Grain Free Brownies

Brownies are generally difficult.  When made with coco powder, they tend to taste a bit chalky or not chocolate like.  On top of that, making a grain free brownie, I'll be honest I wasn't expecting success.  But, now with extra time and online books - we have a winner!  The book that I used for  the base of this is called The Paleo Dessert Bible by Anna Conrad.  The brownie was very moist and tasted chocolate-y.   We stored it on the counter and it was still moist and delicious on day 3, which is as long as it lasted.

Brownie with salt and chocolate chips

• 8 tbs butter
• 3 ounces chocolate chips + more for toping
• 2/3 cup almond flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt + more for toping
• 1/4 c brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

1. preheat oven to 350F
2. line a 8 inch square baking pan with parchment paper
3. in a double boiler, melt chocolate chips and butter (or in the microwave, high at 1-3 min).  Add brown sugar and mix. 
4. in a large bowl, mix almond flour, baking powder, salt.  Add lightly beaten eggs, vanilla, slowly add in the chocolate chip mixture and stir until incorporated.
5. pour mixture into baking pan.  top with extra chocolate chips and salt
6. bake for 22-27 min, once a toothpick comes out clean.  
7. pull from oven and let cool for a min of 10 - 15 min (the original said 2 hrs but that was never going to happen in our house)

Crepes - Grain free - OMG good

So, I finally figured out how to make grain free crepes.  I've seen and tested out a lot of the recipes out there but nothing quite worked for me.   A few were too egg-y.  Some were too thick or oddly grain-y textured. 

So, this does taste like crepes and usually holds together well.  This is a general guideline as it depends on the cashew butter that you get.  We are very lucky in that one of our wholefoods has a nut grinder where you can grind your own nut butter.

Crepes

1 cup cashew butter
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
butter or ghee for pan

Mix cashew butter, milk and egg until you have a thin batter.  You do not need to add sugar to this as the cashew provides a sweet taste - but, if you haven't lost the taste for overly sweet add some to meet your needs.  You can add cinnamon, a pinch of salt or whatever you would put in for a "regular" crepe.

Place butter in a non-stick pan (yes, it's the only time I will use a non-stick pan because even with a ton of butter a regular pan doesn't seem to work quite well).   Once pan is heated - on medium heat, place about 1/4 cup of batter into the pan.  Take the pan and give it a quick turn, to spread out the batter.  Cover it and let cook for about 2 or 3 min.  The edges should be a brown a bit, flip over (carefully!) to brown the other side.  Plate.  You can add jams or chocolate or cheese or whatever filling you want.   

Bacon cookies... yum

I know... two posts within a day!  But it has been a busy day!  Between the book shopping and chicken stock making... I decided to make cookies for my neighbors who are wonderful enough to mow my lawn.  And, cookies always seem to be a nice thank you.  

So, I decided to make bacon spice cookies with some left over bacon fat that we had stored in freezer.  It looked like a interesting recipe and I thought that since we were well stocked on bacon fat that this might be the time to use up some of the collection.  OK, so it is a multi-functional cookie. :)

The BF voted them yummy but would like some chocolate in them sans spice.  So, I will have to play with the recipe and chocolate.

Here is the recipe.  It isn't a BACON flavor - rather a nice smokey spice cookie - some what like gingerbread with a smokiness.

Bacon Fat Spice Cookies

• 1 1/4 cup flour 
• 1/2 cup sugar 
• 1 teaspoon sea salt 
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon 
• 3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cloves 
• 1/2 cup bacon fat 
• 2 tablespoons molasses 
• 1 egg

Preheat oven to 350F.

Combine flour, sugar, salt and spices in a food processor and pulse to mix. Add bacon fat, molasses and egg, pulse until mixture forms a soft dough. Make into small balls, about a tablespoon of dough, and place them on a baking sheet about 2 inches apart. Flatten balls slightly - with your hand or a fork.

