Fruit Pizza
Fruit pizza was another one of my favorite desserts growing up. I tried recreating my mom’s fruit pizza recipe…and the crust is totally different, but the rest of it is similar to the original recipe. I made this last week…and it didn’t last 24 hours in our home…so it is a bit dangerous–but we enjoyed it! I hope you will as well!
Fruit Pizza
Crust Ingredients:
1/2 cup almonds, chopped finely
3/4 cup almond flour
1 egg
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup butter (or coconut oil)
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. soda
Crust Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix together all the crust ingredients.
3. Press into a greased 9×13 or similar sized pan. (I made mine on a baking stone and spread it out a bit more than 9×13.)
4. Bake at 350 for 13-18 minutes or until lightly browned.
5. Cool completely.
Filling and Fruit Ingredients:
1/4 cup butter
2 Tbsp. honey
1/4 tsp. lemon juice
1/2 tsp. vanilla
Sliced fruit and/or small berries (such as strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, mandarin oranges, kiwi, banana, peaches, grapes, etc.)
Filling Directions:
1. Whip together softened butter, honey, lemon juice and vanilla until light and fluffy.
2. Spread filling on top of crust.
3. Top with desired sliced fruit in any which way you choose.
Glaze Ingredients:
1/4 cup water
2 tsp. arrowroot
1/4 cup orange juice
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 Tbsp. honey
Glaze Directions:
1. Whisk together water and arrowroot in a saucepan. Add orange juice, lemon juice and honey.
2. Bring to boil (whisking occasionally) and boil 1 minute.
3. Cool slightly and drizzle/spread over the fruit. Enjoy your fruit pizza!
*Top with Coconut Whipped Cream for an extra-special treat!
NOTE: I have also made this eliminating the “filling” altogether and using the “glaze” as the layer between the crust and the fruit–it is yummy both ways!
Shared at: Fight Back Friday and Allergy-Free Wednesday
“Oatmeal Creme” Pies (grain-free!)
Oh how I wish I could claim this recipe as my own. These are just delightful (and dangerous)! I made a double-batch last night…and I’m afraid they aren’t going to last the rest of today! This recipe comes to us from The Urban Poser. Go check out her blog and fabulous photos of these cookies! The base of this cookie recipe is very similar to my Almond Butter Dark Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe. I will note the few minor changes I made to the recipe, but the original recipe is fabulous the way it is! Enjoy these and try not to eat too many!
“Oatmeal Creme” Pies (grain-free, egg-free, dairy-free and no refined sugars!)
Cookie Ingredients:
Cookie Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix all the cookie ingredients together in a large bowl. Allow to set a few minutes so that the chia will bind the batter.
3. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Drop spoonfuls of dough unto the the paper. (I made mine small…so I could make LOTS of oatmeal cream pies…you can also make them big and have giant ones.)
4. Bake cookies in preheated oven for 8-12 minutes (or until lightly browned on top).
5. Remove cookies from oven and press down gently with a small piece of parchment paper to flatten (be careful not to push too hard to break the cookies).
6. Cool completely.
Marshmallow Creme* Ingredients:
1 cup water (split in half)
1 cup raw honey (I made one batch with 2/3 cup honey and another batch with 1/2 cup honey–both worked well for me!)
1 Tbsp. gelatin (I did 1 packet of gelatin which is a bit less than 1 Tbsp.)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
pinch of salt
*NOTE: This makes a lot of marshmallow cream–I made a double batch of cookies last night with a single batch of marshmallow creme only using 1/2 cup honey and had a lot leftover. I just poured the extra into a parchment paper-lined pan and plan on cutting it up into marshmallows to make Rocky Road Brownies.
Marshmallow Creme Directions:
1. Put 1/2 cup water and gelatin in a large bowl. Set aside.
2. Put the other 1/2 cup water, honey, vanilla and salt in a medium saucepan and cook over medium heat.
3. When the mixture begins to boil, insert a candy thermometer.
4. Continue to boil until mixture reaches 240 degrees (which is soft-ball stage).
5. Remove mixture from stove and slowly pour into bowl with gelatin. Mix on high with wire whisk attachment on a stand mixer. (I used a hand mixer with a whisk attachment and it worked great.)
6. Mix until the mixture becomes thick like marshmallow creme. (This could take up to 10 minutes.)
7. Spread creme on bottom-side of a cookie as thick as you like. Top it off with another cookie to make a “sandwich”. DEVOUR AND ENJOY!
I made these last night and the picture was taken this morning. I found they are just as good the next day! You can read Urban Poser’s notes and her original recipe here. Thank you, for this great recipe!
