Baking

These dark chocolate shortbread cookies were actually an accident. They were one of the variations that I came up with (#3 to be exact) while I was trying to create my Decadent Double Chocolate Cookies (Nut-free, Coconut-free, Egg-free).  My first thought was complete disappointment that the texture was so crumbly and melty and shortbread like, even more “short” than the two variations previous.  Man!  This recipe has two eggs in it!  How can it make a shortbread!  I was frustrated (I was trying to develop a chewy cookie after all).  However, the flavor was so good that I decided to shelf that variation for future recipe development.  And this is the result!   A super luxurious dark chocolate shortbread cookie.  Drizzled with homemade white chocolate.  Perfect!

These are a dark chocolate cookie and they aren’t very sweet (but super chocolaty!).  If you want to make them sweeter, you can use semisweet chocolate instead of bittersweet.  You could also add a Mexican chocolate kick to these by adding some cayenne pepper and cinnamon.

The white chocolate drizzle is a modification of this recipe from Paleo Parents (the only real modification is that I use less sugar).  I used evaporated cane juice to sweeten the sugar wich gives it an almost caramel color.  If you want a whiter white chocolate (which would be good if you wanted to add coloring), I would suggest using white sugar.  You could also melt white chocolate chips ( Lieber’s Decorating Chips and VeganSweets White Chocolate Chips are dairy-free) or use dark chocolate instead or just leave the cookies plain.

For those with sensitivities, these cookies are nut-free and coconut-free!  The recipe doesn’t even use starches!

Yield: 1 dozen

Ingredients (Dark Chocolate Shortbread):

 

  1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
  2. Melt chocolate and palm shortening together in the microwave or on low heat on the stovetop.  Let the chocolate cool slightly (maybe 4-5 minutes) before adding the rest of the ingredients.
  3. Stir in vanilla and cocoa powder.
  4. Add eggs one at a time mixing very quickly as you add them so that they do not scramble.  Add the rest of the ingredients and mix thoroughly.
  5. Form cookie patties by spooning rounded tablespoonfuls onto a cookie sheet (it’s okay if the dough is still warm). Flatten with your hand or the back of a spatula or bottom of a glass, to about ¼” or slightly thicker.  These cookies don’t spread much while baking so whatever shape you make them now will be pretty much the finished shape.
  6. Bake for 9 minutes.  Remove from oven and let cool completely on cookie sheet or a wire rack.
  7. Once cooled, drizzle with paleo white chocolate.  You could also drizzle with dark chocolate or eat them as is!

 

Ingredients (Paleo White Chocolate):

 

  1. Blend sugar in a food processor or blender until it forms a fine white powder (I used a Magic Bullet).  Mix sugar with arrowroot powder and set aside.
  2. Melt cocoa butter in microwave or over low heat on stovetop.  This takes longer than you think, so keep setting the microwave for one more minute, stir and check, one more minute, etc.  I think it took about 3 minutes in total, but it would depend on how big your chucks of cocoa butter are.
  3. Once the cocoa butter is melted, mix in sugar and arrowroot powder a little bit at a time whisking thoroughly to help the sugar dissolve.  If you wanted you could add a few drops of flavoring (vanilla, orange oil, cinnamon…  peppermint oil would completely rock and be like a Girl Scout Thin Mint in reverse! See my White and Dark Paleo Mint Chocolate Bark bark recipe).
  4. Let the white chocolate cool until it is still warm enough to be liquid but thick enough to drizzle. Place your cookies on a plate or piece of parchment paper (not touching each other) and use a spoon and drizzle over dark chocolate shortbread.  Let cool until hardened.  Enjoy!

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