These dark chocolate brownies are lightly-sweetened with dates and packed with other Paleo perks such as coconut oil.

These Paleo brownies are simply unbelievable- moist, chocolatey, and full of gluten-free goodness. They will knock the socks off of even the most die-hard gluten-full brownie lover. All of my taste testers said they could not believe these Paleo Brownies were not only gluten-free, but grain-free as well.

Sweetened with a mere seven dates in the entire batch of brownies, and a bit of stevia, these Paleo Brownies are also full of rich coconut oil and dark chocolate. And when I say “dark chocolate” I mean super dark chocolate –as in 100% cacao with no added sugar.

I tested this fudgey dairy-free dessert with two different brands of 100% chocolate, using Ghirardelli in some batches and Life Opening Chocolate in others; both worked equally well. Ghirardelli is cheaper, and Life Opening is organic.

When you make these brownies be sure that your dates are not hard and too dry or you will end up with a crumbly mess. Mine were beautifully moist which helped the batter come out perfectly. Don’t use dates that have been sitting around for months.

Brownies are one of my husband’s favorite desserts, so I make them quite often. He loves a chocolatey treat, and I love that he’s getting something sweet that isn’t processed junk food. You can check out all of the gluten-free, grain-free brownie recipes that I make for my hubby here. Some are even nut-free and vegan.

Here are some of my other favorite Paleo dessert recipes:

• Paleo Girl Scout Cookies : Samoas
• Espresso Fudge Brownies
• Paleo Chocolate Cupcakes

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Pumpkin season is my favorite time of year. When the days get shorter, the nights cool and crisp, I indulge in my fascination with those odd shaped, brightly colored vegetables known as winter squash.

Pumpkin is a type of winter squash, and I use a variety of winter squash in my pumpkin recipes. For these Paleo Pumpkin Bars I chose roasted acorn squash, though you could just as easily select sugar pumpkin (a smaller, denser, tastier version of the more ubiquitous pumpkins used for jack-o’-lanterns), kabocha, butternut, buttercup, carnival or delicata, with fabulous results.

This year I’ve been purchasing my winter squash at Alfalfa’s, a local market that has an unbelievable selection of produce. How to choose a winter squash or pumpkin? Look for deep saturated colors and make sure the skin is thick and clean –no dents, scuffs or cracks. Finally, check that the squash has a hard, cork-like stem.

I am often asked if canned pumpkin will work in my pumpkin recipes. I must confess, I have not laid my hands on canned pumpkin for a good 20 years, so I don’t have an answer. I do recall we used canned pumpkin growing up, long before I developed can-phobia (though that’s another story involving BPA). Since making your own pumpkin puree can seem intimidating, I have prepared a simple tutorial called How To Roast a Pumpkin in 10 Easy Steps that walks you through this process.

I have added chocolate drops to this gluten free pumpkin bar recipe, though you can simply omit the chocolate or use raisins instead.

Here are some of my other pumpkin and winter squash recipes:

• Paleo Pumpkin Bread
• Butternut Squash Soup
• Squash Fries

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I’ve been working on various power bar recipes lately as I need some easy to pack snacks for an upcoming adventure. My husband and I are planning on climbing a 14′er (that would be a 14,000 foot mountain) this summer and of course I want to make sure we have the proper nourishment. These bars will work well for the two of us given our constitutions.

Like all of my recipes, I tested this one many times before posting it here. During one of my test batches the mixture was so thick that the food processor could not spin it further. When this happened, I pulled the mixture out of the food processor and finished working it together with my hands before placing it in the pan. In the event that this happens to you, feel free to use this little trick.

Finally, if you are wanting to reproduce my exact results, use blanched slivered almonds. The key really is the blanched more than the slivered. Recently, I have been purchasing my blanched slivered almonds at the Whole Foods here in Boulder. You can use almonds that are not blanched and you will get more fiber, however, I found the flavor profile was not as good when I made them this way.

As always, feel free to try out any and all substitutions that come to mind so that you can customize these bars to your exact dietary needs. Unfortunately, I don’t know how things will turn out without testing your substitutions, so will not answer substitution questions. Besides, if I did, I’d spend my entire life chained to the computer, and I need to train for that 14′er, remember?

I like these bars as they have relatively few ingredients and are a fairly nutritious snack made of whole foods. Figs are antioxidant rich and full of fiber. Almonds (one of my favorite foods of all time) are a nutrient dense super food also full of fiber and substances that promote cardiovascular health. Coconut again provides fiber and good fats as well.

Just in case you have any big hiking or travel plans for this summer and need some good gluten free on the go snacks, here are a couple of my other bar recipes:
-Goji Power Bars
-Spicy Power Bars
-Cherry Vanilla Power Bars

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This recipe for vegan raspberry streusel bars is based on one by Brittany at Real Sustenance. Ever since she posted her delicious looking recipe last year during the holidays I’ve been wanting to make it.

I adjusted her recipe by removing the sweetener from the crust and by increasing the amount of high protein items in the streusel so the topping would be a bit less sweet as well. I hope you like these gluten free dessert bars as much as we did.

