I make tasty desserts without sugar... and flour... and gluten. What's left? Check out Healthy Indulgences Blog to find out! 
Healthy Instant Chocolate Cake (aka 1 Minute Microwave Cake) and a GIVEAWAY!
(Scroll to the end of this post to enter a special GIVEAWAY!)
This healthy yet decadent spin on the beloved One Minute Muffin is sure to hit the spot when you’re crunched for time and craving the sweet stuff.
This healthy yet decadent spin on the beloved One Minute Muffin is sure to hit the spot when you’re crunched for time and craving the sweet stuff.
Picture this: It’s lunch time, and you’re utterly fatigued after a grueling Monday morning full of meetings with clients/problem sets and paper writing/chasing after the little ones/[choose your own adventure] and your stomach is grumbling.
Bread, made healthy! Tasty Grain-Free and Low Carb Rolls, perfect for sandwiches.
Bread! Yes, bread. The sweet aroma of yeast-y dough filled up my kitchen while I was shaping and baking these promising mounds into the perfectly browned, crusty n’ soft rolls you see below.
To my readers, who’ve wrapped their burgers in lettuce, their sammies in gluten-free wraps, and have grown accustomed to using a knife and fork for formerly handheld entrees – this one is for you guys. You who have dutifully forgone high carb, refined foods to avoid allergens, take charge of your health, and eat like Grok (Mark Sisson’s paleolithic alter ego) can eat bread again without fear. Go ahead… take a bite!
Healthy Carrot Cake with decadent Cream Cheese Frosting
Why have I made carrot cake over ten times in the past three days? To come up with a Healthy Carrot Cake that’s low in carbohydrates and gluten-free for you! This fragrant and flavorful cake is also dairy-free and nut-free, if you omit the classic add in of chopped walnuts. I promise you won’t miss the raisins in this nourishing carrot cake that’s not just healthy “because it has vegetables in it!” 
The other bad stuff–those culprits named Sugar and Flour–are conspicuously left out of this recipe. All of that grating was totally worth it.
There is a teaspoon of blackstrap molasses–which is technically a sugar–in this recipe. It’s a thick, dark iron-rich syrup made from the sugarcane plant. This molasses is potent stuff, and contributes a rich flavor and coloring to the cake. You can leave molasses out to be completely sugar-free, but I think it’s worth the 4 grams of carbs.
You can bake the cake into a traditional rectangular loaf, or snack-sized mini muffins. Get creative and have fun with your sugar-free frosting! It pipes well, using a zip top bag with the corner snipped off.
A bit of food coloring can transform your homemade low carb treats into festive, eye-catching confections worthy of special occasions. Check the food coloring label for hidden sugar before you buy. I made the mistake of not checking the label of the Wilton gel coloring I used here, and saw it contained corn syrup, much to my dismay! That pesky Sugar manages to sneak in everywhere, doesn’t it? McCormick food colors, found in most grocery stores, are sugar-free. I’ve tried a couple of organic dyes, and unfortunately neither of them yielded satisfactory results. You need so little coloring for an entire batch of frosting that I’m not too worried about the health effects. If you have any recommendations for natural food dye, let us know in the comments, please.
The frosting is absolutely delicious any color you make it. It’s a new and improved Healthy Cream Cheese Frosting, with a special low carb ingredient that might be familiar to the Asian and Indian readers of this blog…
Healthy Cake with a Secret, Part 2- Gluten-Free Low Carb Yellow Cake!
First off, check out this article in which the research on dietary fat is discussed. Our nutrition philosophy is getting more and more positive press!
(Please ignore the robots on the paper liners. They were on sale!)
Since posting my chocolate cake made with black beans last month, I’ve received quite a few requests for a vanilla version of this incredibly moist, easy recipe. You ask, I deliver! These gluten-free sugar-free low carb (grain-free!) yellow cupcakes are made with coconut flour in place of the cocoa powder, and white beans instead of black beans. Cocoa powder and coconut flour seem to work interchangeably! It’s a pretty cool discovery that I hope y’all can make use of in your own gluten-free low carb baking pursuits. And because someone will ask: These cupcakes do not taste like beans or coconut! Just butter and vanilla and moist yumminess. Using beans and coconut flour in place of almond flour is budget-friendly, so you can experiment with this recipe by adding cinnamon, nuts, sugar-free chocolate chunks, different extracts… have fun!
But wait, looks like Kelly over at The Spunky Coconut beat me to the punch! Her yellow cake with chocolate frosting looks scrumptious. Be sure to check out her take on this cake (and all other tasty recipes!) at her beautiful blog.
