Paleo Lemon Muffin Base

I'm baaaaaaaack!

Here I go starting to post all those recipes I've been Instagraming for ever.  Better late than never, right?

So today, for all of you that are coming to my "garage sale" I made you Lemon Blueberry Paleo Muffins :)

Here is the link to the original recipe, lemon poppyseed muffins, they are wonderful just as they are!

My recipe is altered a little, I upped the lemon zest, added applesauce (which helps add moisture and texture to coconut flour) and reduced the oil and honey by a bit.  It is also a bigger batch.   This recipe is the 'base' for lemon poppyseed or lemon blueberry or lemon "fill-in-the-blank" so the calorie content for whatever you are adding is left out of the calculation and is for the base recipe only.

Enjoy!

PALEO LEMON MUFFIN BASE

Makes 2-3 doz regular size cupcakes, around 140 calories each.

Heat oven to 350, 325 if using convection

INGREDIENTS:
-1 1/4 cup coconut flour
-15 organic pastured eggs,

-zest or peel of 8 or more organic lemons 

-3/4 cup raw honey

-1/4 tsp sweetleaf stevia or to taste

-1 cup organic applesauce

-3/4 cup organic unprocessed coconut oil

-1 tsp sea salt

-1 tsp baking soda

and for my batch this morning - 2-3 cups frozen blueberries - though dehydrated blueberries would be my preference.

In your mixer bowl sift your coconut flour, baking soda and salt. 

Grab your blender and add all your eggs, honey and lemon peel (i just peel the lemon using a veggie peeler instead of zesting, make sure you don't get much pith (the white part) and let the blender do the work for you.)  Blend until you can't see any chunks of lemon peel.

Turn your mixer on and slowly add your wet ingredients from your blender, then add applesauce and stevia if using....come to think of it, some vanilla would be great too.

Once it is mixed into a smooth consistency, add poppy seeds, blueberries, cranberries...whatever and scoop into muffin liners.  I use my "big" cookie scoop, about 1/3 of a cup.  These won't rise too much, and if they overflow they will just run out and over their liner, so don't overfill the muffin cups.

Bake for 20-30 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Refrigerate if keeping out more than a day - the are very moist so I am sure they would mould easily.  They also freeze brilliantly!  

Let me know how it turns out!

M

The First Day of .... Something

Oh Fall, I'm not sure I'm ready for you yet.

I guess I'm ok with Falls unofficial arrival, the end of summer (or lack thereof for me this year) and the start of something new. I love the crisp cold morning air and the thought of all the sweaters I bought at thrift shops.

This summer brought its share of adventure with the launch of TheJarGirl.com (yay!!) some pacific northwest gardening successes and failures, a 3 week road trip (aka jar buying trip) that took us from our front door to a few miles from the Ontario border, more hours of thrift shopping than I care to admit, a case of pneumonia :( and a family wedding at Green Lake where I am currently sitting.

We are leaving tomorrow, I am trying to rest to make sure I fully recuperate from this cough (easier said than done) but this morning I was inspired to start a little mini project I have had in the back of my head for a while now, and I thought it could use an introduction.

Jesse and I have decided to homeschool when we get to that point in our lives (working on the kids part - impatiently.)  One of the subjects we are both excited about is food education.   It's like math and health put together!   Our diet changes over the past several months have spurred some research on where to best spend our food (health) dollars and I have come to wonder, if others just had more information, would they make different choices?

Well, I will give it a shot. A daily picture guide to better food education. Maybe I should give it a catchy name... I don't see "A.D.P.G.T.B.F.E." catching on very quickly.

Here's the link to day one (A for Apple) I can't get the picture uploaded from my phone.

http://Instagram.com/p/d0C2vOsmqE/

Hopefully friends and family will post and share - and hopefully it will have a positive impact on our collective health.

xoxo Marie

P.S.   Don't worry, I have a slew of new amazing recipes for you too!

{Sweet Victory} Part 2 - The Great Brownie Trial

I have said before that I don't crave chocolate BUT my husband and mother do, so when Jesse came across a recipe for flourless brownies posted by the wife of Mark Gungor Show co-host Ross Allen Skorzewski, I decided to put my new starch and sugar-free baking skills to the test.

I find it amazing how much I've learned about an entirely new chemistry process with just a few recipes. The differences between almond flour and coconut flour have become very obvious and the modifications that can be made to each for texture have become a growing curiosity "what if I added this to that?!"

The three that you see above are all variations of this recipe from homemademommy.net.   The first recipe was the closest to the original with butter instead of coconut oil and 1/2 cup xylitol instead of coconut sugar.  Click here to read an article about rethinking the use of coconut sugar (aka coconut palm sugar, palm sugar or coconut syrup).

Recipe two had a bit of coconut flour and applesauce thrown in, but the WINNER with rich chocolate flavour, silky texture and just the right amount of fudgyness was recipe number three:

This recipe made a tiny loaf 2.5" x 5" or so but can easily be doubled or tripled.  I would also try to keep them less than an inch thick in whatever pan you choose for a true brownie feel (they don't rise very much at all).

