Tag: easy

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No Knead Bread, an easy and tasty Einkorn recipe!

Having just talked about Einkorn the other day, I wanted to give y’all an easy recipe to enjoy. This is a long ferment, no knead bread. It’s a lazy man’s sourdough per say. Fermented foods are absolutely fantastic, and I think should be a part of our daily diet. I try my best to eat something fermented everyday, though oftentimes I forget… The advantage in a bread product (gluten free or otherwise) is that the fermentation process feeds on a good portion of the carbs reducing the carb load. It also makes it much easier to digest on our bodies. So if you are thinking about trying Einkorn but aren’t sure, this would be a great place to start.

I include some options to these steps because I think it makes the overall process easier, but you can just follow the basic steps. The fermentation time can vary on this.  One week is ideal, 24 hours works, and 2-3 days is probably the sweet spot if you don’t want to wait forever but want better flavor,less carb load, and higher digestibility.

No Knead Bread

Ingredients:

6 1/2 Cups Flour (6 cups if using whole wheat)

3 Cups Warm Water

2 Packets or 1 1/2Tblsp Yeast

1 1/2 tsp salt

Steps:

1. In a large container, a gallon or more in size, mix all ingredients

2. Cover loosely and let rise on the counter for 1-2 hours

3. Put in fridge for 24 hours to 1 week

4. When ready to bake: Wet or oil your hands and tear off roughly a quarter of the dough and gently shape into a loaf, smoothing the top. Place in pans or place on parchment or slide onto a pizza stone. Score the top of the loaves to release steam.

5. Let rise 40 minutes, after 30 minutes preheat the oven to 450. When preheated, bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown and internal temp is 190-200.

6. I do recommend letting it cool at least a bit so you don’t burn yourself and so the texture will be better once cut.

Further Details

A long ferment bread like this recipe is also super nice as the holidays approach. It requires very little actual time involved.  It makes a hearty loaf, so baking the day before and doing a gentle reheat of it on turkey day will be perfect, and not take up much of your valuable oven space the day of. This is what is called a no knead bread. So no kneading! You literally just mix all the ingredients, let it rise, and then bake it!

I’ve used multiple versions, but I think this is one of the best for most people. I’m a big fan of true sourdough, but that’s not easy for most people, so I shelved it for this recipe. The original recipe is from Gwen’s Nest, and she has lots of low carb recipes for those who are interested.

Most no knead bread recipes do make use of dutch ovens typically to bake in. Since you don’t knead the dough, it does not have much structure to hold a great shape. This kind of thing is not the end of the world though. If you start making it a ton, I would recommend you invest in a dutch oven to bake in, or you can also go the pizza stone route for a crispy bottom. You will just end up with a flatter bread, but it’s still a lovely “artisan” loaf. You can also use a loaf pan. Just go for it the first time and adjust the specifics as you do it more. It will be delicious no matter the shape!

This recipe enables you to enjoy the fantastic, fresh bread experience with very little effort, and it’s better for you! It’s also such a basic recipe you can easily make it with your kids. I had our girls help me make the dough, and it really added only about one extra minute to a 5 minute recipe.

Mixing the no knead bread!

So recipe time! You do need a large vessel, something like a gallon or 5 qt jar or crock is perfect. Get yourself out 6 1/2 cups of flour (we use Jovial Foods Einkorn Flour), 6 cups if you want whole wheat, 3 cups warm water, 2 packets or 1 1/2 T yeast, I prefer regular though instant works too, and 1 1/2t of salt, preferably something likes Redmond’s Sea Salt.

Then dump it together and mix! Too hot of water, and salt will both kill yeast, so you have to be careful on mixing. It’s also a pain to get the very bottom mixed properly if you dump it in at once. So I put my water and salt in the jar, and dissolved the salt, then I added half the flour, mixing it in after each cup, then the yeast, and then the rest of the flour, mixing as well after each cup. It came together beautifully, and didn’t give me a single issue.

Cover it loosely and let rise on the counter for an hour or two – it’s a long rise bread, so over fermentation isn’t a big deal, just keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t escape the jar.

At this point, put it in your fridge for your choice of time, the longer the better really! Even up to a couple weeks.

As I just made my batch today, I have no baking pictures… Sorry!

This does make a good amount of bread, so decide on your baking vessel of choice before getting further. 4 medium sized loaves in pans or on the stone? Sure! One big loaf in your 10 or 12 inch dutch oven? Sure!

Just a warning this dough is sticky, once again a result of not kneading, so you will want to wet, oil or flour your hands well.

If you are going to make loaves pull off about a quarter of the dough and gently shape it into a loaf shape, working to smooth the top. Place those in your parchment paper lined pans or on parchment paper on your counter to slide it onto your stone.

Let it rise for about 40 minutes, preheat your oven to 450 about 10 minutes before your rise is over.