As for the frosting (a.k.a the ONLY reason for eating cake)? I’ve got you covered there. Professional bakery icing, the kind made with shortening and white sugar, always appealed to me. It’s something about the pure whiteness of the frosting, the supercharged vanilla flavoring, and memories of cupcakes from a bakery in my hometown. The almost artificial taste that you know means it can’t be good for you!
Fortunately, tweaking this type of frosting to be low carb and healthful is only challenging with respect to the sweetener substitution. Even using transfat free organic palm oil shortening, the problem lies in getting rid of the gritty, “cool” quality that xylitol and erythritol (my preferred naturally occuring sugar substitutes!) can lend to heavily fat-based recipes. And stevia alone has no texture to provide structure or cut the greasy mouthfeel of the fat.
Enter swiss meringue buttercream, the ultra smooth egg white based frosting that is commonly found on wedding cakes. Dissolving xylitol in the egg whites seem to fix the texture issues beautifully. Adding a pinch of stevia rounds out the sweetness perfectly. The clear vanilla extract I found at the grocery store maintains that blindingly white hue, and that fake vanilla taste lends a certain authenticity that can’t be achieved with the real deal. The clear vanilla is also ideal for the cake part of the recipe–it doesn’t muddle the golden coloring.
Regarding the sweetener, I’m not positive that erythritol wouldn’t become gritty. I am out of it right now, and have only tested this recipe with xylitol. The great part about working with xylitol is that it forces you to have portion control if you are sensitive to it! Finally, the question of whether to use butter or shortening in this recipe can only be answered by you. I honestly don’t enjoy the “buttery” taste of frosting made with real butter, but it works well here if you’d like to use it. The positive aspects of making this frosting with nonhydrogenated shortening are that a) the vanilla flavor comes through better, and b) it’s dairy-free! This sugar-free low carb icing will taste so real that I advise you make a very small batch if you’re a frosting fiend like I am.
Healthy Yellow Cupcakes
Makes 12 cupcakes
Ingredients:
1-15 oz can white beans, rinsed (I used cannellini beans, white kidney beans) OR 1 1/2 cups cooked white beans
5 large eggs plus 1 yolk
6 tablespoons unsalted organic butter OR nonhydrogenated shortening
3/4 teaspoon good-tasting pure stevia extract (NuNaturals brand)
3/4 cup erythritol OR 2/3 cup xylitol OR 1/3 cup honey
4 teaspoons vanilla extract (clear imitation vanilla is recommended)
6 packed tablespoons Bob’s Red Mill coconut flour
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon aluminum-free baking powder
Preparation:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Rise beans in a fine mesh sieve and shake off the water. Blend beans with the eggs, vanilla, and salt. In a large mixing bowl, cream softened butter and sweetener until light and fluffy. Beat in pureed mixture. Measure out the coconut flour like you would cocoa powder, by spooning it straight from the bag, packing it down a bit, and sweeping the top of the spoon level. Add to the batter along with the rest of the dry ingredients, and whip together for another minute or two until fluffy. Spoon batter into paper liners sprayed with extra virgin olive oil spray. I use a 1/4 cup measure to distribute batter. Fill cupcake liners a little more than 3/4 way full. Rap muffin pan on the counter a few times to pop any air bubbles. Bake cupcakes for 25 minutes, or until springy to the touch. I set my oven to 325 degrees because it runs hot, but 350 degrees should be just right for accurate, calibrated ovens. The cupcakes will be golden brown around the edges. Let cupcakes sit for 24 hours, so that all of the bean flavor disappears. This is important, really! Hide them from yourself if you must (just don’t forget about ‘em!). Enjoy your moist cupcakes with absolutely no beany taste.
~4g net carbs per 1/12th of a recipe, using erythritol
Sugar-Free Buttercream Frosting
Makes enough to frost 3-6 cupcakes
Ingredients:
1 large egg white
1/4 cup xylitol (honey might work as well)
6 tablespoons unsalted organic butter or nonhydrogenated shortening, cut into chunks
Pinch good tasting pure stevia extract (optional, for best flavor)
Big pinch sea salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (clear imitation vanilla recommended)
Preparation:
Step by step photos for making a swiss meringue buttercream icing can be found here.
Whisk egg white together with xylitol in a stainless steel bowl set over a small saucepan full of water. You don’t want the bottom of the bowl to touch the water. Set heat to medium-low to bring water to a simmer. Whisk egg white with xylitol 3-5 minutes, or until xylitol is completely dissolved. Dip clean fingers into egg white mixture, and pinch for any undissolved granules. Mixture will appear white and foamy. Remove steel bowl from water, and beat egg white mixture until it has about doubled in volume, and is room temperature (cool to the touch). Beat in vanilla and salt. Add chunks of softened butter or shortening, one at a time, beating for 3-5 minutes until mixture is smooth and no longer curdled. Beat in a tiny pinch of stevia and taste for sweetness, making adjustments if necessary. Don’t fret if your buttercream doesn’t look smooth for awhile–it will eventually come together!
