Chocolate lava

First off, this is grain free, refined sugar free, fudgy, delicious, and super evil.

You can have it three ways: Ultra dark fudge, regular dark fudge, and chocolate lava fudge.

I’ve been having this for a snack. After all, it’s grain free and refined sugar free, so what do I have to lose? It isn’t the most unhealthy snack ever. It takes a little longer to make than a typical snack (20 minutes to cook, 5 minutes prep), but I fully believe that it’s worth the wait.

But by now, you’re probably ready to stop waiting. You’re probably ready for me to shut up. So I will.

Ultra dark

Serves: 1

Time: 5 min prep, 20 minutes cook (depending upon desired consistency)

Ingredients:

1 oz 100% black baking chocolate

1 egg

1 teaspoon honey, maple syrup, or other desired sweetener

Cocoa, as desired—1 tbsp for regular dark, 3 tbsp for extra dark if you’re feeling extreme (as in extremely awesome)

4 tablespoons whipping cream or half & half

Optional: coconut, for garnish

Turn the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a double boiler (double boilers and how they are used), melt the baking chocolate.

While the chocolate is melting, blend the remaining ingredients together in your blender.

Pour the melted chocolate in with the blended ingredients and blend until fully incorporated.

Pour the mixture into one ramekin OR two wax paper muffin holders. Preferably the ramekin.

Put the ramekin in the oven and cook. If you want the consistency to be more “cakelike” cook until the cake is firm to touch—about 25 minutes. If you prefer to have it “lava” style, remove when the cake is not quite set—15-20 minutes. If you make it “lava” style the cake will fall shortly after you remove it, but its best eaten hot anyway.

Enjoy.

I’m not exactly the pastry queen.

If you’re wondering about the truth of this statement, check out the “pies” section. It looks pretty pathetic. So actually, don’t check out the “pies” section.

I don’t make pies because they are a lot of work, and because they aren’t my favorite thing ever.

Thinking about it now, I wonder why they aren’t my favorite thing ever, because these tarts made a pretty good breakfast.

You heard me right. I had these for breakfast. The idea struck me around 9:00 last night. I calculated how long it would take me to throw together some quick pastry, add the filling the next morning, and cook them.

Not long. Not long enough that I shouldn’t do it.

And anyway, they were worth it because I used them to bribe the sisters later. Ha.

Makes: 6 tarts.

Time: 15 minutes active, about 50 minutes cook.

INGREDIENTS:

Crust

½ cup rice flour

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1 teaspoon sugar

3 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon cold water

1 small egg

Grease WELL: 6 muffin holes.

Mix together the rice flour, cornstarch, and sugar.

Chop the 3 tablespoons butter up into small pieces (about ¼ inch thick) and incorporate into the rice flour/cornstarch/sugar mix. Use a fork to chop the butter up within the mixture.

In a small bowl or a measuring cup, combine the cold water and the egg and beat with a fork until thoroughly mixed.

Pour egg/water mix into the dry ingredients/butter mix and stir until blended.

Use about 2 tablespoons of dough for each crust. Put the dough in the hole, and use your fingers to press it into shape. You may need cornstarch to keep the dough from sticking to your fingers.

Pre-cook the crusts at 350 degrees F for about eighteen minutes. This can be done a day ahead of time.

Filling

As you noticed, I made both peach and blueberry tarts. I only made two blueberry tarts and four peach ones. My favorite was the peach, but since I happen to love peaches I’m not a very good judge of which is best. I will provide both the peach and blueberry recipes. You could also make apple, raspberry, or strawberries, using typical pie-crust filling recipes (halved) for each.

Blueberry Tarts: Makes 2 tarts. Triple to fill all six tarts.

½ cup frozen or fresh blueberries

1 teaspoon honey

2 teaspoons cornstarch

If you’re using frozen berries: Thaw them out and DON’T drain the juice. If using fresh berries, simply put them in a bowl.

Using a fork, partially mash the blueberries. You obviously don’t want to make blueberry paste, but you want each blueberry “opened up”.

Add the honey and the cornstarch and fill the tarts.

Cook at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes.