Bake the cookies for 10-12 min, until they are browning around the edges. Cool and store in a airtight container up to 1 week.

And if you still have a lot of bacon fat left over, like I do, you can season your cast iron pans.

Since I was heating the oven anyway for cookies - I put some bacon fat on the cast iron pan and stuck it in the oven while the oven was heating up and some of the time the cookies were baking.  It doesn't turn rancid, at least it doesn't for us. But, then again, I use the cast iron pan for everything and wash it with soap (shock!).   :)

Dinner for a thousand mothers...

OK.  So, it was only 5 mother's and the families...but you get the idea. :)  We had about 14 people, with 1 baby (so no food for her, yet).  Which is a lot of mouths to feed...and so much fun.

So, I was pretty good on the prep work and getting loads of things done up in advance. And, I even have 2 pictures!  But, completely lost track of time and never did get a picture of the great bounty.

Dunch (dinner/lunch) was a wonderful success, which is a good thing since we are having another this saturday. Yikes!

Appetizers were meatballs in tomato sauce, cheese plate and some grapes.  Easy breezy, as you can do up the meatballs the day before and then heat them up just before company comes. The same with chopping up the cheeses (I didn't want to leave any knives around because of the little ones - 3 munchkins under 5! so, no sharp objects)

Since we had some people who didn't eat ham, I had also made Chicken Makhani.  Roasted potatoes, roasted green beans, marinated bell peppers (the lovely ones above which were just going into the oven at the time I took the pictures). The BF was lovely enough to make a great salad with dressing.  And, my mum brought over both plain white rice and a lemon rice.  So, quite a feast.

And, then desserts...  yes, no pictures. :(
The BF's mum brought  Pineapple dessert (it so needs a better name!) which was eaten so fast that I didn't even get more than a bite.  Chocolate cup cakes with white sugar frosting, which I had made for the kids but were a hit with the adults.  And, a flour less walnut cake.

So... slowly I will put up recipes. If there is one that you want right away - let me know.  This is for the sib with the cupcake kids.

The cupcake kids were eating their respective cupcakes, with the tray too temptingly close.  Apparently, the one on S's plate wasn't enough and he stuck his finger in a cupcake on the tray.  The BF''s mum very nicely said that if you stick your finger in the cupcake it is yours.  Hence, both boys started sticking their fingers into the remaining cupcakes. LOL . Lucky cupcake kids' dad was so quick or they would be taking home quite a lot of cupcakes. :)

Chocolate cup cakes with white sugar frosting

--- Cake ---

• 1 cup unbleached white flour
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup water
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (do not use imitation vanilla as it will turn it bitter)

Preheat oven to 350.

In a large bowl, sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. (or you can do what I do, dump them all together and give it a good stir. Then when putting it into the mixer, just stir a bit more. While it isn't as perfectly blended - it works. )

In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar with an electric mixer. Add the eggs to the butter mixture one at a time, beating well after each addition. In a small bowl (yes, another bowl - thank god for dishwashers!) - combine water and vanilla. Add the water mixture in thirds to the butter mixture - alternating between the water and flour.

So 1/3 water, mix, 1/3 flour, mix, 1/3 water ... etc until blended well.
Put in cupcake paper liners or in a cake pan (8" or 9"). Bake until done. Cupcakes were about 20 min.  Cake is supposedly 30-35 min - but since I haven't made the cake version, I don't know how accurate that would be.

--- Frosting  ---

• 1/4 cup butter, at room temperature
• 1 pound (3 1/2 cups) confectioners' sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 4 to 5 tablespoons heavy cream (can use more or less based on the consistency you want)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I can't recall if I put any in - umm... I think I forgot)

Cream the butter (you can either use a wooden spoon and do a lot of work - or use your mixer and do a quick job. However, if you were like me - you just used your mixer and the beater is now in the wash). Add 1 cup of sugar and the salt - mix some more. Alternate adding sugar and cream until all the sugar is gone. Once you have the consistency you want - add the vanilla.