If after incorporating the butter the icing is too “loose” and soupy, sit the mixing bowl in an ice bath to cool, or stick the bowl into the freezer for a few minutes, and try beating again. If the mixture is chunky like cottage cheese, heat the bowl over the simmering water again and try beating until it comes together into a smooth icing. Use a spatula to smooth out the consistency. Finally, if you think the frosting tastes too “greasy,” trying cutting back the butter by one or two tablespoons. Leave out the stevia. It will be considerably sweeter, though.
Transfer frosting to a piping bag, or just spread directly on cupcakes. To revive refrigerated frosting, microwave it for 5-8 seconds, and stir around bowl with a spatula until smooth and creamy again. Or whip until fluffy with beaters.
~0-26g net carbs per batch of frosting, depending on how you count xylitol
Recipes from other blogs you might enjoy:
Sugar-Free Swiss Meringue Buttercream @ Domestifluff
Lemon Meringue Cupcakes @ Straight Into Bed Cakefree and Dried (SCD-friendly)
Vanilla Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting @ Elana’s Pantry
Fluffy Cupcakes @ Comfy Belly
Fluffy, Diner-Style Healthy Pancakes… Low Carb and Gluten-Free!
Going to keep this post short and sweet. It’s been a busy weekend! Summer term is already wrapping up, with only a couple weeks of class left.
This morning, I got a craving for pancakes! I’ve been searching for a healthy low carb version of those fluffy white stacks of carb-fog-inducing bliss ever since I saw my friends chowing down on flapjacks at my favorite breakfast diner, The Golden Griddle. It’s a mandatory stop on our annual trip to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina at the end of the school year. Every May, Dukies take over this quaint restaurant for a weekend, and get served by the likes of our super friendly waitress Kathleen, and other purveyors of Southern hospitality. We’ve had Kathleen as our server for two years running, so going to Golden Griddle now feels like a special welcome from the small beach town.
These pancakes are just perfect–fluffy, light, and lacking that musty whole grain flavor that tends to be associated with “healthy” bread products. In other words, they taste every bit as good as high carb white flour pancakes! They’re not grain-free, but they are dairy-free and gluten-free if made with certified gluten-free oats. I grind mine into a fine meal in my Magic Bullet or coffee grinder. If you’re looking for grain-free pancakes, check out this recipe using almond meal from Laura Dolson’s low carb about.com site. The blend of coconut and oat flours used here is much more budget-friendly (and low in calories, if you’re interested) than a nut meal based dish. Stay tuned for a recipe for all natural sugar-free “maple syrup”! If you don’t mind sucralose/Splenda sweetened products, the Maple Grove Farms brand sugar-free syrup is a satisfactory replacement for the carb filled “real thing.”
I eat a small serving of two flapjacks as an accompaniment dish to my standard breakfast of scrambled eggs and nitrate-free bacon, not as a main meal. Double or triple the batch to share the love!
Topped with real buttah. Viva la low carb!
Healthy Low Carb Pancakes
Makes 2 medium flapjacks. Serves 1.
Ingredients:
1.5 tablespoons organic heavy cream OR 2 tablespoons coconut milk
1 large egg
3.5 tablespoons water (use only three if using coconut milk)
1/4 cup sifted oat flour (made from GF oats)
2 tablespoons sifted coconut flour
1/4 teaspoon aluminum-free baking powder
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/8 teaspoon NuNaturals pure stevia extract OR 2 tablespoons sugar-free sweetener
Preparation:
Heat a nonstick pan (yes, I use nonstick and refuse to apologize) to medium heat, or until a drop of water sizzles and “dances” around the skillet. You don’t have to grease it. When measuring oat or coconut flour, sift a bit of it (or whisk it until the lumps are broken up), and lightly spoon the amount called for into a tablespoon or quarter cup measure. Level off with a knife. Whisk together egg and cream, and add dry ingredients. Whisk batter very well until there are no longer lumps. Let it sit for a minute or two to thicken up. Pour or scrape batter on to skillet, and cook until bubbles appear on surface of pancake. Flip and cook other side for about 30 seconds. Serve with butter and sugar-free maple syrup, or a bit of honey, if desired.
~12g net carbs per serving
What is your favorite healthy breakfast? Leave a comment and share it with us!
Recipes from other blogs you might enjoy:
Grain-Free Coconut Flour Pancakes @ Organic and Thrify
Gluten-Free Flapjacks @ Elana’s Pantry
Low Carb Almond Ricotta Pancakes @ Denver Low Carb Examiner
Purely Pecan Pancakes @ Local Forage
Healthy Coconut Cake Bites… Grain- and Dairy-free!
