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Paleo Crepes with “Nutella”

September 22, 2012 in Breakfast, Lunchbox Foods

This is the recipes that I was trying to perfect when I accidentally created my Perfect Paleo Pancake recipe.  Creating a paleo crepe has been a goal of mine for a few months and I am so happy to finally be able to share a truly delicious paleo crepe recipe with you!  This is yet another green plantain-based recipe (see my Plantain Cracker recipe for tips on storing plantains).

Crepes were always a special treat growing up.  We didn’t own a crepe maker so my mom made them the old fashioned way in our old cast iron frying pan.  I always liked them plain with just a dusting of icing sugar on top.  My brothers usually ate them with jam in the middle.  As an adult, I rediscovered crepes while gallivanting through Paris with my then fiancé (now husband).  Crepes are a standard street food in France and that’s when I discovered the sheer joy of a nutella-filled crepe (nutella is a chocolate hazelnut spread and one of my greatest weaknesses before discovering paleo).  Two great loves thus combined into one delicious diabetes-inducing addiction.  So, creating a paleo version of this favorite treat makes me very, very happy.

These crepes are nut-free (and coconut-free if you substitute another oil for the coconut oil), although clearly the paleo nutella isn’t.  Other delicious fillings or sides for crepes are fresh fruit, fruit spreads (like jam or coulis), coconut cream (the top fatty half of a can of full-fat coconut milk), coconut cream mixed with lemon juice, and nut butters.  You can also try a savory filling with these crepes or even use these crepes in place of tortillas for enchiladas.   You could even roll some deli meat and paleo mayo or mustard into these crepes for a fun lunchbox food!

Crepes are easiest to make with a crepe maker or a crepe pan.  However, these specialty kitchen tools are not a necessity.  I made my crepes with a 12” non-stick omelet pan (the edges are at a good angle for getting underneath the crepe to flip it).  Sure, it’s more work and my crepes are not as thin or even as they would be with a crepe maker, but it still works for me.  But, if you find yourself wanting to make these often, investing in a crepe maker is definitely worth it.  This recipe makes 6-7 crepes and is easily doubled.

Ingredients (Paleo “Nutella”):

 

  1. Blend hazelnuts in food processor or blender for 2-3 minutes until a paste begins to form.
  2. Melt chocolate and coconut oil together (you can use a small saucepan over low heat or your microwave).
  3. Add warm chocolate to hazelnuts and blend an additional 2-3 minutes until completely smooth.  Let cool.  Store at room temperature for up to a few days or in the refrigerator for a few months.

 

Ingredients (Nut-Free Paleo Crepes):

 

  1. Peel plantains (I find it easiest to quarter them first) and place in a blender or food processor with the rest of the ingredients.
  2. Puree batter for 2 minutes until completely smooth.
  3. Meanwhile, heat a crepe maker, crepe pan, or omelet pan over medium to medium-high heat (I set my element to 6).
  4. Add 1 tsp of coconut oil to the pan for each crepe (just enough that the crepe doesn’t stick, but not so much that the batter can’t spread out when you swirl the pan).  Add 3-4 Tbsp of batter (you could use a ¼ cup scoop or just eyeball it) to the pan and immediately hold the pan up over the element while you swirl/angle the pan so that the batter spreads out into a uniform circle. (If you have a crepe pan, use the spreader to spread out the batter.  If you have a crepe maker, follow the directions.)
  5. Cook for 45-75 seconds on the first side, until the top looks dry.  Flip and cook for 15-30 seconds on the second side.
  6. Add more coconut oil to the pan and repeat with the remaining batter.
  7. For nutella crepes, spread 2-3 Tbsp of paleo “nutella” over one side of the crepe and roll or fold.
  8. Enjoy!

 

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Perfect Paleo Pancakes

September 15, 2012 in Breakfast, Featured Recipes, Nut-Free Baking

These hotcake-style pancakes were a serendipitous accident.  I was working on a crepe recipe (which I will be posting soon!) and my first attempt was not crepe-like at all, but a light fluffy and delicious, if maybe a little too thin, pancake.  Once my crepe recipe was perfected, my next priority became to take a step backward and see if I could thicken up the first batter variation to make an even better pancake.  The results were more marvelous than I could have hoped for.  These pancakes are awesome.

One of the biggest complaints about paleo pancakes is that they are difficult to flip.  Because almond flour batters don’t hold together very well, you have to make small 2-3” diameter pancakes that also take an eternity to cook.  Coconut-flour pancakes hold together marginally better, but many people don’t like either the texture or the flavor (including me) and they still take 15-20 minutes to cook over low heat so they don’t burn on the outside before cooking on the inside.  Paleo pancakes also tend to be very dense.  I have tried 7 or 8 different paleo pancake recipes from other blogs, looking for one that works or was at least close enough to use as a base to experiment with.  I never found one I liked… until now!

These plantain-based pancakes are not dense; instead they are so light and fluffy.  They cook quickly (about 6 minutes total, which is comparable to traditional pancakes).  They are so easy to flip that you can make them as big as your pan (I made mine 5-6” in diameter) or as small and dainty as you like.  They also happen to be nut-free (and you can sub any fat you want for the coconut oil to make them coconut free).  See my recipe for plantain crackers for tips on picking and storing green plantains.