Peach Tarts: Makes 4 tarts. Half again the recipe to fill all six tarts.

1 cup frozen, canned, or fresh peaches

2 teaspoons cornstarch

1 1/2 teaspoons honey

Pinch nutmeg

If the peaches are frozen: Thaw them out and chop them up. Don’t drain the juice.

If fresh: Chop up into pieces and use only ½ teaspoon cornstarch.

If canned: Chop up and don’t drain the juice.

Add the cornstarch, honey, and nutmeg to the peaches and stir.

Pour into tart shells. Cook at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes.

Enjoy.

Monkey bread is a messy, delicious, wonderful thing.

I’d actually never had monkey bread before, but when I thought about little balls of dough surrounded by cinnamon and butter and sugar, I realized I’d be insane if I didn’t make it.

My little sisters enjoyed it. I told them that if they ate this bread they’d turn into little monkeys. Unfortunately, they didn’t seem to believe me, and the bread was gone in 2 seconds flat.

It probably won’t last long for you either.

TIME: 45 minutes active, 1.5  hrs cook/rise time.

Yeast Ingredients:

1 cup warm water

2 tablespoons yeast

¼ cup sugar

Dry Ingredients:

1 ¾ cup rice flour, plus ½ cup more to be added later

¾ cup cornstarch (or a half and half potato/tapioca starch blend), plus ¼ cup more to be added later

¼ cup milk powder

2 ½ teaspoons xanthan gum

1 ¼ teaspoons salt

Wet Ingredients:

2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 large free range organic eggs

1/3 cup warm water

Filling:

½ cup sugar

1 tablespoon cinnamon

2 tablespoons butter

Grease one loaf pan with butter. I have an extra-large loaf pan, and the dough fit in this pan perfectly. However, it did not all fit in the average-sized loaf pan, and I ended up making another mini-loaf. You could also use a round 9 inch springform pan. Preheat the oven to WARM.

Hand-whisk the yeast ingredients together in a bowl, then place them in the oven to proof. How to proof yeast.

Mix the dry ingredients together in another small bowl.

Blend the wet ingredients together in a large bowl with your electric mixer.

Pour the yeast ingredients, fully proofed, into the wet ingredients and blend until mixed.

Turn the blender to low and slowly pour the wet ingredients/yeast into the dry ingredients. Blend for one minute. The mixture will appear very thin at first, but it thickens as you blend.

After one minute, stop blending, and allow the mix to set for one minute. Meanwhile, turn the oven back on to the WARM setting. Blend the mix for another minute, and allow to set for another minute. By this point, your mix should look something like this:

Add the extra ½ cup rice flour and ¼ cup cornstarch to the mix and beat until just blended. You’ll want it to look kind of like the picture below. Note the flour on the edges—It has not been completely blended it. You want it mostly blended, so it is good and thick, but don’t blend any more than you have to.

Allow the dough to set in the bowl while you melt the two tablespoons of butter. I use a saucepan to melt it, but you can also use the microwave. While the butter is melting, stir together the sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Note: You may need more cinnamon/sugar mixture later on, depending upon how small you make your balls.

Once the butter is melted, set the butter, sugar/cinnamon mix, greased pan, and bread dough on your work surface. Coat your hands lightly with cornstarch (or tapioca/potato starch) and grab a clump of dough. I made my balls about 2 inches in diameter, but if you’ve got the patience for it, smaller balls would be even better—for example, 3/4 inch would be perfect.

Roll the dough into a ball and dip lightly in the butter. You don’t want to use too much butter on each ball, since, after all, you only have two tablespoons of butter. You could use more butter in your bread if you want, but this will cause the bread to sink (butter ruins the yeast rise). However, I’m of the opinion that the more butter you have, the better the bread.

Anyway, since you have only a small amount of butter, coat lightly. What I did was dip the ball in, roll it around, and then held it over the mix so that the butter could drip off.

After the ball is lightly coated in butter, roll it around in the sugar/cinnamon mix until completely coated.

Put the ball in the pan and start on the next ball. Repeat this process until all the dough is used up.