It is wise to slash the top of your loaves with a razor blade or very sharp knife. This allows gasses to escape during baking and not crack the top of your loaf.

Bake for 25- 30 minutes until golden brown and delicious. As well look for an internal temperature of 190 or so degrees (yes i’m a food nerd).

I know, its done, so you must rip into it right away! It really is best if you wait. First off so you don’t burn the living daylights out of your mouth. Second, the longer you let the bread cool, the more the starches can set up, and not be gooey and smear.

So let it cool, at least a little, and then cut and enjoy, preferably with grass fed butter! If you’ve never tried Kerrygold, now is the time!

Pretty straight forward right? Like I said, mix it, rise it, bake it, I guess you can add eat it to the end. Let us know if you try this great no knead bread recipe!

Make it a tasty day,

Chris

 

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Grain Free Cinnamon Roll

Delicious Grain Free Cinnamon Rolls!

As I mentioned in the review on the Real Bread Mix from California Country Organics, we were going to be trying their grain free cinnamon roll mix for my wife’s birthday. We did, and they are quite delicious! We even took them one step further and made them into orange rolls instead of just plain cinnamon rolls since this is a family tradition on her side for birthdays.

As with the other Real Bread mixes – is this a perfect substitute for a cinnamon roll? No, but its pretty darn good, and is one of the best grain free cinnamon roll I’ve ever had.

Much like the other mix, the taste is quite good. Due to the other flavors and sweetness from the cinnamon, orange, and sugar involved I could not taste any of the coconut flour.

The texture is a bit different than regular bread, as mentioned before, but is still quite enjoyable. I think it’s a bit more noticeable in these than in a loaf of bread, but wife says these are great.

She was quite happy with these for her birthday in spite of their small draw backs, and they satisfied our cravings for cinnamon rolls. Once again, I high recommend you check out the Real Bread mixes for yourself! We will definitely be buying more from them.

Real Bread Mix Cinnamon Rolls:

Ingredients:

1 Real Bread Cinnamon Roll Mix

1 cup of eggs whites

1 cup of water

2 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar

½ cup butter softened (I ended up using 1/3 cupish)

1/3 cup Cinnamon

1/3 Cup sweetener of choice (we used coconut sugar)

Optional: Zest of 1 orange if you want to do Orange Rolls

Instructions

  1. Follow the instructions on the mix to make the dough
  2. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
  3. Roll it out to a roughly 12×8 rectangle, ½ inch thick on a piece of parchment paper. You can sandwich the dough between each side of the paper to help keep your rolling pin clean.
  4. Spread with softened butter
  5. Sprinkle your cinnamon and sweetener evenly over the surface of your dough, leave about a half inch plain on one side of the 12 inch side of the dough. This allows a better seal when you roll it up and keeps filling from squishing out as much.
  6. Optional: Spread your orange zest around at this point if using
  7. Starting with the long side that has the filling all the way to the edge tightly roll the dough up. Focus on trying to keep the roll as tight as possible.
  8. Cut your roll into 12-14 sections depending on your desired size of cinnamon roll.
  9. Spray or butter your pan and place the cinnamon rolls in it, cut side down. The mix calls for a 9×13 pan, which I used but there was lots of space left. I think I would use an 8×8 next time.
  10. Bake for approx. 30 minutes or until golden brown and delicious. They will rise in about the last 10 minutes of baking.
  11. Let cool, ice with the glaze of your preference, and enjoy!

Notes and Tips:

  • This size results in a fairly “bready” cinnamon roll. If you prefer it thinner just roll it out into a larger rectangle. You might need to adjust your filling measurements at that point.
  • If you want to add additional flavor feel free to add more zest to the filling or into the dough. You can also use some orange oil (or even orange extract) if you have good quality essential oils on hand.

Orange Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:

6 oz of cream cheese

¼ cup of butter

6 Tablespoons Fresh Squeezed Orange Juice

Zest of 1 orange

6-10 Drops Orange or Tangerine Essential Oil

3 Tablespoons Coconut Sugar

2 Tablespoons Maple Syrup

  1. Cream your butter, cream cheese and coconut sugar together until smooth in either a stand mixer or with a hand mixer.
  2. With your mixer on low, slowly add in your maple syrup and then the orange juice until fully combined.
  3. Add your zest and citrus oil and combine.
  4. Taste and adjust sweetener level, and citrus components to your taste.
  5. Spread on either hot or cooled cinnamon rolls as your prefer. Or eat it with a spoon…

Notes:

  • This results in a fairly thin frosting, which is Katie’s preference. Somewhere between a glaze and a frosting. If you want it thicker, then reduce your liquid.
  • You can easily omit the citrus elements and make a more traditional cream cheese frosting.
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Grain Free Chocolate Chip Cookie

You know when you get a craving for a chocolate chip cookie? Not a “healthy” cookie, but that one that you grew up eating? Well it happens to us quite a bit! I grew up eating the iconic Toll House chocolate chip cookie – that recipe right off the bag of the semi-sweet chocolate chips – full of brown sugar, butter, and lots of gooey chocolateyness. Well I have good news! Did you know there is a completely equal version that is grain free?! Danielle Walker, the mastermind of Against All Grain, has this grain free chocolate chip  cookie recipe on her blog, and if you haven’t found it yet, it is high time you tried it in all its magnificence!