What can you top these with?  My kids love maple syrup and butter (total shocker, right?), but berries, sliced peaches, sliced bananas, pretty much any sliced fruit would be delicious.  Nuts or a dust of cinnamon would be good additions too!  You could throw some coconut cream on top to be extra decadent (you can buy coconut cream in a box or you can take the thick fatty top part of a can of full fat coconut milk that has been sitting in a cool pantry or refrigerator overnight).  However you choose to dress these pancakes, I hope you enjoy them!  This recipe makes 6 large (5-6”) pancakes.

 

Ingredients:

 

  1. Peel plantains (I find it easier to quarter them before I peel them) and place pieces in your blender or food processor.
  2. Add the rest of the ingredients to the blender or food processor and process until it forms a smooth batter (about 1-2 minutes).
  3. Heat 1 Tbsp of coconut oil in a frying pan or on a griddle over medium-high heat.  Pour batter into the frying pan until your pancake is the desired size.
  4. Let cook 4-5 minutes on the first side, until the top looks fairly dry with little bubbles in it (just like regular pancakes!).
  5. Flip!  And cook on the second side for 1½-2minutes.
  6. Repeat with remaining batter, adding a little more coconut oil to your pan as needed.

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Perfect Pumpkin Pancakes

June 4, 2012 in Breakfast, Nut-Free Baking

I was first introduced to pumpkin pancakes at a Bed & Breakfast in Tucson, Arizona in the summer of 2005.  Prior to that revelation, I wasn’t particularly fond of pancakes.  Afterward, I was obsessed with trying to create the perfect pumpkin pancake.  Pumpkin pancakes are tricky.  In order to get enough pumpkin into the batter to have a good flavor, you need some strong binders to hold the batter together.  This was hard back even in the days when I poured gluten into everything.  Combined with how tricky paleo pancakes are in general, you would think that creating a paleo pumpkin pancake would be an impossible task.  Paleo pancakes have to be made small and are hard to flip.  Pumpkin pancakes take forever to cook and are hard to flip.  But these paleo pumpkin pancakes are perfect (try saying that five times fast!).  They are easy enough to handle that you can make them a decent size, they have a great spongy and not too soft texture, and they have a terrific pumpkin flavor.  The secret was to use Pumpkin Powder, which is simply ground dehydrated pumpkin.  I have used store-bought pumpkin powder (which you can buy here or here) and I’ve made my own; both work equally well.

I’m not an expert pancake flipper, but I managed fairly well with these pancakes.  I used about 3 Tbsp of batter for each pancake, which made pancakes 3-4” in diameter.  This batter holds together well enough that you could make these pancakes even a little bigger if you have an extra wide pancake flipper (which I don’t).  I fried them in coconut oil in a non-stick skillet on slightly-cooler-than-medium-high heat.  As is the trick with any homemade pancake recipe, there is a sweet spot with the cooking temperature, where they cook slow enough that the bottom isn’t too brown when the top is dried enough to make flipping possible.  If the temperature is too cool, the pancakes absorb too much of the cooking fat and it changes the texture.  You might have to adjust the temperature a bit with your first batch or two until you know exactly what setting to use with your stove, your cooking fat, and your frying pan.  Also note that pumpkin pancakes are darker than regular pancakes in general.  As long as they aren’t black (or really dark brown), they’re fine.  These pancakes are delicious with butter and maple syrup, the cream from the top of a can of coconut milk, chopped fruit (banana is particularly nice) or just plain!  This recipe makes a dozen 3-4” pancakes.

To make my own pumpkin powder:  I placed pumpkin puree on a Fruit Roll Sheet in my Food Dehydrator and dried until it was completely dried to a crisp, about 18 hours.  I then broke the pumpkin into pieces, placed in my Magic Bullet (you could use a Blender or Food Processor) and pulsed until finely ground, about 30 seconds.  I have tried this with Canned Pumpkin and with homemade pumpkin puree (I cut pumpkins in quarters, remove the seeds, bake at 350F for 1-2 hours until the pumpkin is soft, let cool, scrape the cooked pumpkin meet off the rind, and puree with a hand blender or potato masher).

Variations:  I have also used Sweet Potato Powder in these pancakes and they were fantastic.  Note that sweet potato powder is quite different from sweet potato flour, which is a refined starch.  Again, you can make your own (see my Food Dehydrator post) or purchase it here.  I think these would work equally well with Squash Powder or Carrot Powder, obviously changing the taste with each variation.

Ingredients:

1.    Mix all ingredients together in a blender for about 30 seconds.
2.    Heat a non-stick or very well-seasoned cast iron skillet or griddle on medium-high heat (or slightly cooler than medium-high).
3.    Add about 2 Tbsp of coconut oil into the pan.  Pour batter into the pan, about 3 Tbsp per pancake, spacing far enough apart that the pancakes won’t touch as the spread.
4.    Cook for 6-8 minutes on the first side, until starting the batter is starting to look a little dry around the edges and more solid on top.  If you use your flipper to get a sneak peak at the underneath side of the pancake, it should be nicely browned but not too dark.  Carefully, flip the pancake.
5.    Cook for 2-4 minutes on the other side, until done (should be browned, and feel solid when you press gently on the pancake with your flipper or finger).
6.    Repeat until all the batter is used.  Enjoy warm or cooled.

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