Note: Don’t pack the dough balls too tightly, or they will stick together. You want them touching, but don’t squeeze them in too tight. Note the below picture.

After the dough is used up, stick it in the oven on WARM. Allow the oven to remain on WARM for about 15 minutes, then turn the oven off completely and allow the bread to rise another 30 minutes (in all it will rise for 45 minutes). You may want to position a cookie sheet below the bread pan, in case some of the dough falls off the edges.

The bread rising in the oven.

Once the bread is fully risen, turn the oven to 350 degrees F and cook for 45-55 minutes, until brown on the top and firm to touch.

Enjoy. 

These are good.

You think I’m joking?

Crunchy coconut in a rectangle, wrapped in super dark chocolate.

Do you still think I’m joking?

Healthy. Sugar free, dairy free, grain free, soy free…etc.

How about now?

Hey, if you’re still not convinced, I feel bad for you. Coconut might not be for everyone, though it’s definitely for me. I used to hate coconut, but coconut is like the best now. But if you don’t like coconut, if you are convinced that you never will (how can that be possible, anyway?), I hope to post some Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars soon.

If you don’t like peanut butter or coconut: Wow. That sucks for you.

Makes: About 6 bars

Active time: Five minutes. Refrigerator/freezer time: 20 minutes

NOTE: These are NOT sweet bars. If you want them a little sweeter, add an extra teaspoon of honey to the coconut mix, and use semisweet chocolate instead of the ultra dark.

NOTE 2: The currants/raisins may seem weird to you, but they are only there to add sweetness. If you blend them well enough, the fragments will be small enough that you won’t taste raisin or currant. At all.

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons coconut oil

1 teaspoon honey (or other sweetener)

½ cup shredded coconut

1/8 cup currants or raisins

1 bar of 100% dark chocolate (you could also use something less dark, though I’ve found that the 100% adds a nice contrast to the sweetish inside)

Put a piece of wax paper in a square container that is about 6” by 6”. I used a plastic food storage container. It doesn’t really matter, so long as the container is square. However, you can also use a round container…The bars just won’t be as nicely shaped. Make sure that the wax paper completely covers the bottom of the container.

In a double boiler (Double Boilers, and How are they Used?), melt together the coconut oil and honey. While these are melting, blend together the coconut and currants/raisins in your blender, until both are fairly chopped up. If you want, you can also use a food processor for this step.

Add the coconut and currants to the melted coconut oil and honey. Stir until fully blended.

Pour the mix into the prepared container and shape so that the bars will be about 1/2” thick or more.

Put the container in the freezer for 10-15 minutes. While the bars are in the freezer solidifying, melt down the dark chocolate.

As soon as the bars are solidified, take them out and cut them into small rectangles, each about 1 by 3 inches. Using a spatula, carefully remove them from the wax paper.

Set a new sheet of wax paper in a pan or on a cutting board (just so something moveable and solid is beneath it). Then dip each bar in chocolate and roll it around until fully coated. Remove with a fork or some other tool that can grab it (for example, the tool I used in the picture).

Put each fully coated bar onto the new piece of wax paper. When the bars are done, put in the freezer for about fifteen minutes. About three minutes before you take the bars out of the freezer, melt down remaining chocolate with the double boiler.

Remove the bars from the freezer and drizzle chocolate over them (for prettiness, obviously). After that, freeze for another ten minutes.

Bars are best stored in a cool environment.

These are: Dairy free, grain free, gluten-free, and soy free. They can be made sugar free fairly easily. The only thing that’s counting them as non-sugar free is a little bit of honey, which can be substituted with another kind of paleo sweetener. You can also go with no sweetener at all, since the banana does add quite a bit of sweetness.

Makes: 8 muffins

Time: 10 minutes prep, 40 minutes cook

Ingredients

1 ½ cups almond flour

2 tablespoons ground flaxseed (optional. I find that flaxseed holds it together a little better, but if you have a problem with using flaxseed just leave it out)

pinch of salt

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

pinch of cinnamon

2 eggs

One whole banana

¼ cup olive oil

2 tablespoons honey (can be substituted with agave nectar, stevia, or other paleo sweeteners)

Place eight wax paper muffin things in a muffin tin. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a small bowl, stir together the almond flour, flaxseed, salt, baking powder, and cinnamon. Crack the eggs into another small bowl. Mash in the banana, using a food masher tool or anything that works.

