Stuff I've baked that tastes good

Last weekend, my sister made me THE BEST paleo birthday cake OF ALL TIME. This is not an exaggeration. In light of this confectionary wonder, I've decided to share some recipes for paleo baked goods that I've tried and that have actually turned out (wonder of wonders!) Actually, I suspect that paleo baking is actually easier than regular baking; it seems to be less of a science, and more "stir stuff together and stick it in the oven". The toughest part is finding some of the strange paleo ingredients that I'd never heard of before (I still don't know what coconut palm shortening is).

Anyway, here is the German Chocolate Cake Jess made me (from Elana's Pantry), after we ate some of it. It has coconut pecan frosting. You heard me. coconut. pecan. Frigging amazing.

Jess said she had a lot of trouble with the consistency of the frosting (too drippy) and so the weight of the top layer squished out the filling. The corrective process involved mom holding the top layer up while Jess stuffed the filling back in and pasted the whole thing with a layer of chocolate icing. Ashley says this surgical process can be avoided by first building a "dam" of icing around the edge of your bottom layer before putting the filling and the top layer on. I don't care how it happened, I just know it was delicious. The chocolate cake is as fluffy and moist as it looks. And then I proceeded to eat one of mom's very not paleo made from scratch biscuits. It was totally worth it. I have no regrets.

Coconut Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
I've also made these really yummy Coconut Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins from Multiply Delicious. They're a super tasty snack and actually taste like real muffins. Although when I said this to Ashley, she suggested that we don't really know what real muffins taste like anymore. Valid point, but I've decided that it doesn't matter, so long as in my mind this is how muffins taste now. And that taste is delicious.

Ingredients
6 eggs
1/3 cup coconut milk
1 tablespoons maple syrup (optional)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup coconut oil, melted
3/4 cup coconut flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 3 bananas)
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips, plus additional for sprinkling on tops of muffin

Preheat oven to 400. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners.

In a large bowl, combine eggs, coconut milk, maple syrup, sea salt, and vanilla extract. Whisk to combine and set aside.

Sift coconut flour (I never actually sift, because I'm lazy, and I don't have a sifter), baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon into the wet ingredients. Whisk vigorously until no lumps remain. Stir in melted coconut oil until well combined. Fold in banana and chocolate chips until incorporated (exactly how many words are there for "stir"?).

Using a large ice cream scoop (or a spoon??), add one level scoop to each muffin cup. Sprinkle each muffin with a few additional chocolate chips. Bake muffins for 15 to 18 minutes or until muffins are golden and spring back when pressed gently. Once baked, cool for 10 minutes.

Paleo Gingerbread Cookies
I made these at Christmas for our paleo cookie exchange and they were a big hit. Or at least, everyone said so, and I don't think they were lying. Zoey the dog tried to swallow a Christmas tree cookie whole, if that's any evidence. On a side note, when I went to buy molassas, I had no idea what the difference was between the regular kind and "fancy" molasses. Apparently fancy is better. I did not buy the fancy, but it still worked. This recipe is pasted from Modern Paleo Warfare but came from the book Make it Paleo.

Ingredients

1/2 a cup of molasses or maple syrup
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
3 tbsp palm shortening
1tbsp coconut milk
3 cups blanched almond flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon (I added more)
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda

Preheat the oven to 350F.
Heat the molasses in a sauce pan then add the maple syrup, palm shortening and coconut milk to the sauce pan. Stir, then remove from heat (My second batch of cookies burned in less time than the first took to bake, and I think it may be that I heated my molasses too long here?). Mix the dry stuff together then into the wet stuff until it looks like fully blended batter. Stick the dough into the fridge for about 20 mins (I left it a bit longer) then roll it out to about a quarter inch thickness. The dough cut with cookie cutters surprisingly well and didn't fall apart during transfer. Bake on parchment paper or cookie sheet.

Paleo Buttercream Icing
I found this recipe here at "The Label Says Paleo". It went well on the cookies, although I added way more coconut sugar than suggested. It piped well though (with my dollar store icing bag!), but needed to go into the fridge to harden.

