I've recently become hooked on making Paleo-friendly baked goods. After going more than a year without any cookies, brownies, or bread (and I was a complete grain-addict pre-Paleo), I realized that there are plenty of ways to Paleo-ify your desserts so you can avoid the grains and other processed garbage used in baking.
Here are some tips on how to do it:
-Instead of regular flour, use almond or coconut flour. Flax meal is also great!
-Instead of sugar, use stevia. Agave and honey can also be used in some recipes, but they're high in sugar, so beware of that. (If you need either one to gel other ingredients together, try coconut oil instead.)
-Instead of milk chocolate, use unsweetened dark chocolate.
-Coconut oil and almond butter are your new best friends.
-Instead of regular milk, use coconut or almond milk.
-If you need to make a crust for a pie, use crushed nuts, seeds, or flax.
There are plenty of resources online for Paleo-friendly baking. Here are a few of my favorites:
-
Elana's Pantry. Though not a Paleo site, Elana's baking is gluten-free, and many of her
dessert recipes are completely Paleokay! Her
brownies are fantastic-- you'd never be able to tell that all of the ingredients are
real food.
-
White Lion Baking Company. If you're not a baker but want to try Paleo baked goods anyway, this is the place for you! With the slogan "We make 'healthy' taste great," this online company makes everything from cupcakes to muffins to celebration cakes, and everything is low-carb, grain-free, and gluten-free-- and they even cite Cordain, Wolf, and Taubes in the "Why Grain-Free?" section! I just received my order from them today, and their food is really delicious! (And I decided that I'm ordering my wedding cake from them if/when I get married.)
-The various Paleo and Primal cookbooks. Mark Sisson's
Primal Blueprint: Quick & Easy Meals (and the free reader-created cookbooks you get from joining his
e-mail list), Sarah Fragoso's
Everyday Paleo, Sebastien Noel's
The Paleo Recipe Book, and all of the others have Paleo/Primal dessert recipes that are simple, delicious, and nutritious. They're all worth checking out!
Paleo baked goods/desserts are a blessing and a curse, however. On one hand, they're the healthy versions of unhealthy foods, and we can enjoy some of our favorite treats from our pre-Paleo days without the health problems involved. On the other hand, they might reawaken your sweet tooth or cause some major carb cravings or binging. I didn't indulge in them until after more than a year of Paleo, so I knew I wouldn't end up eating a box of oreos or a pint of ice cream if I had something chocolatey... however, I couldn't stop eating my first tray of Paleo brownies, and they just made me crave-- and eat-- more dark chocolate. My advice to you is to be very careful to have these in moderation, and avoid them completely if you're new to Paleo/just getting over carb cravings. Adjust to the Paleo lifestyle first, then slowly add these back in-- they can be addicting!
New to Paleo? Check this out:
This show (Thursdays at 9-EST on ABC) is
awesome. Teams of three have to race across the deserts, mountains, and rivers of Morocco while solving puzzles in order to stay on the show-- I don't watch much TV, but this show is so cool. So why am I talking about it here? One of the teams, the Modern Gypsies, is Paleo... and has consistently been one of the best teams! Check out these interviews with them with
Robb Wolf and
Mark Sisson.
Quote of the Day:
"Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie." -Jim Davis