These grain free chocolate chip cookies are great to make with kids, as the recipe is completely simple enough that even a toddler can make it with a little parental guidance!

Ingredients 

Almond Flour – we always use Costco. They have become the go-to for finely ground almond flour that best substitutes for white flour in recipes where you don’t want to feel like you’re eating ground up almonds. We use this in our blondies, and we recommend it for just about every almond flour application. Did you know that you can order Kirkland products on Amazon? I didn’t until recently, but what a great discovery!

Chocolate Chips – we use Guittard for the entire 1/2 cup of chocolate that this recipe calls for. You can use Enjoy Life, which is a great brand that doesn’t have any allergens/additives/etc, also, or whatever else your favorite brand may be. We like the dark decadent flavor of the higher quality dark chocolate Guittard chips, and we feel ever-so-slightly healthier because we’re using a darker chocolate (and we all know that dark chocolate is basically a vegetable, right?!).

Salt – as always, we recommend Real Salt. It has all the good trace minerals left in it, it tastes great, and it even looks beautiful on the table! Plus, if you use lots of good salt, you can order in bulk in these perfect little 10lb buckets with sealing lids that are the most useful size EVER!!!! Especially if you have little kiddos trying to help move animal feed, water, minerals, dirt, etc around the homestead! Or even if you just need resealable storage for dry goods, craft supplies, or anything else your heart desires 😉

Process 

I won’t try to pretend that I can write a better grain free cookie recipe blog than Danielle Walker, so head on over to her page right now and make yourself some delicious, amazing, take-you-back-to-your-childhood chocolate chip cookies!

Danielle Walker’s “Real Deal Chocolate Chip Cookies”

One more little tidbit – don’t miss that you can make this dough, roll it into balls, and freeze it for those cold winter nights coming up where you just need one gooey hot chocolate chip cookie to eat on the couch with your tea or coffee.

We’d love to hear about your childhood memories with chocolate chip cookies, or any other cookie for that matter! Share your story below!

The Wife 😉

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Making Your Own Oat Flour

Homemade Oat Flour

If you have been doing any kind of gluten free baking long, or even considering it, you know the list of flours required can get a bit daunting. Recipes can call for 3 different kinds of rice flour, potato starch, tapioca starch, plus gums and who knows what else! If you do not have them on hand good luck making them appear out of thin air.  Gluten Free baking does require several different flours, but it is disappointing when you don’t have what you need! Today I have the answer! Well, an answer, for one flour.  If your recipe calls for oat flour and you don’t have it on hand, no problem! Making your own oat flour is super easy and quick.

Making your own oat flour is so easy unless you end up using it all the time or want to make sure you have the finest oat flour available. I would not bother keeping premade oat flour around. All you need to do to make your own oat flour is to dump oats in a blender; blend them fine, and voila! Oat Flour!

Blend it up!

Worried about oats not being gluten free? Go check out our post of whether oats are gluten free for answers!

How to get it done?

It is really that simple! Depending on your blender or how fastidious you are about it you will probably end up with some larger pieces of oats. For the recipes I use it in (like the delicious pancakes I’ll talk about tomorrow 😉 I think the texture variation is nice.Homemade Oat Flour

The higher end blenders like the Vitamix typically come with a Dry blade or container. These are designed to “mill” whole grains to a flour consistency. As I mentioned I have found a decent blender to do a perfectly good job.

1 cup of rolled oats yields about 1.25 cups of flour in my experience. You can easily use quick cooking or whatever version of rolled oats you have on hand. The only thing to note with a quick cooking style is that they may absorb liquid differently.  Though you might have to adjust with a bit more liquid if necessary.

In the end making your own oat flour is super simple. There is basically nothing to mess up, just give it a whirl (dad jokes for the win) and have fun!  This is also a great activity to do with your kids.

Make it a tasty day,

Chris

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Grain Free Breakfast – Pineapple Upside Down Cake

A Grain Free Breakfast Recipe For Your Weekend

It’s Friday! I don’t know about you folks but for me that means I still have more work tomorrow. It’s fun work, though! I get to go to the Farmer’s Market and spread the joy of brownies! Today we have a tasty recipe that you can make for breakfast tomorrow.  Grain Free Coconut flour pineapple upside down cake! This recipe makes a wonderful, healthy, make-ahead grain free breakfast and it comes from Wellness Mama, the original article can be found here.