Add the olive oil and honey to the banana and egg. Stir until blended.

Pour the wet ingredients in with the dry ingredients and stir until blended. Spoon the muffin mixture into the prepared muffin tin.

Cook for forty minutes at 350 degrees F.

But think about it. Chocolate gooeyness that tastes like fudge, contrasted with whipped cream.

I’m thinking about it. Definitely. You should too.

SERVES: About twelve people

TIME: 20 minutes prep, 20 minutes cook

Ingredients:

2 sticks butter

4 cups chocolate chips

3 eggs

¼ cup sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup rice flour

Pinch salt

Grease a 9 by 13 inch glass pan. You could also use a spring form cake pan to make this as a cake (though the consistency is more like brownies). To make this a slightly “fancier” dessert, grease ten ramekins. If you are using the ramekins, you’ll want to cook it for five minutes less, which will give it the consistency of melted fudge (who wouldn’t want that?).

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a double boiler (double boilers and how they are used), melt the butter and chocolate chips. Stir often so that the chocolate chips don’t burn.

In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and sugar together until the mix is fairly light in color (this will take about three minutes). Once the eggs and sugar are blended, add the melted butter and chocolate chips. Beat until thoroughly combined.

Add the vanilla extract, rice flour, and salt. Beat until thoroughly combined.

Pour the mix into the 9 by 13 inch glass pan (or the sprinform cake pan). If using ramekins, spoon an even amount into each dish. Each dish will probably only be about half full, which is about right because this is a very rich dessert.

Place the pan (or ramekins) in the oven and cook for 20-25 minutes. As I said earlier, if you are using ramekins you’ll only want to cook them for about 17 minutes. If using a 9 by 13 inch glass pan, cook for 20 minutes. If you’re using a spring form cake pan, you’ll want to cook for around 25 minutes.

Remove from oven when cooked, and allow to cool for about fifteen minutes before serving. You can also eat it cold just as well.

As you can see in the pictures, I served it with whipped cream. However, it would also be delish with ice cream melting in (I can taste it already). If you used the ramekin dishes and are going for something a little fancier, I’d do whipped cream or ice cream with chocolate drizzle on top, and maybe a few fresh raspberries to make it look pretty. But it doesn’t really matter whether you eat this plain or with something on top—It’s still yummy.

(If you prefer to make just a single layer cheesecake, try Grain-Free Cheesecake).

I recently made this for my youngest sister’s birthday. She’s never been one to go halfway on her birthday requests, and this year was certainly no exception. I tried to convince her to do an all-vanilla cheesecake, but she insisted on having one layer chocolate and the other vanilla. In the end, she was probably right. It was good that way.

This cheesecake recipe is paleo friendly.  You can make it with a regular pie crust, but we’ve always preferred it with almonds anyway. The cheesecake filling, I’ve found, is best made with honey, but you can sub 1 cup of sugar, as in my non-paleo cheesecake recipe.

Anyway, on to the recipe!

Time: 45 minutes prep, 1.5 hr cook

Serves: About 18 people (you may want to cut the recipe in half to make a small cake)

The Crust:

Above regular pie crust or use the almond crust given in my grain free cheesecake recipe. Press the crust into the bottom of a greased round springform pan. The pan I used was about nine inches in diameter. Put the crust in the oven at 350 degrees F. Since my springform pan leaks a little, I put a cookie sheet underneath it. You’ll want to cook the crust in here for about 10 minutes. When it is cooked, remove it from the oven and set aside.

Note: Yes, you will need two nine-inch round pans, but you are only putting the crust in one of the pans. Directions for preparing the next pan are below.