Recently I was fortunate enough to meet a wonderful couple, Pepi Gramshammer and his lovely wife Sheika. Pepi is one of the founders of Vail –”Pepi’s Face” is a run on the mountain; Sheika, his awesome wife, is the genius behind many of their business ventures. They are the quintessential close knit hardworking European couple.

In any event, Sheika asked me what I had done earlier that day, and I told her that I had spent the afternoon making streusal. She had no clue what I was talking about which I thought was funny since she is from Austria and German is her native language. Finally, I got my point across through various descriptions and she said, “Oh! STREUSEL!” Rolling her “r’s” in that wonderful way that only she can.

Whatever your accent, I hope you enjoy these vegan streusal bars!

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These rich and moist coconut bars are made of not one, but three different forms of scrumptiously healthy coconut, including shredded coconut, coconut oil and coconut milk in their ingredients list.

I have Shirley at Gluten Free Easily to thank for this recipe as it is based upon her famous gluten free Crustless Coconut Pie. I’m a big fan of Shirley’s crustless pie recipes. They’re perfect when I’m looking for a quick and easy, yet simply tasty, gluten free dessert.

I find that this this coconut bar recipe tastes a bit like a macaroon bar. If you want to jazz up your coconut bars and get really decadent, try drizzling them with dark chocolate.

Here are some of the health benefits of coconut:

• Naturally gluten free
• Full of heart healthy fats that lower LDL cholesterol
• Anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-parasitic
• Reduces inflammation and promotes healthy absorption of nutrients
• High in minerals such as iron, phosphorus and zinc

It is also thought that eating coconut products speeds up the body’s metabolism, helping to prevent obesity.

Finally, Dr. Mary Newport has written an article on the remarkable results she believes she has achieved using coconut oil to remediate her husband’s early onset Alzheimer’s disease.

In this video Dr. Newport shares intriguing anecdotal evidence on the impact of coconut oil on neurobiological function. Her findings will be of particular interest to those of us who are working on our brain health in dealing with diseases and disorders such as multiple sclerosis (MS), Alzheimers, Parkinsons, autism, ADD, etc.

So grab yourself a coconut bar and a cup of delicious dandelion coffee (that’s what I’m drinking right now) and settle in to watch the video of Dr. Newport. And be sure to let us know your thoughts in a comment below.

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I really enjoy using almond flour –almonds are a superfood and highly nutritious. However, every now and then, someone requests a nut free dessert recipe for some type of gluten free baked good. At other times, folks are looking for an egg free recipe.

There are as many allergies out there as there are colors in the rainbow. This brownie recipe is for all the nut free, egg free, refined sugar free, gluten free, primal vegans in my life. You keep me on my toes! And I love it.

This recipe uses sunflower seed butter, which is actually similar to a nut butter (though nut free). Sunflower seed butter is gluten free, high protein and made from highly nutritious sunflower seeds –you didn’t think I was going to use rice flour, did you?! I’m still as grain free as I’ve ever been since I gave up grains 11 years ago. All of the recipes on this website are gluten and grain free recipes.

These brownies are based on a gluten free brownie recipe that Amy Jelley posted on my facebook page a couple of weeks ago. Thanks Amy! Her recipe used a ½ cup of honey which is a little much for where my blood sugar is at these days; so I decreased the amount of honey and added in some xylitol and stevia. I also increased the fat and made a couple of other minor changes to the recipe along the way.

This is a very fudgey brownie –it won’t seem totally cooked through when you pull it from the oven. I took mine out when the edges were just about to burn, that was how I determined it was done.

Now, a word of caution. Do not feed this dessert to your pets. Chocolate and xylitol are highly toxic to animals. Have any of you been feeding my other desserts to your pets? If so, why are you doing this? Please leave a comment and let us know!

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Because I’ve been getting quite a lot of requests lately for healthy dessert recipes and because I had a pound of organic prunes that needed to be used up, I decided I would develop a gluten free prune cake recipe.

After a string of successful and not so successful prune cake experiments, I had a different, yet satisfactory result: Chocolate Prune Bars.  All in all these are basically fudgey prune brownies.  Whatever they’re called, I like ‘em.

In fact, as I drove home from a lunch in Denver this afternoon, I was thinking about eating one of these little Paleo/primal friendly treats.  Prunes or no prunes, a chocolate dessert recipe is a chocolate dessert recipe, and when it’s an easy dessert recipe that tastes good too?  Well there’s nothing better than that!  I walked in the door grabbed a chocolate prune bar and it was as good as I had recalled.

So here I am sharing it with you all. And don’t be afraid of prunes, they’re just another dried fruit, and are actually the dried version of European plums.

If you want to make this dessert into a chocolate prune cake, bake it up in a 9 inch cake pan, which should work just fine.  I tried this in one of my test batches, though can’t recall how long I baked it for so if you do so please leave a comment for all of us with your baking time.

