Tag Archives: dessert

Paleo Lemon Poppy Seed muffins

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Ava has been super interested in cooking projects and so we’ve been spending some time learning to measure, mix and stir, crack eggs, etc. This recipe yields 12 mini muffins or 1 large muffin (or small 5″ diameter cake like we did in this little spring form pan). 🙂

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Blog Paleo Poppy Seed

Ingredients

  • ¼ cup coconut flour
  • 1/8 teaspoon sea salt
  • ¼ teaspoon baking soda
  • 3 eggs
  • ¼ cup agave nectar
  • ¼ cup grapeseed oil (I used canola)
  • 1 tablespoon lemon zest
  • 1 tablespoon poppy seeds

Directions

  • In a medium bowl, combine coconut flour, salt and baking soda
  • In a large bowl, blend together eggs, agave, oil and lemon zest
  • Blend dry ingredients into wet
  • Fold in poppy seeds
  • Spoon 1 tablespoon of batter into each greased mini muffin cup
  • Bake at 350° for 10-12 minutes
  • Cool and serve
Makes 12 mini-muffins

Thanks Elana’s Pantry

dit-elle-Esther

Paleo Chocolate Cupcakes with (not so paleo) Mocha Frosting

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Need some sweet inspiration? We think a four day week is reason enough to celebrate!

Totally awesome paleo and nut-free cupcakes! Add some mocha frosting (not quite paleo) but so yummy!

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Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup coconut flour
  • 1/2 cup cacao powder
  • Dash of sea salt
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 8 eggs
  • 1/2 cup coconut oil
  • 1/2 cup agave syrup

Directions

  • Pulse together dry ingredients in a food processor
  • Pulse in wet ingredients
  • Line a muffin pan (12) with paper liners and scoop batter into each
  • Bake at 350° for 15-18 minutes
  • Cool and serve

Thanks Elana’s Pantry for the cupcake inspiration!

For the Frosting

  • 1/3 stick melted butter
  • 1/4 cup strong drip coffee
  • 1 Tbsp cocoa
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • Powdered sugar (1-2 cups)

Directions

  • Mix melted butter, coffee, cocoa and vanilla
  • Start adding powdered sugar while stirring constantly
  • When desired consistency has been reached, frost the cooled cupcakes
  • Top with sprinkles or M&Ms immediately if desired

dit-elle-Esther

Zucchini Almond Cake

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This cake is lovely AND delicious! Zucchini makes it moist and almond flour makes it high in protein and gluten free. The tartness of cream cheese frosting balances out this coconut sugar sweetened cake.

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Blog zucchinicake1

Who knew kale plants had such pretty AND edible flowers! Great for cake decoration. 🙂

Ingredients

  • 1/2 stick unsalted butter, melted, plus 5 tablespoons, room temperature, plus more for pan
  • 1 1/2 cups almond flour (spooned and leveled)
  • 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons potato starch (or corn starch is fine)
  • 1 1/4 teaspoons gluten-free baking powder
  • dash sea salt
  • 3 large eggs, room temperature
  • 1/3 cup coconut sugar (or other sugar, white/brown)
  • 2 tsps pure vanilla extract
  • 1 cup finely grated zucchini (from 1 medium zucchini), squeezed of excess liquid
  • 8oz cream cheese, room temperature
  • 1/3 cup confectioners’ sugar
  • Edible flowers like Kale flowers (shown) or mint for garnish

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8 or 9 inch round. Whisk together almond flour, potato starch, baking powder, and salt
  2. Set a large heatproof bowl over (not in) a pot with 1 inch barely simmering water. Add eggs and whisk until foamy, about 1 minute. Whisk in brown sugar and continue to whisk until mixture is fluffy and sugar is dissolved, 3 minutes. Remove bowl from pot and, using a mixer, whisk on high until mixture is thick and pale, 7 to 10 minutes (I did this in my food processor with the standard chopper blade)
  3. With a rubber spatula, gently fold in melted butter, flour mixture, 1 tablespoon vanilla, and zucchini. Pour into pan and bake until cake is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in center comes out with moist crumbs attached, 25 to 30 minutes. Let cake cool completely in pan on a wire rack. Invert onto a cake platter
  4. With mixer (or again I used the food processor here) beat together room-temperature butter, remaining 1 teaspoon vanilla, and cream cheese until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add confectioners’ sugar and beat until combined. Spread on top of cake.