The Cake:

4 pounds (8 packages)cream cheese

1 cup melted honey

8 eggs

3 tablespoons vanilla extract

The Filling:

Whipped cream (I use homemade whipped cream)

One chocolate bar

Take another round springform pan and place on a sheet of wax paper. Using a pen/marker/pencil, trace a circle around the circumference of the pan. Remove the pan from the wax paper and cut the circle out. Make sure to cut inside the lines, since the wax paper will go inside of the pan. Grease the wax paper well with butter, then put it in the bottom of the pan. Grease the edges of the pan with butter. Set aside.

Place cream cheese into a clean bowl, and beat with an electric mixer on medium low. As soon as the cream cheese is well-beaten, add the honey. Beat the honey in. When well blended, add one egg. Beat. Add each other egg, one at a time, beating after each one. Add the vanilla and beat. Scrape the cream cheese off the bottom of bowl. Beat the cheesecake mixture one more time.

If you want to make a chocolate/vanilla cheesecake, as I did, pour about half of the mixture into one of the pans (whichever layer you want to be vanilla). Then, add ½ cup extra dark dutch cocoa to the remainder of the mix, and pour this into the other pan.

Put both pans into the oven and cook for ten minutes. After ten minutes, turn the oven down to 250 degrees F. Cook for another fifty minutes WITHOUT OPENING OVEN. After the cheesecake has been in there for one hour, check for firmness. The cheesecake should not wiggle at all to the touch. The cheesecakes, if evenly sized, should take around 1 hour 20 minutes to cook. However, if one layer is much thinner than the other, you’ll have to cook that layer for less time, and the other for more. Signs of doneness are: Cheesecake is firm to the touch (but not hard), does not wiggle when pan is moved. For the vanilla cheesecake, it will be a medium brown color on top.

After cheesecakes are fully cooked, remove from oven and set on the counter. In order to keep the cakes from cracking, you’ll want to do a slow cooling process. I usually put a colander (bowl with holes in it) on top of each cheesecake. You can also use a regular bowl, though this will not work quite as well.

After the cheesecakes have cooled with colanders on top for about twenty minutes, remove colanders. Using a rubber spatula, gently go along the edge of the cheesecake, in order to get the cake detached from the pan. You won’t completely remove the sides, though, until the cake is fully cooled.

Place the cheesecakes in the refrigerator and refrigerate for at least one hour (two to four hours would be best). While the cake is in the refrigerator, make some whipped cream.

Take the cheesecakes out of the fridge and remove the springform sides. Put a large plate upside down on top of the second layer (the one with the wax paper). Flip the second layer over so that it is laying facedown on the plate.

Remove the bottom of the springform pan, then gently peel away the wax paper.

Coat the top of the first layer in whipped cream. Break your chocolate bar into pieces and put the chunks on top of the whipped cream.

Gently flip the second layer (the one on the plate) over and onto the surface of the first layer.

Remove the plate.

Optional: Spread a thin layer of whipped cream over the entire cake. Sprinkle with chocolate chips or chocolate dust.

Refrigerate for at least 30 more minutes.

Serve with more whipped cream and chocolate drizzle (optional).

I know, I know. This is an unstable dessert.

After all, cookie dough (the best thing in the whole wide world) and brownies (the second best thing in the whole wide world) put together?

Well, let’s do the math.

Best thing in the world + second best thing in the world = the very best thing in the world.

Or you can use the general rule: A positive plus a positive equals an even bigger positive.

And the best news (besides above math problem): Easy.

Anyway, in a nutshell: This recipe is cookie dough, chocolate fudginess, and easy all in one.

Did I mention cookie dough?

Yeah. I think I’m about to go into a cookie dough phase. Who doesn’t like raw cookie dough? In my opinion it is even better than cooked cookie dough. I even made myself up a snack with cookie dough. When my sister asked me what I was eating out of that bowl, I said, “Peanut butter chocolate no bake super healthy sugar free delicious five minute energy building raw cookie dough snack. Want some?”

Of course, I didn’t actually mean the “want some” part. She said “Sure” after a moment of staring (I guess she didn’t know that cookie dough can make even the most sane people become strange). I told her: “Make your own.”

Note: I sprinkled cocoa on the brownies (as you see here). This is optional.