Since y’all enjoyed the chocolate cake (made with beans!) so much, I’m going to create more desserts that don’t rely heavily on almond flour a.k.a. powdered gold for low carb bakers! Does this sound like a good plan? Leave some feedback and let me know what you think.
These moist little cake bites contain all of the decadence of a classic Southern coconut cake, with none of the highly refined ingredients that make the original only an occasional treat. You could eat these sugar-free gluten-free low carb (dairy-free!) treats every day if you wanted, getting the benefits of coconut, almonds, and eggs without the grains and sugar to spike your insulin. Us low carbers can enjoy saturated fat laden coconut products precisely because we maintain a diet free of foods that release a lot of insulin. The same goes for butter, cheese, cream, bacon… basically, everything delicious in life! That is what makes this healthy lifestyle so luxurious. Embracing it for the long term is not difficult if you focus on what you CAN have!
If a low insulin diet is healthy, then what about so-called “natural sweeteners”? If you believe that saturated fat is part of a healthy paleolithic style diet, then you should also recognize the dangers that concentrated sweeteners in any form, natural or not, pose. When combined with saturated fat, high levels of carbohydrates–found in maple syrup, evaporated cane juice (Sucanat), agave, honey, brown rice syrup, molasses, etc.–release insulin, a hormone that promotes fat storage. This insulin response can lead to insulin resistance down the line, which is associated with a host of problems, including elevated triglycerides, heart disease, and diabetes.
A higher carb, lower fat diet can also be healthy, if you’re committed to it. Overall caloric restriction has shown similar benefits to a low carb diet. Find the way of eating that suits your lifestyle, and go with it!
With my recipes, it’s all about insulin. That’s my justification for using erythritol, xylitol, and even artificial sweeteners once in a blue moon at Starbucks. And for giving guidelines for using various noncaloric sweeteners in these recipes. Not everyone agrees on these points, and that is okay! That’s what so wonderful about the blogosphere–there are recipes for all dietary plans. Just do your research before accepting “natural” options automatically as the best for your body.
For more information about this, see Good Calories, Bad Calories. Check out the Google Books preview here. Taubes is apparently coming out with a version of this tome for mass public consumption. It’s a very large, dry compendium of research, which needs to be simplified for easier reading. It is an invaluable resource for anyone seeking to eat a diet based on past and current nutrition research. I’m not any sort of healthcare professional–just a student and an avid reader.
And finally, the recipe! It’s a moist, tender cake, with a loose crumb. You could definitely amp up the coconut flavor with coconut extract used for half of the vanilla. Bake it into a layer for a coconut layer cake! My cream cheese frosting flavored with a bit of coconut extract would be perfect for it.
Grain-Free Coconut Cupcakes
Makes 20 mini cupcakes
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons organic coconut oil OR unsalted butter
1/4 cup blanched almond flour, packed
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract (may replace 1 tsp with coconut extract)
2 cups unsweetened shredded coconut, ground to a meal
1 tablespoon sifted coconut flour (sub with 2 tablespoons brown rice flour or 1 tablespoon protein powder)
1/4 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup erythritol OR 1/4 cup honey OR 1/2 cup Splenda
1/2 teaspoon NuNaturals pure stevia extract
1/8 teaspoon sea salt
3 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon aluminum-free baking powder
Preparation:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
With a Magic Bullet or food processor, grind shredded coconut into a fine, powdery meal. Scoop almond flour into measuring cup, and pack it in firmly with your hands, like you’re measuring brown sugar. Sweep it level. Add to coconut and the rest of the dry ingredients. Melt butter, and beat in eggs, vanilla extract, and coconut milk. Add dry ingredients into wet ingredients, and beat together for a couple of minutes. Line a mini muffin pan with mini muffin papers, and spray with extra virgin olive oil spray. Alternatively, grease mini muffin wells very well with coconut oil. Pour batter almost to the top of mini muffin cups. Rap muffin tin gently on the counter to pop air bubbles. Bake for 18-20 minutes, until springy and firm to the touch. You might have to bake these longer since my oven in this apartment runs hot. Remove cakes from muffin tins as soon as they are cool to the touch, and cool on a wire rack. Dip cakes into glaze. Serve at room temperature.
~1.1g net carbs per mini cake (unglazed)
~1.3g net carbs per mini cake (glazed)
Actual size!
Coconut Milk Glaze
1 cup full fat coconut milk, chilled
4 teaspoons coconut flour OR a tiny pinch xanthan gum
Stevia and powdered erythritol, to taste
Tiny pinch sea salt
Whisk together coconut milk, and sift in coconut flour. Whisk in coconut flour until no lumps remain, then add a pinch of salt, and sweeteners. Taste and adjust sweetness level if necessary. Dip cakes into glaze and sprinkle with unsweetened coconut.