Whisk in a bowl:

1/2 c. coconut butter
1/4 c. coconut milk
1/8 c. palm sugar
sprinkle of arrowroot powder

Feel free to play around with these measurements to your liking. Whisk for awhile–at least 5 solid minutes–but even if the icing is lumpy, it’ll taste good. I added red or green food colouring to be festive, and it worked nicely.

For when there's nothing in your cupboard but a can of tuna...

That's what happened to me today. I got home from work to discover that I'd forgotten to take a meat out of the freezer, I had used up all of my eggs for breakfast, and I was feeling too impatient to wait for something to thaw. But there were two cans of tuna in my cupboard! Below is the dinner provided by the internet, along with a couple other google discoveries.

Zingy Tuna Salad

Recipe here from PALEOdISH. It was pretty darn tasty for lacking mayonaise! Someone in the comments suggests adding smooshed avocado for creamy texture, but mine wasn't ripe enough to try. I served it on a couple slices of toasted Paleo bread and it was almost like I was eating a tuna melt. I'm really not certain I can give up cheese for life....


Turnip Fritters

I found this recipe (from Paleo Foodie) when I decided it was time to use up the turnips sitting at the bottom of my veggie drawer, like they always do when I get them in my veggie box, because turnips are gross (acceptable ways to eat turnip include disguising them in a stew where they don't really taste like turnips. NON acceptable ways include mashing them up and putting them next to the bowl of mashed potatoes so that 12 year old Jen takes a heaping scoop of mashed turnip and is then forced to eat it so as not to be wasteful).

Aaaanyway, the ginger and raisins cover up the turnip grossness quite nicely. They have a hashbrown texture (but bonus: vegetable!), and I even heated some up in the toaster oven for breakfast the next day. If you're fancy, you can even grate your turnips with a mondolin, like I did, because my manfriend decided I was hopeless at choping things and bought me a mandolin. I'm not normally one for gatgets, but this one is pretty great.


Paleo Pecan Brittle

This last recipe I found when I had a craving for peanut brittle. It's not at all like peanut brittle, but satisfies the sugary roasted nut desires. They're super fast to make (plus half hour baking time), and I just made a batch to take to a family Christmas dinner this weekend. Bonus: my house now smells like cinnamon toast crunch.

I have also hired Ashley to make me her awesome paleo brownies so that I have a variety of desserts with which to avoid cheating. Speaking of not cheating, I realized last week that I can make stuffing with Elana's paleo bread!!! AMAZING! Well, I hope it will be. I'm going home Friday night so mom can show me how to make her worlds best stuffing. Stay tuned.


That awesome pumpkin spice bread that Jocelyn made for the Halloween potluck

It's awesome. 'Nuff said. I've linked the recipe from Primal Palate so as not to have to search in the CrossFit Altitude archives every time.


Protein balls etc

Speaking of Ashley, this is the original protein ball recipe (and posted below for convenience). The ones at the front of the gym are modified by paleo pastry chef extrodanaire (Ashley B) and, frankly, are much better than the ones I haphazardly mush together for myself. Mmmmm mocha tasty balls.

1/2 cup of nut butter (cashew, almond)
2 tablespoon of raw honey
2 tablespoon of cocoa nibs
2 tablespoon of shredded coconut
3/4 cup of protein powder ( natural, not sweetened)
1 teaspoon organic, alcohol free vanilla
2 tablespoon crushed nuts (raw almonds)

Mix nut butter, protein powder, honey and vanilla until smooth. Then add remainder of ingredients. Rill into 1 inch balls and place in an airtight container in the fridge for storage.

For when you get a little tired of that particular protein snack, which I did after my 5th batch, I tried these goji protein bars. They're quite tasty (less sweet, more nutty and seedy), but they're a bit crumbly. Perhaps an extra egg? I also soaked my goji berries in boiling water for a few minutes to soften them.