Pineapple upside down cake seems like a recipe from the past. People do still make pineapple upside down cake, but it feels like a recipe from another era. Arranging the pineapple on the bottom of the pan and flipping does take a bit more work but it is visually appealing and fun for kids! Get your kids involved in making this recipe, our girls had a great time even at 3 & 4 years old.

egg breakfasts, protein breakfast, paleo breakfast, grain free, gluten free, kid friendly, whole 30
did you know a 2 year old can actually crack eggs?!

 

If you have never used parchment paper before I HIGHLY recommend it. Parchment paper is not the perfect answer for everything, but it makes baking 85% of recipes much easier. We use it for our brownies for the same reason that it is used here for the cake – makes clean up and flipping it over a breeze!

family friendly, kid friendly,
cook with your kids!

 

*Special Brownie Tip*

If you want to decorate your brownies, cook them with parchment paper lining the pan. Let cool in the pan, then flip the pan over onto a cutting board and pull the parchment paper off. The surface you see (the bottom of the brownies) will be perfectly smooth and ever so slightly sticky for decorating with powdered sugar, decorator’s gel, melted chocolate, sprinkles, etc!

 

Now back to pineapple upside down cake and grain free breakfasts.

Cherries

You could use frozen or dried cherries if you don’t have fresh on hand. Defrost the frozen cherries first, and then pat them dry with a paper towel. Defrosting them first will allow the majority of the liquid to go elsewhere and not throw off the texture off the cake. You can do this with any recipe calling for fruit if you need to use frozen fruit.

fresh cherries
pitting those cherries! use a cherry pitter, not a toddler….

Pineapple

For the pineapple we did not use rings. We do not have and I refuse to buy a pineapple corer, haha. No kitchen uni-taskers! We took a fresh pineapple, peeled it, cut vertically into 4 sections, cut the core out, and sliced the sections into thin slices. I would recommend a ¼ inch slice. Obviously that is up to you. Canned pineapple would be a great option as well here.

fresh fruit, whole foods, grain free, paleo
fresh fruit always wins!

Coconut Flour

Last quick tip before we move on. How to measure wheat flour is quite the argument, with everyone having learned a different way from their grandmother. Do you scoop, or pack, or fill and sweep.  For coconut flour especially, I highly recommend the fill and sweep method. Coconut flour soaks up SO MUCH water that if you add too much it will throw off your recipe. Take your measuring cup and, using another spoon or scoop fill your measure cup from the container. When the measuring cup is heaping full, use the back of the knife to scrape it off flat. You do not want to pack it in, just loosely pour it into the measuring cup. A little coconut flour and a lot of eggs can make lovely grain free breakfast options as they yield a fairly nice, spongy, tasty texture for some variety from plain eggs!

Grain Free Breakfast Substitutes

I do want to let you know, before you jump in, that if you are expecting a grain free perfect replacement of pineapple upside down cake, this is not it. This recipe is delicious and highly enjoyable. We will be making it again. This recipe is also fairly eggy, and is more of a clafouti style, custardy coconut flour texture. I think you’ll love it, but I do want to make sure people understand what it is first. It makes a better breakfast alternative than dessert alternative.

It is great that this has so many eggs, though! It’s crammed with protein and is filling. That makes it great for an all in one grain free breakfast. If you know you are short for time the next day, bake it the night before, put it in the fridge, cut slices and toast them in the morning, easy!

You can see our first grain free blog post here – and look for many more delicious gluten and grain free breakfast (and other meals) recipes to come!

grain free breakfast
little cracking, but still pretty – use halved cherries for a prettier effect
grain free breakfast, family friendly
beautiful
kid friendly, family friendly
grain free breakfast alternatives

Ingredients:

  • 2/3 cup coconut flour
  • ½ cup butter or coconut oil (softened, but not melted)
  • 8 eggs
  • ¼ cup honey or maple syrup (optional)
  • 1 dash salt
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • ½ can cored pineapple slices in juice or ½ of a fresh pineapple
  • ¼ cup fresh cherries or maraschino cherries

Preheat oven to 325°F.

  1. Prepare a 9-inch round baking dish or spring form pan by lining the bottom with parchment paper.
  2. If using fresh pineapple, peel, core, and cut into ½ inch slices.
  3. Arrange the pineapple slices on the bottom of the baking dish you are using.
  4. Place the cherries around and in the center of the pineapple slices.
  5. In a medium sized bowl, mix together the rest of the ingredients. If needed, thin with pineapple juice or coconut milk to get a spreadable consistency.
  6. Spread the batter over the pineapple and cherries.
  7. Bake in the preheated oven for 25-40 minutes until cooked through and no longer soft in the middle.
  8. Loosen the edges of the cake and carefully flip over onto a plate or baking sheet.
  9. Serve and enjoy!