~3.5g net carbs for the whole batch of glaze
Coconut Flour Brownies, revisited–Gluten-free and Delicious!
Coconut flour is so much fun to play with! It’s so much easier to measure out versus grinding up almonds each time I want to bake. Get some and I promise you’ll be hooked on the richness of this gluten-free, low carb “flour.”
Interjection to share some science nerdiness. Check out this study on LDL in heart attack patients. Who knew that lower LDL is associated with increased mortality? And more of the low LDL patients were diabetic. Curious, very curious…
Remember these brownies? They’re delicious when undercooked, but turn cakey and dry if you leave them in the oven a minute too long. I know how annoying it is to waste these expensive natural ingredients on recipes full of fail, so I am sorry if you have been caused grief by moisture-sucking overcooked brownies. This new and improved version of sugar-free low carb coconut flour brownies is MUCH less temperamental, and pretty much foolproof in terms of the baking time. Thanks to Buffy at Low Carb Friends for bringing this inspiring recipe to my attention! These brownies are not gooey or chewy, but fudgy and dense. They’re more milk chocolate than most chocolate treats I’ve made, which is refreshing. If you enjoy these brownies as much as my roommates do, you’ll want to stockpile coconut flour for many more batches!
A note about ingredients: Use the highest quality pastured butter you can find for optimal results. I bought a bunch of Kerrygold butter on sale, and have found that it lends such a pleasant buttery taste to everything I use it in. So worth the not-on-sale price! I’ll be using Kerrygold in the recipes you see here from now on. When baking with no sugar and no flour, it’s recommended to use the best of the ingredients we CAN work with! Also, for those of you who don’t use erythritol, I’m pretty sure these brownies would work with 1/4 cup raw honey and 3/4 teaspoon of stevia. This will add 68 grams net carbs to the recipe, making each brownie about 9.5 grams net carbs. Be aware that with the honey/stevia combo, they won’t be as sweet as traditional brownies.
Remember to keep your mitts off of these for a full night in the fridge. I don’t know why, but it seems that baked goods made with coconut flour take a full night to “settle” into their full decadent yumminess. Just make up a batch, toss ‘em in the freezer, and go to bed. Or watch SVU reruns on USA all night. Or read Good Calories, Bad Calories under the covers. Just do something to avoid cutting into this chocolately goodness until it achieves its full potential!
Then wake up and grab yourself a delicious and nutritious sugar-free low carb brownie. For breakfast. You know you want to!
Healthy Coconut Flour Brownies
Serves 12-16
Ingredients:
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 sticks salted organic butter (3/4 cup), softened
OR 1 stick butter, 8 ounces sour cream (for more moist brownies)
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs
1 cup sifted Bob’s Red Mill coconut flour
3/4 cup erythritol or xylitol OR 1/3 cup honey
1/2 teaspoon NuNaturals pure stevia extract (increase to 1 teaspoon if using honey)
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon aluminum-free baking powder
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/3 cup organic heavy cream
1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
Preparation:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Brush both sides of an 8″ by 8″ (or 11″ by 7″ for thinner brownies) pan with coconut oil, or spray with extra virgin olive oil cooking spray. Place a cut square of parchment paper in the bottom of the pan.
Beat softened cream cheese with electric mixer until smooth. Beat in butter, vanilla, and sweetener. Whisk together dry ingredients. Add eggs one at a time to cream cheese mixture, and beat until incorporated. Add dry ingredients and heavy cream. Fold in nuts. Pour chocolate mixture into prepared pan, and smooth top with a spatula. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes for the wider pan, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, and top feels firm to the touch. When done, place pan on wire rack and cool completely. Cool pan of brownies overnight in the refrigerator. Slice into 12-16 squares, and serve. Store in the refrigerator in an airtight container, or freeze cut brownies, individual wrapped in plastic and aluminum foil.
~4g net carbs per 1/12th of a recipe
Coconut Flour Pound Cake
It’s so nice to have a bit more time to blog now that summer is here! I’ll have more gluten-free low carb recipes coming your way, with more of a focus on primal ingredients. What do I mean by primal? Head on over to Mark’s Daily Apple and check out the primal blueprint, a paleolithic way of eating (and living!). It works with our evolution instead of against it, unlike modern processed food and the typical high-carb high-fat high-grain American diet. I don’t always stick to such a plan 100% (evidenced by this upcoming dairy laden recipe!), but I make an effort to put health over convenience and at least avoid the prepackaged stuff. The primal way constitutes a budget-friendly approach for students, too. The prices of organic vegetables and wild salmon burgers are far exceeded by fast food, pints of Ben and Jerry’s and card swiping at the vending machines around campus!