Now, a brief commentary on the ingredients in this recipe.  You will notice that rather than agave, I have chosen coconut sugar as the sweetener for this recipe (if you do want to make it with agave, feel free, however I’m not sure how much it would need, or if it would actually work as I haven’t tried it myself).  I also used coconut oil (of which I am a huge fan) rather than my staple grapeseed oil (feel free to experiment with your oil of choice).

Finally, a little bit about prunes, or “dried plums” as they are often now referred to.  Prunes are a very tasty and healthy food, full of unique phytonutrient antioxidants, potassium and soluble fiber.  So don’t be shy, grab yourself some prunes, or try to hide them in this deliciously chocolatey dessert and fool your children, big and small.

More healthy recipes with prunes:
-Chocolate Prune Truffles
-Fruit Pudding
-Roasted Chicken with Olives and Prunes

What are your feelings when it comes to prunes?  Like? Dislike? Or don’t care?  Leave a comment below with your prune history.

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Apricot Power Bars are a great grab and go breakfast or the perfect pick me up on the way home from the gym.  Kid-friendly (with white chocolate) and Paleo-friendly (with dark chocolate, or no chocolate at all) I’ve made these gluten free bars each and every way.

I used white chocolate chips from my local Whole Foods when I made these for the boys.  The chips come in a little unmarked plastic tub –sorry I don’t have more info on that.  If you’d like to find out more you can try calling the Whole Foods in my neighborhood (it’s actually called Ideal Market and is the smallest Whole Foods in the country) at 303-443-1354.

I love apricots because they are just a bit lower on the glycemic index than other dried fruits.  Further, they’re high in vitamin A, vitamin C, tryptophan and full of good fiber.

If you’re looking for more ways to get your daily dose of apricots and gluten free cake is your thing, try my magically moist Cherry Apricot Cake recipe. Or, if candy is what you’ve got a hunkering for, check out these Cranberry Apricot Truffles (one of my all time favorite gluten free recipes).

Here are some more gluten free treats made with apricots that you might like:
-Apricot jam with noyaux, spices and bourbon by Sean of Hedonia
-Simple Roasted Apricots with Honey Mascarpone by Joy of Joy The Baker
-Thumbjams by Dan of Renegade Kitchen

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I was working my way through the Cook’s Illustrated website the other night and came across an amazing recipe for Triple Chocolate Espresso Brownies.  As soon as I laid eyes on that recipe I knew I had to create a high protein, gluten free version.  While my husband enjoys all of my gluten free chocolate recipes, this is his fave.  He even left a special love note on the fridge for me late last night after sampling them.

Of course this is also a dairy free recipe for those of you who are learning how to cook without dairy; and has no agave in it for those avoiding agave.  If you wish to try out other permutations to accommodate your individual needs, feel free to do so; just be sure to leave a comment and let us know if your substitutions worked!

The winner of last weeks giveaway for a copy of the book Go Dairy Free by Alisa Fleming is Holly!

Here are some more gluten free brownie recipes from other food bloggers:
-Hazelnut Brownies from Lexie of Lexie’s Kitchen
-Gluten-Free Coffee Cranberry Pistachio Brownies from Melissa of Gluten Free For Good
-Rockbrook Espresso Brownies from Lori of Gluten Free Best Friends Forever!

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These gluten free Chocolate Almond Joy Bars were inspired by Carrie of GingerLemonGirl.com who wrote a recipe for Almond Joy Impossible Pie.  Who doesn’t like the combination of chocolate, almonds and coconut in the form of a high protein, gluten free treat?

I don’t generally discuss nutrition because I assume most people who find this site know that that my recipes are different than most other gluten free offerings.  Ingredients such as almond flour and coconut flour do not compare to other gluten free flours (even those that are whole grain).  Almonds are a superfood, high in protein, fiber and good fat.  Coconut flour is wonderful as well, given its incredibly high fiber content.  When crunching nutritional numbers in my spreadsheets, gluten free flours such as brown rice, tapioca, sorghum, cornmeal, and ingredients such as potato starch don’t compare to almond and coconut flour.

Personally, I love using almond flour for gluten free desserts like cookies because while my children think they’re getting sweets, I know that I’m sneaking some high protein grub into them.  It’s also nice to know that with all the good protein in my desserts that the boys won’t get cranky from a sudden drop in blood sugar (that’s what all that good fat and protein does, it stabilizes blood sugar levels).

I like to eat these gluten free bars for breakfast if I’m in a hurry and need some “grab and go” goodness.  In addition to the nutritious almond and coconut flours, they contain protein from eggs and another dose of good fat from coconut milk.  Of course they’re lightly sweetened and dairy free as well.  Whenever I eat these before heading over to the gym, I have a great workout, especially important when I’m training with a Marine –but that’s a story for another day.

Here are some yummy nutritious desserts from other food bloggers that you might enjoy:
-Chocolate, Cardamom and Coconut Power Bars from Naomi of Milk for the Morning Cake
-Chocolate Raspberry Cookie Bars from Kelly of The Spunky Coconut
-Double Chocolate Clementine Vita-Mix Cake and Cupcake from Diane of The WHOLE Gang

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