Yeah, so anyway, the moral: Cookie dough is delicious, and you definitely shouldn’t share.

Another thing: the “peanut butter chocolate no bake super healthy sugar free delicious five minute energy building raw cookie dough snack want some” mentioned above might be appearing sometime in the near future as a recipe (with a slightly abbreviated title). So, if you see another peanut butter cookie dough recipe coming up sometime soon, do not be alarmed. It’s just me on a cookie dough roll.

To return to the subject at hand: You’ll find the recipe for raw cookie dough brownies below.

Enjoy.

Makes: enough for about 10 hungry non-sharing people

Time: about 30 minutes prep. Brownie bake time is another 30 minutes or so.

The Brownies:

1 stick butter

½ cup rice flour

½ cup extra dark dutch cocoa (that stuff is delicious)

½ cup sugar (you can add a bit more if you like ‘em sweet, but I figure that extra dark brownies make a good contrast to sweet peanut butter cookie dough. But it’s totally your call)

2 eggs

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a nine by thirteen inch glass baking pan.

Melt the butter in the microwave or in a pan on the stovetop.

In a bowl, combine the flour, sugar, and cocoa.

Add the butter and eggs and stir until blended.

Pour the brownie mix into the pan. Stick them in the oven for half an hour or less, checking now and then. The brownies should be soft but fairly firm to touch. Remember, though, you want them fudgy, so don’t overcook.

While the brownies are cooking, make your awesome raw peanut butter cookie dough.

The Cookie Dough

¼ teaspoon salt

½ cup sugar

½ cup butter, softened

¼ cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract (use the real stuff. Who likes fake vanilla extract?)

½ cup peanut butter (you can use creamy or crunchy)

1 ½ cups rice flour

1 cup chocolate chips (itty bitty ones are good, but as I didn’t have any I just used some regular extra dark ones)

In the bowl of your electric mixer, beat the sugar, salt and butter until fluffy.

Add the milk and vanilla extract and beat until blended.

Add the peanut butter and beat.

Add the flour and beat.

Stir in the chocolate chips. If you want you can also add nuts.

Once the brownies are fully cooled, spread the peanut butter cookie dough over them. Then stick the whole deal in the fridge for about an hour.

That’s all there is to it. Didn’t I say something about easy?

So, yeah, new recipe: Chocolate mousse pie. I’d call it a pie, anyway. And the mousse part? Usually mousse is pretty soft and creamy and such, but this firm. Firm enough to cut. So I don’t know whether or not that qualifies for mousse. But let’s just make things easy. Call it mousse.

And here comes the cool part: Completely no bake. And it’s extremely yummy.

That was two cool parts, actually. I gotta work on my counting skills.

Anyway…

Serves: 10

Time: 20 minutes prep, 1 hour to cool in refrigerator.

Here we go:

CRUST:

1 cup almonds (you can used either whole or sliced)

½ cup chocolate chips

1 tbsp butter

¼ cup extra dark cocoa

Combine all those ingredients in a food processor or blender. Blend until sort of finely ground. You don’t want to turn it into a powder, but you don’t want any whole almonds in there either.

Once blended, press the mix into a pie plate. You don’t have to butter the pan.

Set that aside and make your filling.

CHOCOLATE MOUSSE:

3 cups chocolate chips (I prefer to use 60 to 70% but you can use whatever you want)

2 tablespoons butter

¼ cup boiling water

½ cup whipping cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/8 cup coffee (this is optional. If you don’t want to use coffee, replace with whipping cream)

Pecans or sliced almonds (optional)

In a double boiler (Double Boilers, and How are they Used?), mix together the chocolate chips and the butter (chopped up into little pieces). Allow the chocolate chips and butter to start melting. While they melt, stir constantly in order to keep the chocolate chips from burning.

When chocolate chips and butter have completely melted, put the mix into the bowl of your electric mixer.

Add the remaining ingredients, all except the nuts. Blend immediately.

Once ingredients are completely blended together, add the nuts (if using).

Pour the mix into the prepared crust.

Refrigerate for at least one hour before eating.

NOTE: Best with whipped cream on top!