Check out some of these fab looking primal recipes:
Homemade Almond Cheese @ Ginger Lemon Girl
Chocolate Pudding @ Caveman Food
Primal Peach Patties @ Son of Grok
Speaking of budget-friendly, I’d like to thank all of the readers who used my iherb rewards code (to buy this fabulous stevia I’m assuming!), giving me a credit towards my last purchase. Every little bit helps. Thanks, y’all!
As a gift to you, I’ll be holding a couple of giveaways in upcoming posts. Stay tuned for some sweet surprises…
Did anyone else enter the Emerald Forest Xylitol recipe contest? I did, with a fluffy peanut butter pie, and mini chocolate raspberry cheesecakes. Perhaps they weren’t looking for natural low carb fare since a rice pudding and zucchini muffins took the top prizes. What’s the point of using a carb-free sweetener for desserts made with white rice and white flour?! Your insulin is already going crazy with the amount of starch in those ingredients, so what difference do a few more grams of sugar carbs make? Ah well, my loss is your gain since I will be posting the recipes for you guys. 
The peanut butter pie and mini cheesecakes were winners according to the people in my dorm!
And now, a new recipe. Finally. Do you like pound cake? How does healthy low carb gluten-free grain-free pound cake sound? There’s been a lot of buzz about coconut flour lately. It’s a wonderfully nourishing gluten free “flour,” made from finely ground defatted coconut meat. The possibilities are really endless once you get the feel for baking with it. Because of its dryness, you cannot just add it haphazardly to existing recipes. A bit of creativity is required to make some of our old favorite desserts with it. It provides a fantastic nut-free option for all of you tree nut sensitive low carbers. But I guess that’s what natural foodies are doing here all the time, huh?
You can make this nearly sugar-free with a bit of honey, or completely sugar-free with my favorite natural sweetener, erythritol. It’ll be quite sweet if you use the erythritol, and lightly sweetened if you use honey. The texture is almost cheesecake-y with all its richness. This ain’t a light and fluffy pound cake. It’s heavy and decadent and stick to your ribs. Enjoy!
Healthy Coconut Flour Pound Cake
Adapted from this recipe at Cooking God’s Way
Makes 12 hearty slices
Ingredients:
1 1/4 sticks (1/2 plus 1/8 cup) unsalted organic butter, softened
4 ounces cream cheese
10 large eggs
3-4 tablespoons honey OR 3/4 cup erythritol
1 teaspoon sea salt
2 tablespoons (yes, tablespoons) pure vanilla extract
2 cups organic whole milk yogurt
1 teaspoon organic lemon zest
3/4 cup water
2 teaspoons aluminum-free baking powder
1 teaspoon good tasting pure stevia extract (use 1/2 teaspoon if using erythritol)
2 cups sifted coconut flour
Preparation:
Preheat oven to 325°F.
Grease a 9×5-inch loaf pan, and line the bottom of the loaf pan with a cut rectangle of parchment paper. Grease pan and paper with coconut oil or extra virgin olive oil spray. Sift coconut flour, lightly spoon into cup, and even with the sweep of a knife to measure out the proper quantity. Whisk in the rest of the dry ingredients. In a large bowl, cream the butter and cream cheese together for a minute. Beat in sweetener, and cream for a couple more minutes until light and fluffy. Mix in the eggs, and alternately add the wet ingredients and dry ingredients (except the lemon zest) until combined. Beat in the zest. Pour loaf pan almost to the brim with batter. You may have a bit of batter leftover, which can be baked in a mini muffin pan.
Bake for 90 minutes, covering with tin foil after the first half hour if the top is already golden brown. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of cake comes out clean, and the center looks completely set. Let cake cool for at least 2 hours, preferably OVERNIGHT, in pan. Invert cake on to a cooling rack and let cool completely, or else just tip it out of the pan and rest it on its side until cool. This cake tastes MUCH better the next day. Serve at room temperature, and store individual slices in the fridge.
~9g net carbs per 1/12th of a recipe (using honey)
~6g net carbs per 1/12th of a recipe (using erythritol)
Healthy Banana Nut Muffins
All of my baking supplies are gone. They were taken from the dorm kitchen under the cover of night, either by a prankster or an angry cleaning lady (I’m assuming the latter). I asked around as to the whereabouts of my cake pans, mixing bowls, measuring cups, and Magic Bullet parts, and got no answers. Such is college life!
With my new limited stock of kitchen tools, I bring you these simple, comforting Banana Bread Muffins. With a touch of cinnamon and a sprinkling of pecans, these gluten-free sugar-free low carb muffins will trick your senses into thinking you are eating more than the sum of their parts. Flourless and sugarless, you might ask what exactly makes up these delicious morsels. Mashed banana, organic butter, eggs, and one of my favorite healthy ingredients… coconut flour!