Source: http://www.marthastewart.com/907427/zucchini-almond-cake

dit-elle-Esther

Greek Yogurt Biscuits // Healthier Strawberry Shortcake

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I saw this original recipe from Lovely Little Kitchen for Greek yogurt biscuits on Pinterest, and I pinned it right away.  First of all, her photographs are all beautiful!  I wanted to eat everything just from the looks of it!  Then, I read the ingredients…and made it the next night for friends haha.  I tweaked a few things (my tweaks are in italics), and turned them into a healthier strawberry shortcake.  They were DELICIOUS!!!

Kind of trying to convince myself that they’d be an acceptable lunch 😉Blog Greek Yogurt Biscuits Healthy Strawberry ShortcakeIngredients

  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1½ teaspoon baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 6 tablespoons very cold butter, cubed
  • ¾ cup nonfat Greek yogurt (she used plain, but I used honey flavored-YUM!)
  • 1 egg
  • Strawberries
  • Extra container of either vanilla or honey flavored Greek yogurt
  • 1-2 tablespoon of honey

Directions (taken directly from here)

  1. In the bowl of an electric mixer, mix together flour, baking powder, salt and sugar.
  2. Using the paddle attachment, mix in cold, cubed butter until you have a crumb mixture. If you don’t have a paddle attachment, you can cut in the butter with a pastry cutter or two forks by hand. You want to keep little pea sized clumps of cold butter in your dough because this will create little air pockets in the biscuits as they bake and make them nice and fluffy.
  3. In a separate small bowl, beat the egg and then stir in the Greek yogurt.
  4. Add the egg and yogurt to the dry ingredients on low speed until a dough ball forms and pulls away from the edge of the bowl.
  5. On a lightly floured surface, knead the dough about ten times.
  6. Roll out the dough to 1 inch thick. Using a 3 inch round cutter or the rim of a glass, cut out biscuits and place them on a Silpat lined or greased baking sheet.  I greased my cookie sheet with coconut oil, which added a delicious light coconut flavor.
  7. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes. The tops of the biscuits should be golden brown.
  8. Slice the biscuits in half.  Layer with strawberries, a dollop of Greek yogurt, drizzle with warm honey and ENJOY!!!dit-elle-Lauren

 

Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Super delicious – gluten free and protein rich – chocolate chip cookies! So easy to make, this is a great cooking project with your toddler! Ava did all the mixing for me and then we dropped these on a baking sheet to cook!blog chocochipcookies

Ingredients

  • 2 ½ cups blanched almond flour
  • ¼ teaspoon sea salt
  • ¼ teaspoon baking soda
  • 10 tablespoons butter, melted
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 1/2 cup agave nectar or honey
  • 1 cup chocolate chunks

Directions

  • Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl
  • Stir together wet ingredients in a smaller bowl
  • Mix wet ingredients into dry
  • Form 1-inch balls and press onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet
  • Bake at 350° for 7-10 minutes
  • Cool and serve

Thanks ElanasPantry.com!

dit-elle-Esther

Frozen Banana Bonbons

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Happy Valentine’s Day! These are delightful tiny frozen treats – made these early this morning before school & work! They take ~10 minutes to prepare. Love bonbons? We do too! Did you know –

“..the name bonbon (or bon-bons) refers to any of several types of sweets, especially small candies enrobed in chocolate. The first reports of bonbons come from the 17th century, when they were made at the French royal court. Their name arose from infantile reduplication of the word bon, meaning ‘good’. In modern French and several other European languages, the term simply refers to any type of candy or small confection.” (Wikipedia)

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Ingredients

  • 1 banana, cut into ½ -inch slices
  • 1/2 bag chocolate chips
  • unsweetened shredded coconut (optional)

Directions

  • Place sliced bananas on a parchment paper lined plate
  • One by one, using a small heart shaped cookie cutter, cut banana slices into hearts
  • Put chocolate in microwave safe dish and heat (~45 seconds) until melted, stir
  • Dip sliced banana hearts into chocolate, then sprinkle with coconut
  • Place on parchment lined plate to set
  • Freeze for 1 hour or more

Thanks Elana’s Pantry – see the original Paleo Frozen Banana Bites.

dit-elle-Esther

Coconut-Sugar Butter Cookies

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Super yummy, crispy & light butter cookies made with coconut palm sugar and almond flour! Let the holiday season begin! Oh wait..  Blog buttercookies1

