Kurt Adam's

Showing posts with label Banana. Show all posts

Zucchini Bread (Paleo & Nut-free)

At the end of summer each year, it seems as though zucchini recipes & zucchini things are everywhere as people are trying to either savor one of the flavors of summer, or they’re trying to figure out how to use up the crazy amount of zucchini their garden produced. We’ve eaten a fair amount of zucchini this summer, but most all of it was purchased from a store. Someday, it’ll be nice to grow our own & join the group of people with overloads of zucchini.

Most of our zucchini consumption has been savory: Sautéed with shallots & bacon, roasted in the oven, sliced into stir-fry/hash, grated raw on salads & the ever amazing zucchini noodles (aka “zoodles”)... I did make this zucchini bread a couple of times after successfully reintroducing whole eggs. Even the non-paleo people remarked that they enjoyed it, though it isn’t as sweet as most zucchini bread recipes. One night back in ND, I served it more like a pound cake than a quick bread, by topping slices with a little coconut whipped cream and an extra drizzle of local honey.

Often times, paleo baked goods rely heavily on the use of almond flour & other nut flours. One of the things I like about this particular recipe is that it uses coconut flour instead of almond flour. For me, and many other people who are in the reintroduction stages of the autoimmune protocol (aka AIP and/or autoimmune paleo), keeping my nut consumption on a limited level helps me to feel the best. Coconut flour is still a bit of a mystery to me, because it acts so different than regular wheat flours & other gluten free flours. This zucchini bread isn’t quite as tall as others may be, and the coconut flour does give it more of a spongy texture, but nevertheless, it is very, very tasty!

I even have to be a little careful about how often I make this recipe. It’s taken a lot of conscious effort (and time) to subdue my sweet tooth and the part of me that craves treats... Lately, eating a couple bites of fruit is enough to satisfy me (and I’ve even been working to reduce my fruit consumption, because even excess sugars from fruit are not good for me). When I have this zucchini bread around, I find myself constantly eating tiny slices of it! I should be continuing in the mindset that sweets, even ones made with safe-to-me, paleo compliant ingredients, are still to be enjoyed sparingly. Pairing some of the leftover zucchini bread with chicken sausages & a homemade paleo-ified bulletproof pumpkin spice latte was a special treat.

Zucchini Bread (Paleo & Nut-free)
adapted from Small Footprint Family

Note: this recipe is *close* to AIP, but still includes eggs (which I have successfully reintroduced in small quantities). If you’re following strict AIP, you could try the gelatin egg replacer (see this post); however, I have not tested that substitution yet....

1 Zucchini, grated (around 5.7 oz)
56 g / 1/2 c Coconut Flour (I use Bob's Red Mill Organic Coconut Flour)
3/4 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Sea Salt
2 Tbl Cinnamon
4 large pastured eggs, room temperature
64 g / 3 Tbl Raw Honey
13 g (1 Tbl) Coconut Oil, room temperature, plus additional for the pan
1 ripe banana, mashed

Using the large openings on a box grater, grate the zucchini into a bowl. Allow to sit while measuring the rest of the ingredients.
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a loaf pan with parchment paper & brush the paper with coconut oil. Set aside.
In a small bowl, mix together the coconut flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.
In a separate medium sized bowl, whisk the eggs, honey & coconut oil. Mix in the mashed banana. Add the dry ingredients & whisk thoroughly until there aren’t any lumps.
Squeeze as much liquid as possible from the grated zucchini (I do this by dividing the zucchini into a couple handfuls & squeeze it as hard as I can) & add it to the batter. Pour into the prepared loaf pan & bake for 45 to 50 minutes (or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean).
Cool for a few minutes in the pan, then remove, using the parchment liner to assist.
Once completely cooled, store in an airtight container at room temperature. Slice just before serving. This zucchini bread is not extremely sweet, so you may wish to serve it with an extra drizzle of honey, if you’re not following a low sugar diet.

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Banana Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing

I haven’t felt as inspired in the kitchen lately. I could blame it on many different factors.... going out of town... lack of energy while still recovering from sickness... starting an exciting new adventure... the busy-ness of life in general... My poor camera hadn’t been touched in a couple weeks, nor have I been keeping up with my writing (or, for that matter, the dishes that continually pile up in the kitchen)....

But, I did make a particularly fabulous batch of banana cupcakes last weekend that were too good not to share! They were for the birthday party of a friend who loves banana bread, so the leap to banana cupcakes seemed like a no-brainer.