Baked goods made with coconut flour are nothing short of miraculous. Lots of eggs and a bit of ground defatted coconut can be transformed into everything from English Muffins to Red Velvet Cake to Brownies to Pancakes. The possibilities are endless, and easily adaptable to a sugar-free lifestyle. For me, the best aspect of baking with coconut flour is not having to grind almonds! Every time I want to make baked goods using almond flour, I grind the sliced almonds myself with my trusty Magic Bullet blender. Being able to scoop flour directly from the bag (well, after sifting) always feels like such a luxury now!
My other recipes featuring coconut flour:
Red Velvet Cake
Not-tella Swirl Cupcakes
Crispy Pizza Crust
English Muffins
Pick up some coconut flour at your local Whole Foods, or inquire about this product at the health food store in your area. If you’re worried about coconut flour causing everything you make to taste like coconut, fear not. In fragrant, flavorful treats like these healthy banana muffins, there is not even a hint of coconut flavor to confuse your palate. These muffins would be wonderful as a banana bread loaf, baked for a bit longer at a lower temperature.
Look at all those crunchy pecans!
Banana Bread Muffins
Makes 10 muffins
Ingredients:
1/2 cup sifted organic coconut flour
4 tablespoons organic unsalted butter, softened
6 large eggs
3/4 cup mashed banana (2 medium bananas, overripe to the point of being black)
1/2 cup erythritol
1/4 teaspoon good-tasting pure stevia extract
1/4 teaspoon unrefined sea salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon aluminum-free baking powder
1/2 cup walnuts or pecans, chopped
Preparation:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Beat butter with erythritol until fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. Beat in vanilla. Add eggs one at a time, beating for 30 seconds after each addition. Combine coconut flour with baking powder, cinnamon, stevia, and salt, and beat into batter until there are no lumps. Beat in mashed banana. Fold in nuts, reserving a couple tablespoons for sprinkling the tops. Pour batter almost up the top of greased muffin papers (the shiny tins work best), and top with nuts. Bake 35 minutes, covering the muffins with a sheet of foil after the 30 minute mark. Let cool in pans for 5-10 minutes, then remove and let muffins finish cooling on a wire rack. When completely cooled, transfer to an airtight container. Store at room temperature for 24 hours, then move to the refrigerator.
~5.5g net carbs per muffin of a recipe
For best results, serve warm with a pat of Kerrygold butter!
What do YOU like to make with coconut flour? Leave a comment and share!
Related content from other blogs:
Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins @ Elana’s Pantry
Wheat-free Recipes with Coconut Flour @ Cheeseslave
Coconut Bread @ Nourishing Days
Healthier Nutella and the Best Cupcakes Ever
Raise your hand if you are guilty of dipping your finger into a jar of Nutella at some point. Is your hand up high? Mine too! It’s becoming more and more common to come across Nutella addicts from all walks of life. I still remember the first time I sampled Nutella at a Spanish language immersion summer camp. I hesitantly spread it on my toast, took a dainty little bite, and was instantly hooked! A few years later, Nutella cropped up in U.S. grocery stores, dooming me to a life of temptation every time I reached for an innocent jar of peanut butter placed strategically beside the jar with the white lid and Kobe Bryant smiling out at you.
This rich, sweet chocolate hazelnut spread is (well, was) good on just about anything, from pretzels to fresh fruit to crepes to straight-off-the-spoon-when-you-think-no-one’s-looking. Let’s have a look at the ingredients of this popular peanut butter alternative:
sugar, modified palm oil, hazelnuts, cocoa, skimmed milk, soy lecithin, vanillin, reduced mineral whey
Sugar makes up the bulk of the spread? No wonder it’s so tasty! Modified palm oil? Palm oil is shelf stable and full of healthful saturated fats as is, which makes me curious as to why it is adulterated for Nutella. Madness! Let’s make some chocolate hazelnut spread that won’t leech nutrients from your body…
This low sugar version of Nutella (Not-tella?) packs a nutrient punch with antioxidants, healthful saturated fat, and iron from the chocolate, and monounsaturated fat and magnesium from the nuts and oil. The milk contributes a bit of calcium as well. Best of all, the net carbohydrate grams have been cut down from 168 per cup to 56! Spread your Nutella on an almond flour biscuit and enjoy chocolately decadence without the sugar crash!