This was shared at Allergy Free Wednesdays, Pennywise Platter and Fight Back Fridays!
Pumpkin Bars (Grain-free and Refined Sugar-free)
A few weeks ago, I was hungry for dessert and noticed I had multiple cans of pumpkin puree in my cupboard. What was the logical solution? It was to make pumpkin bars, of course! The bars themselves are not overly sweet, but the frosting is quite sweet which I think creates a nice combination. Please, feel free though to reduce the amount of sweetener in either or both to your liking!
See the recipe at my guest post for The Nourishing Gourmet here.
No-Bake Cookies (Paleo)
No-bake cookies are a quick and easy dessert usually consisting of oatmeal and refined sugar. This recipe uses coconut as the “main” ingredient and uses honey instead of granulated sugar. The cookies don’t set-up quite as fast as traditional no-bakes, but are still a tasty treat!
N0-Bake Cookies
Ingredients:
1/3 cup honey (you can probably reduce the amount of honey even more)
1 1/2 Tbsp. cocoa
1/3 cup coconut oil or butter
1/3 cup almond butter
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups dried, unsweetened coconut
Directions:
1. Put honey, cocoa, and coconut oil (or butter) in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat.
2. Bring mixture to a boil. Boil for 1 minute and immediately remove from heat.
3. Stir in the almond butter and vanilla until it is incorporated.
4. Stir in coconut.
5. Scoop by spoonfuls unto wax paper or parchment paper and put in the fridge until hardened and set.
*Store at room temperature or the fridge. I prefer the texture of the cookies out of the fridge.
Grasshopper Pie (Grain-free, Dairy-free!!)
This was our Valentine’s Day Dessert this year! It isn’t as simple as opening a box of ice cream and a package of oreos, but this way it is grain-free, dairy-free, and refined sugar-free! It combines a few different recipes that I’ve already posted.
Grasshopper Pie
Ingredients:
2-3 cups prepared Mint-Chocolate Chip Ice Cream (we used 3 cups, but this is more than one recipe of the ice cream…)
3/4 cup almond flour
3/4 cup almonds, finely chopped
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 cup raw honey
3 Tbsp. coconut oil, melted (or butter)
3 Tbsp. cocoa or cacao
Coconut Whipped Cream and/or melted chocolate chips for garnish
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. Combine almond flour, almonds, salt, honey, butter and cocoa in a bowl.
3. Press into a 9″ pie plate.
4. Bake at 325 degrees for 10-12 minutes.
5. Cool completely and place in freezer.
6. If your ice cream is already prepared and in the freezer, let it stand at room temperature until you can scoop and spread it fairly easily. Fill frozen pie shell with softened ice cream and place back into freezer to firm up. (If you prepare your ice cream after making the crust, you can pour it right into the crust from the ice cream maker.)
7. (Optional) Decorate pie with prepared coconut whipped cream and/or melted chocolate. Place back in the freezer until ready to serve! Remove pie from freezer for a few minutes before cutting and serving.
*I have only made this recipe once, and even though we loved it, we did have a bit of trouble with the crust coming apart from the ice cream section…if anyone has any tips that would help that, let me know!
Shared on Allergy-Free Wednesdays and Proverbs 31 Thursdays Link-Up!
Mint-Chocolate Chip Ice Cream
This Mint-Chocolate Chip Ice Cream is my new favorite dessert…I hope you like it as well!! I can’t wait to try using more spinach and seeing if the taste is still unnoticeable. I’ve tried this both with raw spinach and steamed and couldn’t taste it in either batch. I have read that eating cooked spinach is better than raw, but I’m sure that is disputed. So decide for yourself which way you think is healthier and make it that way.
Mint-Chocolate Chip Ice Cream
Ingredients:
1 can full-fat coconut milk (I love the Thai brand)
1/2 cup baby spinach leaves, lightly steamed (or raw, if preferred)
3-4 Tbsp. raw honey
1 tsp. peppermint flavoring
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/4 – 1/3 cup Homemade Dark Chocolate Chips or store-bought dark chocolate chips
Directions:
1. Put spinach, coconut milk and honey in a blender and blend on high speed until there are no spinach pieces left. (In mine, you can barely see little flecks of green. If your blender isn’t powerful to blend fully, strain mixture through a fine mesh strainer.)
2. Add peppermint and vanilla and blend briefly to combine. Taste and adjust flavoring/sweeteners to your liking.
3. Pour mixture into frozen bowl of ice cream maker and follow directions for your ice cream maker to make into ice cream.