Ingredients:

2 eggs

1/2 cup cocoa (I used Hershey's because that is what mom had on hand)

1/2 cup Xylitol

2 tablespoons butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 tablespoons almond flour***

1/8 teaspoon salt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350ºF

In a food processor or blender mix all the ingredients until velvety 

(I used my mom's new NINJA blender - a great buy for less than $100)

Line your baking pan with parchment paper (this is a must)

Pour into your baking dish and smooth the top of the batter.  How you leave the top will be the final result it does not smooth out while cooking.

Bake for 20-30 min and let cool COMPLETELY before cutting into them.

*** I cook with almond flour that I make, not almond MEAL which is what people are usually referring to in recipes.  I have not found almond FLOUR available to purchase anywhere yet.  Here are the directions to make almond milk and flour if you want to - don't worry its EASY!

***********************

Now, there was a fourth batch I made.... I thought it would be good to give a completely different recipe a try to see the differences.  Initially we were NOT impressed, the brownie was dry and the texture was mealy. 

Then in an effort not to cut into the other three contestants yet and not see this brownie go to waste we put some sugar-free vanilla ice cream on top.  The sky parted and the angles sang!  This recipe is incredibly good with ice cream - somehow the texture morphs into the perfect flaky crunch.  So, it is worth making if you are specifically making it for an ice cream cake or the like.  Not worth making just to eat plain, in my humble opinion anyway.

Here is my version - again we made some basic substitutions.  (maybe it's brilliant without my substitutions - who knows!)

Ingredients:

2 eggs

1/4 cup coconut flour

1/4 cup cocoa

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/3 teaspoon baking powder

1/6 cup heavy (whipping) cream

2 tablespoons butter (melted)

1/3 cup xylitol

1 teaspoon vanilla.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350ºF.

Line baking dish with parchment paper.

Mix dry ingredients in mixing bowl.

Mix eggs and other wet ingredients in a blender until very smooth.

Whisk wet ingredients into dry until smooth, about 30 seconds.

Pour batter into your dish and smooth out the top.

Bake for 25 minutes or until a cake tester comes out with just a few crumbs. 

Cool for 10 minutes.

Let me know what you think!

{Sweet Victory} : Part One : Impressive Blueberry Muffins

Ahhhhh..the joys of guiltless baking!

For years I have avoided baking anytime but Christmas because ... I have willpower problems. I know myself and know that if I have baking in the house I will find a way to eat it.  However, in our quest to eat healthier, cutting out STARCH and SUGAR has led me to some fantastic food blogs and a great baking adventure.

A couple of weeks ago, during a visit to my parents house, I decided to kill two birds with one stone: introduce this no-starch baking concept to my family AND try some new recipes.

First on the list was a blueberry muffin recipe from the great deliciouslyorganic.net. (click here for the original recipe.)

I did modify the recipe slightly the first time, and then a bit more the second time I made them, here are my changes.

-First off, I used cream, not coconut milk - that was what I had on hand.
-Second, I subbed in 1/4 cup xylitol for the honey since we are currently trying to avoid all sugar.
-Third, the recipe just seemed too dry, so I added in another 1/3 cup of cream, and this worked though   the batter is still very firm, and not at all runny.

With these two changes the muffins were VERY tasty, looked PERFECT but were a little too fluffy (if that is possible) they fell apart quite easily. This was still fantastic in my mind because typically coconut flour is quite dense.

It is the applesauce that makes all the difference in density so, for the second batch I just added 2 more tablespoons of coconut flour to bring the density up just a hair. The texture of this batch was perfect, however, the blueberries I used at home (Trader Joes Organic Frozen Blueberries) were not anywhere as sweet as the frozen berries I had picked up from the local grocer in Colorado, and I would add a bit more xylitol to compensate for that if I use that brand again.

I find that if you are cooking with xylitol it will lengthen the baking time, and if you have a convection oven you will want to turn the temperature down 25 degrees to avoid the outside cooking too fast and getting too brown.

Here is the recipe with my changes:

Makes about 18 muffins

For the batter: (I use organic ingredients wherever possible)
6 large eggs

2/3 cup heavy (whipping) cream
1/4 cup xylitol (or more to taste)
1 teaspoon canilla
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted (if you only have salted butter on hand that is ok, just omit the added salt)
1 cup coconut flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon Celtic sea salt
1/2 cup applesauce (one single serving "cup" is perfect)
1 1/2 cups frozen blueberries (no need to thaw them)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375ºF or 350ºF if for convection ovens and adjust the rack to the middle position.
Line muffin pan with muffin liners.
Whisk eggs, cream, xylitol, vanilla and butter in your stand mixer bowl if using.
Sift coconut flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a separate mixing bowl.
Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and whisk until no lumps remain.
Fold in applesauce and then fold in blueberries.
Spoon batter into muffin cups (I use a large cookie scoop)
Bake for 15-20 minutes or until perfectly brown on top and a toothpick comes out mostly clean.
Store in an airtight container in the fridge or freeze for later.


Stay tuned for Part Two : The Great Brownie Trial!