The recipe for Not-tella is so simple! You just have to do a bit of chopping and stirring (and taste-testing as you go along, shh). You can find powdered milk at most supermarkets and even Wal-Mart. If you’re dairy-free or vegan, perhaps powdered coconut or soy milk would be a good stand in. As for the oil in the recipe, you have options. I used cold-pressed peanut oil because it has the best taste and least heat processing for the most reasonable price, but any nutty or neutral tasting oil would work. A touch of vanilla bean paste would be lovely in this spread, if you have access to it. Just don’t add water and ruin the smooth, luxurious consistency!
Healthier Not-tella (Chocolate Hazelnut Spread)
Ingredients:
1/2 cup (heaped) fresh hazelnuts
5 tablespoons oil
1-3.5 oz Lindt 70% cacao content bar
1/4 teaspoon (scant) of good-tasting pure stevia extract
4 tablespoons powdered milk (I used Organic Valley)
Pinch sea salt
Preparation:
Toast hazelnuts in the oven at 300 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes, stirring twice. Dump hot hazelnuts into a clean dish towel and rub vigorously for a few moments to remove some of the skins. Don’t worry if some of the skins are still left on. Chop up nuts well (unless you have a really powerful blender). Pour oil into blender or Magic Bullet cup. Add nuts. Blend for a minute or two until nuts are ground as smooth as you can get them. Make sure your hands are dry, and break or chop up chocolate bar into pieces and microwave for 30 seconds, then for 15 seconds, or until it can be stirred smooth. Stir in powdered milk (sifted, if it has lumps), stevia, and sea salt. Store tightly in a glass jar for 24 hours to let the flavors meld. Reheat cold Nutella to make it spreadable, as it will harden in the fridge.
~56g net carbs for the whole recipe, with 7g net carbs per 2 tablespoons
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And now, a little somethin’ special for New Year’s festivities…
NUTELLA SWIRL CUPCAKES! 
These cupcakes are darn good. They really deserve their own post, but this recipe came together as I was working on a cupcake base for swirls of Not-tella. If you haven’t tried coconut flour-based cake (and even if you HAVE tried it), you are in for a treat! My standard coconut cake recipe is adapted from one of Bruce Fife’s recipes, but one little twist on the method of preparation has yielded the best sugar-free gluten-free (and dairy-free!) cupcakes I’ve ever eaten.
The big twist is… whipping the egg whites and folding them back in! That’s it. That’s all you have to do to get a nice fluffy consistency with pretty rounded tops and a perfectly moist interior. If you’re intimidated by egg whites, read this helpful tutorial. I’ll never make cupcakes with the old, lazy method again. It seriously takes less than 5 extra minutes to attain white flour-less cupcake nirvana. It also cuts the calories per serving drastically, which means you can “eat more,” and have 2 cupcakes instead of one. And this, my friends, is totally sweet.
Nutella Swirl Cupcakes a.k.a The Best Cupcakes Ever
Makes enough for two muffin trays
Ingredients:
1/2 cup oil (I used 1/4 cup extra virgin olive and 1/4 cup coconut)
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup organic half and half or coconut milk
1/2 cup sifted coconut flour
1/2 cup erythritol
1/4 teaspoon good-tasting pure stevia extract
1 teaspoon aluminum-free baking powder
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
5 eggs, separated
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar (optional)
Preparation:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Grease muffin pans with nonhydrogenated shortening, or line with paper cups. Spray paper liners with cooking spray if using. Stir together oils, vanilla, and half and half. Mix together coconut flour, erythritol, stevia, baking powder, and salt. Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients, then whisk in egg yolks. In a separate, meticulously clean bowl using clean beaters, beat egg whites with cream of tartar until stiff peaks form. Stir a bit of the whites into the yolk batter to lighten it up, then proceed to fold in the rest of the whites. Don’t worry the batter has streaks or a few chunks of foam. Spoon batter into greased pans, leaving a little room at the top (do NOT overfill or cupcakes can sink in the middle).
Use a teaspoon to drop chocolate spread onto the top of cupcakes, and swirl in with a toothpick, pulling batter up and over the filling. Bake mini muffins for 20-25 minutes, and regular muffins for 25-30 minutes. Cupcakes may became very browned in some spots on the top, but they will not dry out. Remove when the top of the cupcakes spring back. Let cool for 10 minutes in pans, then invert onto a clean towel or wire rack. Store at room temperature for a couple of days, then refrigerate.
For extra decadence, stuff the insides of cupcakes with Not-tella…
…or just drizzle it generously over the tops!
The filling didn’t quite make it down to the center in this one, but it was still yummy!
~2g net carbs per plain, regular-sized cupcake
~.8g net carbs per minicupcake
Related recipes you might like:
Real, Homemade Nutella @ Seattle Local Food
Let’s Go Nuts: Nutella! @ Food & Thoughts
Cocoa Nib Hazelnut Spread @ vegan visitor
What are you making for a New Year’s party? I’m looking for ideas.