4. Once ice cream is soft-serve consistency, stir in chocolate chips by hand and enjoy or freeze in a sealed container for later!
Almond Butter Cookie Cups
Finally! A recipe I am going to put in the “Christmas Goodies” category! So…these are bit time-consuming, as so many things are with paleo if you are going to try to avoid refined sugars and such–but, we voted the end result was worth it! They are messy as the chocolate doesn’t seem to harden up like typical “candy”, but still tasty. Basically, I’ve combined my Almond Butter Dark Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe with the Dark Chocolate Almond Butter Cups recipe, made a few minor changes and this is the end result.
Almond Butter Cookie Cups
Ingredients:
4 oz. unsweetened chocolate
1/4 cup + 1 Tbsp. honey
2 tsp. coconut oil
2/3 cup almond butter
1/4 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. honey
2 Tbsp. arrowroot
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup almond butter
1/3 cup honey
1 egg
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 Tbsp. flaxseed meal
2/3 cup unsweetened coconut
Directions:
*Disclaimer: I have two different sized “mini-muffin pans”. I used the smaller of the two for the candy cups and the bigger of the two for the cookies so the cups would fit in them…I have not figured out a good way to do this if you don’t have two different sized pans…sorry.
1. Line [smaller] mini-muffin pan with 24 mini-muffin paper liners.
2. Melt unsweetened chocolate, honey and coconut oil in a double-boiler over low heat.
3. Using a spoon or pastry brush, coat bottom (and sides if you can) of paper liners with melted chocolate. Place pan in fridge.
4. Combine 2/3 cup almond butter, 1/4 tsp. salt, 2 Tbsp. honey, 2 Tbsp. arrowroot and 1 tsp. vanilla in a small bowl.
5. Once chocolate has hardened, spoon almond butter mixture over the bottom of each cup.
6. Top with more of the melted chocolate. Place pan back in fridge to harden. Once hardened, remove cups from pan and remove papers from candies. Place candies in fridge or freezer until cookies are ready.
7. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
8. Combine last section of ingredients and mix well. Scoop dough evenly among 24 greased [larger mini-muffin pan] cups.
9. Bake in preheated oven for 7-9 minutes or until edges are starting to brown.
10. Remove pan from oven and immediately press one chocolate almond butter cup into each cookie (press down). Let cool completely in pan, remove from pan and enjoy!
*Notes: The chocolate doesn’t seem to harden up like a typical candy. If you use my other recipe for Dark Chocolate Almond Butter Cups using dark chocolate chips, it should harden up more in the fridge. I was trying to figure out a way to make a chocolate that didn’t contain soy lecithin and refined sugar…hence the unsweetened chocolate. Let me know which way you try and if you like it!
Pumpkin Streusel Pie
I love baking in the fall! The smells of apples, pumpkin and cinnamon are so warm and welcoming! Before I switched to being grain-free, gluten-free, dairy-free and refined sugar-free, my favorite pumpkin pie was one that had a streusel topping. One of my favorite things to do is taking recipes that I used to eat and recreating them so I can still enjoy them! Pumpkin Streusel Pie is one of those recipes. Enjoy!
To view the recipe, see my guest post for The Nourishing Gourmet here.
Rocky Road Brownies
Now, I will warn you up-front that this is a time-consuming dessert if you make the marshmallows and chocolate pieces from scratch–but in my opinion, worth the time. This recipe combines 3 different recipes of mine: Homemade Chocolate Chips, Homemade Honey-Sweetened Marshmallows, and Zucchini Brownies. I hope you like it!
Homemade Honey-Sweetened Marshmallows
Ingredients:
1/3 cup honey
1/2 cup cold water, divided
2 packets unflavored gelatin
1 egg white
1 tsp. vanilla
Directions:
1. Line a 8×8 pan or loaf pan with parchment paper (the size of pan will determine how thick your marshmallows are).
2. Dissolve the unflavored gelatin in (1/4) cup cold water in a heat-proof bowl. (It will probably turn to a solid, but that is just fine.)
3. Heat honey & (1/4) cup water in saucepan on medium-high heat. Stir until dissolved, then stop stirring. Insert a candy thermometer and heat mixture until it reaches 240 degrees.
4. Meanwhile, whip egg white until soft peaks form.
5. Once mixture reaches 240 degrees, pour it into gelatin water and stir to combine. (The hot liquid will soften up the gelatin mass.) Add vanilla.
6. Allow to cool for 3-4 minutes, then pour mixture in a steady stream into whipped egg white, whipping to incorporate (a hand mixer works great for this). Whip until stiff peaks form. Pour into prepared pan and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Remove and cut into desired shapes.
