Paleo Life

Bake on!

We’re now over a full month into our Paleo adventure! We’ve had a few cheat meals, but for the most part, we’ve stuck to the program! It’s been a lot easier than I thought it would be, although it is exhausting having to make pretty much everything from scratch. Luckily, both of us love to cook and cooking together only adds to the fun.

I’m still working on this bread thing. Last week, we made a batch using half cassava flour and half almond flour. It was very good, but it still lacks the size needed for a real sandwich. The cassava flour allows for a more traditional bread texture, which is amazing. Next time I attempt bread, I think we’ll try a recipe that uses yeast, since neither of us have any issues with eating it.

The one thing I love about baking bread without yeast is that it comes together super fast. There’s no need to wait for rising and you don’t have to knead it; just whisk together and pop it in the oven. Unfortunately, the husband and I miss sandwiches. I’ve been craving a PBJ for ages now, (though it would have to be an almond butter and jelly since peanuts are not allowed).

Today, I made English muffins!

Aren’t they pretty? These were also quick to put together, but the cashew butter makes them a bit too expensive for me to want to make regularly. I am very pleased with the flavor, but they’re just too soft to be used the way we’d want to eat them. If you tried to make an egg sandwich or top them with anything other than a bit of butter, they’d fall apart. Again, I’m going to give the cassava flour a try. Stay tuned!

Paleo Life

It’s been a busy few weeks around here. The success of the paleo cupcakes for my husband’s birthday has sparked a renewed interest in paleo baking in the both of us. We loved making bread before this diet change and we’re excited to try some new techniques.
This last week, we tried a paleo sandwich bread made using almond flour. The one thing I noticed right off was that since this bread has no gluten or more importantly, yeast in it, it comes together so much faster than standard sandwich bread. So, that’s a win! There’s no need for rise time, punching or kneading the dough; you basically mix it, pour it in the pan and bake! The downside to no yeast however, is that the finished product doesn’t rise very much. Vinegar and baking soda give it a slight boost, but for the most part, it comes out of the oven at the same height it went in. Drat. I was hoping for a nice, tall loaf of sandwich bread. What I got was a mini loaf, albeit a very tasty one.

The flavor of the bread is awesome. It’s dense and slightly nutty, not too overpowering and would be perfect for sandwiches or toast, it just lacks height. I thought I could get a little more height out of it by separating the eggs and whipping the whites into medium peaks before folding them back in, but there was almost no difference in height between the two loaves. I did notice that the bread with the whipped egg whites came out a little less dense, which was nice, but not the result I was hoping for. Back to the drawing board on that one.

I can confirm however, that as written, this bread makes amazing toast. I eat it with a little bit of butter (not paleo, I know, but it doesn’t bother me, so I’m going to keep eating it). My husband loves it with his morning eggs, so win-win!

On the upside, I’ve got (almost) paleo chocolate chip cookies AND fudgy brownies. So, so good.

Both are made with almond flour and organic chocolate chips. The way I made them isn’t exactly paleo compliant because the chocolate chips do contain processed white sugar, but for now, that’s going to have to do. Once I run out of chocolate chips, I’ll look into making them 100% paleo.

For the cookies, I follow the recipe exactly. I did experiment by adding one cup of dried cranberries and one teaspoon of cinnamon in order to make something close to my oatmeal craisin cookies, EPIC! I’ll have to take a picture next time, I was too hungry to wait this last batch.

For the brownies, I tried them exactly as written the first time around, but they were too cakey for my liking. I prefer my brownies to be super fudgy and moist. I thought 3 eggs seemed like too many the first time I made them, so on my second try, I cut it down to 2 eggs and that was perfect!

We’re still on the hunt for a more sandwich friendly bread; I just got a tip about cassava flour, which is already on its way to me, so hopefully next time, I’ll be able to report a success!