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cups gluten free flour (I used half and half rice flour and almond flour)
  • extra almond flour or unsweetened coconut flakes for rolling cookies in
  • 1 c coconut palm sugar
  • 1/2 cup potato starch (or tapioca flour)
  • 1 tsp cream of tartar
  • 1/4 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp baking soda
  • dash of salt
  • 2 sticks of cold butter, cut into pieces
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 1 Tbsp milk
  • 1tsp vanilla

Directions

  • In your food processor, combine all dry ingredients and pulse until well blended
  • Add pieces of butter and pulse until dough becomes crumbly
  • Add egg, milk and vanilla and pulse until dough starts to resemble.. well, dough!
  • Refrigerate for 2 hours
  • When ready to bake, set oven at 350*
  • Shape dough into small balls (about the size of large marbles) rolling some in almond meal if desired
  • Bake for ~12 minutes or until they are golden brown
  • Serve warm or freeze (yummy as a crispy cold snack too!)

Blog buttercookies2

dit-elle-Esther

Paleo Spaghetti.. before the Italians even invented Spaghetti!

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I was inspired by Elana’s Pantry’s post on how to EASILY make Spaghetti Squash. It IS super easy, super fun, and makes super awesome paleo noodles! 🙂 Yes it takes a while to bake, but plan ahead, throw this squash in the oven while you are doing other things and the actual preparation part (scraping out the flesh into noodles takes <1 minute)! Serve with a hearty Bolognese meat sauce, like this Paleo Sloppy Joe’s sauce, or simply as a dessert with some butter (or coconut butter) and cinnamon! 🙂

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Ingredients

  • One large spaghetti squash (~3 lbs)

Directions

  1. Place whole (uncut) spaghetti squash on a parchment paper lined baking sheet
  2. Bake at 350° for 60-80 minutes
  3. Allow to cool
  4. Cut squash open (long side) with a knife
  5. Scoop out seeds
  6. Scrape the flesh out of the squash into stringy noodles
  7. Voila!

dit-elle-Esther

Pumpkin Bread Bars

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Perfect fall treats! Serve warm or cold, eat them as dessert or breakfast or a snack on the go. Inspired by Elana’s Pantry, these are delicious pumpkin ‘bread bars’! I call these pumpkin bread bars, because they are a sort of cross between bread and bars. I used raisins, but you could use chocolate chips (and or chopped nuts) as an other yummy variation! 🙂Blog pumpkinpaleobread3 blog pumpkinpaleobread2 Blog pumpkinpaleobread1

Ingredients

  • ⅓ cup coconut flour (1/3 cup is NOT a typo 🙂 – coconut flour is very different than wheat)
  • Pinch of sea salt
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon cinnamon
  • 4 large eggs
  • 1 cup fresh roasted pumpkin or winter squash (I used acorn squash – excellent)
  • ⅓ cup honey or agave syrup
  • ¼ cup coconut oil
  • ½ cup raisins or chocolate chunks

Directions

  1. In a food processor, combine dry ingredients
  2. Pulse in eggs, pumpkin, honey and oil until well combined
  3. Stir in raisins or chocolate chips by hand
  4. Transfer batter to an 8 x 8 inch baking dish or a pie dish
  5. Bake at 350° for 20-30 minutes
  6. Cool and serve

dit-elle-Esther

Star Cookies

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Inspired by Elana’s Pantry, these Star (and Moon!) Cookies are a fun fall treat. I went to a Waldorf school a long time ago in a far away land.. and sun, moon and star cookies were an autumn tradition as part of the Moon Lantern Festival, which I’ll blog about another day. In the meantime, enjoy these high protein, not too sweet cookies.blog starcookies2

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Ingredients

  • 2 ½ cups blanched almond flour
  • small dash of sea salt
  • ¼ tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • ½ cup coconut oil, melted
  • 5 tablespoons agave nectar or honey
  • 1 Tbsp vanilla extract

Directions

  • In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients
  • In a smaller bowl, mix together coconut oil, agave and vanilla
  • Mix wet ingredients into dry, then chill dough in refrigerator for 1 hour (or overnight worked as well)
  • Roll out dough between 2 pieces of parchment paper until ¼ inch thick
  • Remove top piece of parchment paper and cut out cookies with a small star cutter
  • Using a metal spatula, place stars on a parchment lined baking sheet
  • Bake at 350° until lightly browned around the edges, 5-8 minutes
  • Cool completely prior to handling cookies

Super mom tip: these are great as a frozen treat and thaw quickly in room temperature for a few minutes! They are a nice high-protein/low-glycemic snack for little tummies.

dit-elle-Esther