The cupcakes were topped with cream cheese icing & garnished with a banana chip. Funny story with the banana chip garnish idea.... I made the cupcakes & frosting sort of last minute, and in my haste to get them wrapped to take to the birthday party, plastic wrap fell into the soft icing tops of a couple cupcakes :( But then I remembered a stash of Trader Joe’s banana chips in my pantry. I brought those along to the party & added them as garnish on the top. Suddenly, no one was noticing the slightly marred icing :)

But let’s be honest, most people at the birthday party were more interested in tasting the cupcakes than looking at them. The flavor was spectacular! Cream cheese and banana are a perfect pairing. A couple people even said it was perhaps their favorite cupcake ever--those words do tend to make a pastry person feel pretty good :)

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to replenish my now depleted supply of frozen ripe bananas.

Banana Cupcakes
adapted from Sally’s Baking Addiction

115g (1/2 c or 1 c) Unsalted Butter, room temperature
100 g (1/2 c) Brown Sugar
150 g (3/4 c) Granulated Sugar
3 large Eggs, room temperature
1 1/2 c mashed very ripe bananas (for me, that was 5 medium bananas, or just shy of 400 g)
2 tsp Vanilla Extract
250 g (2 c) AP Flour (or substitute Jeanne’s GF AP mix, if wanting to make them GF)
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Salt
1/2 c Buttermilk (or 1/2 c milk mixed with 1/2 Tbl lemon juice)

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line two cupcake pans with 18 liners & set aside. (see note below)
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugars. Mix on medium speed until well combined, about 2 to 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Mash the banana in a small bowl (I use my fingers, or a fork). Add the bananas to the mixing bowl, along with the vanilla extract, and mix on low speed until combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as necessary.
In a separate medium sized bowl, whisk together the flour, soda, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the mixing bowl & mix on low speed until just barely combined. Add the milk and mix again on low speed until just barely combined--it’s ok if the batter is lumpy.
Portion the cupcakes into the prepared liners.
Bake for 17 to 19 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into one of the middle cupcakes comes out clean. The second pan may take a few extra minutes (mine took about 22).
Transfer the cupcakes to a cooling rack and allow them to cool completely before icing.

Notes:

While the original recipe yields 18 cupcakes, I found mine to be a little shorter than I would have liked. Next time, I will plan to make only 16.
It would be super easy to make these cupcakes gluten free, by substituting your favorite cup-for-cup/ounce-for-ounce GF AP flour blend... My go-to blend is Jeanne’s GF AP Flour Mix.
I have only tested the recipe by weights, but have included volumetric amounts for those who do not bake by weight.
If you don’t have overripe bananas available (I usually keep a stash of bananas in my freezer), use this tip from Thefauxmartha to roast bananas first.

Cream Cheese Icing
adapted from The Back in the Day Bakery Cookbook

8 oz (1 c) Unsalted Butter, room temperature
16 oz Cream Cheese, room temperature
2 tsp Vanilla Bean Paste (or substitute extract)
24 oz (6 c) Confectioners Sugar, sifted if lumpy

Banana Chips, optional, for decoration

In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter, cream cheese, and vanilla on medium speed for 3 to 5 minutes, or until well combined & lighter in volume.
Sift the confectioners sugar, if it is lumpy. Once the butter/cream cheese/vanilla mixture is done, add the sugar & mix on low speed until combined. Then, increase the speed to medium and mix for an additional 5 to 7 minutes.
Place the finished icing into a pastry bag fitted with a large round tip (I used an Ateco 808).
Pipe icing onto the top of each cooled cupcake and garnish with a banana chip, stuck into the top of the icing.
Store leftover icing in the refrigerator. Decorated cupcakes may be stored at room temp or in the refrigerator for a couple days, though the banana chips might become soggy. Allow cupcakes to come to room temperature before serving.

note: this post may contain affiliate links

International Waffle Day 2014

Happy International Waffle Day! Not be confused with National Waffle Day in the US--that’s celebrated in August. Perplexed much? Me too. But I’ll take whatever excuse necessary to celebrate waffles!

I’ve been out of town and/or sick the past week, so in lieu of a new recipe, I thought I’d post a waffle round up. We really like waffles around these parts. I make them at least once a month. Just because you may have missed out on celebrating International Waffle Day for breakfast doesn’t mean you have to miss out entirely--you can always fire up the waffle iron for “brannier” (aka breakfast-for-dinner).

One final note before we get to the main event (copious amounts of waffles), not all these recipes were originally gluten free, but if you’ve made a batch of Jeanne’s GF AP flour mix, you can substitute that in equal amounts for the AP flour in any recipe to make that recipe GF. Pretty nifty. And vice versa.... if you’re not GF but the recipe is, just substitute regular AP flour for the GF flour and you’ll be all set.

Confetti Waffle s a la mode