Homemade Dark Chocolate Chips
Yield: 3/4 cup chips
Ingredients:
2 Tbsp. coconut oil
1/4 cup cacao or cocoa powder
2 Tbsp. honey
1 Tbsp. arrowroot
1/2 tsp. vanilla
Directions:
1. Bring 1/2 inch of water in the bottom pan of a double-boiler to a simmer. Place top pan of double-boiler on simmering water and melt oil, cocoa, honey, and arrowroot in it. Cook two minutes more after it is all melted. Remove from heat.
2. Add vanilla. Stir.
3. Lift off top pan of double-boiler and carefully wipe off any condensation or water on the bottom of it. (You want to be sure no water gets into the chocolate or it may seize.)
4. Pour into small pan lined with parchment paper. (I used a bread pan and it didn’t even cover the entire bottom of the pan.)
5. Put in fridge for 2 or more hours.
6. Cut into little chunks and store in airtight container in the fridge or freezer.
ROCKY ROAD BROWNIES
Ingredients:
4 eggs
1 1/2 cup shredded zucchini
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/3 cup raw honey
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 unsweetened cocoa
1/2 cup coconut flour, sifted
2/3 cup chopped walnuts, divided
1 recipe Honey-Sweetened Marshmallows (prepared–see above)
1/2 cup Homemade Dark Chocolate Chips (prepared–see above)
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine eggs, zucchini, applesauce, honey, and vanilla. Mix well.
3. Add baking soda, salt, cocoa and coconut flour. Mix until dry ingredients are incorporated into wet ingredients.
4. Fold in 1/3 cup chopped walnuts.
5. Pour into a greased deep baking pan and bake for 20-35 minutes (depending on size of pan) or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. (I used a 12 1/2″ x 9 1/2″ x 5 1/2″ stone baker and it took 31 minutes.)
6. Remove from oven and sprinkle marshmallows over the top of the brownies. Sprinkle remaining 1/3 cup chopped walnuts and 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips over the top of the marshmallows.
7. Return baking pan to oven and cook for 3-5 more minutes.
8. Remove from oven and devour!! (I used a spoon to serve it.)
Homemade Honey-Sweetened Marshmallows
Once upon a time, we were having a family reunion and someone mentioned s’mores…I, being the fairly new paleo eater that I was, decided that there must be a way to make marshmallows with honey rather than refined sugar…after much searching on the internet to no avail, I compiled a bunch of homemade marshmallow recipes and went to work. I was thrilled that the end result tasted much like a marshmallow! A few days after I made the marshmallows, thinking I was brilliant for inventing honey-sweetened marshmallows, the author of The Nourishing Gourmet posted a recipe for…you guessed it…honey-sweetened marshmallows. It was good and humbled me a bit to know I wasn’t the first one to come up with the idea. Never-the-less, my recipe is slightly different than hers though I have not put it to the test roasting over a campfire. I tried one variation over the grill and it melted almost immediately, but haven’t tried this version yet. I am still working on a cracker recipe for my s’mores…but until that time, enjoy the marshmallows! And stay-tuned for Rocky Road Brownies made with these marshmallows!
Homemade Honey-Sweetened Marshmallows
Ingredients:
1/3 cup honey
1/2 cup cold water, divided
2 packets unflavored gelatin
1 egg white
1 tsp. vanilla
Directions:
1. Line a 8×8 pan or loaf pan with parchment paper (the size of pan will determine how thick your marshmallows are).
2. Dissolve the unflavored gelatin in (1/4) cup cold water in a heat-proof bowl. (It will probably turn to a solid, but that is just fine.)
3. Heat honey & (1/4) cup water in saucepan on medium-high heat. Stir until dissolved, then stop stirring. Insert a candy thermometer and heat mixture until it reaches 240 degrees.
4. Meanwhile, whip egg white until soft peaks form.
5. Once mixture reaches 240 degrees, pour it into gelatin water and stir to combine. (The hot liquid will soften up the gelatin mass.) Add vanilla.
6. Allow to cool for 3-4 minutes, then pour mixture in a steady stream into whipped egg white, whipping to incorporate (a hand mixer works great for this). Whip until stiff peaks form. Pour into prepared pan and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Remove and cut into desired shapes. Enjoy!
*Variations:
-cut marshmallows into small squares to top off a cup of hot cocoa
-dip the tops of the marshmallows in melted dark chocolate
-make marshmallows in toasted unsweetened coconut (instructions here)