Elana’s Pantry

Coconut Cream Frosting

Frosting is one of my favorite foods; in fact, I consider it an actual food group. After all, what is a cupcake without frosting? It’s nothing!

Lately I have been stymied when it comes to the frosting creation process. Yes, I have my delicious vegan chocolate frosting recipe, however, I have been lacking in the white frosting department. For me this has presented hardship because chocolate frosting just doesn’t work with carrot cake and lemon cake. Besides, who wants to use just one frosting recipe on top of all of their baked delicacies?!

Yes, I do admit, making frosting without butter and sugar is quite a challenge. Though for me challenge is the name of the game. So lately, I have been on a conquest for white frosting.

Sixteen batches later, I have a delicious coconut frosting that my many taste testers approve of. Unfortunately, my most important taster is traveling this week, so I confess, I don’t have the ultimate seal of approval. However, I think it is still good enough to share with all of you.

This frosting will be great on the carrot cake which I am in the process of creating for ~M, one of my favorite readers. She finished school this month and I will post the recipe in honor of her graduation.

On another note, you may have noticed that I recently added a feature to the side bar of this site. It is a survey which polls readers as to which recipe they would like me to whip up next. Check it out and post your vote –for chocolate cupcakes, mango chicken or “candy” bars.

Almond Butter Blondies

Kelly over at Celiac Chicks does a fabulous job covering the latest in gluten-free news. On top of that, she is a lovely person. It has been great getting to know her through our email conversations these past few months.

I recently spent some time looking through the recipe section of Kelly’s site and was most intrigued by these delicious looking peanut butter bars. She traces the original recipe back to one from 2003 in Family Circle magazine. Of course, she made her own adaptations to the bars, which I then edited as well. Since I don’t actually eat peanut butter, I substituted the main ingredient with high protein almond butter and made a couple of other changes along the way.

The most challenging part of this recipe has been naming it. My husband and I sat in the kitchen last night throwing ideas back and forth. Blondies? Chocolate Chip Blondies? No, I said, blondies have chocolate chips in them –Chocolate Chip Blondies would be rather redundant.

Nevertheless, with a mere 6 ingredients, these bars are super easy to prepare. Although made with almond butter, you would never know it, as they taste quite cakey. I have cooked up this recipe at least a dozen times. Even the batches I considered “failures” were devoured by my testers –that would be my little league team, in this instance. Let’s not forget, I coach a bunch of 10 year old blue gatorade drinking boys. Although these bars are not that sweet, my team absolutely loved ‘em. They inhaled even the first experimental batches that were a horribly underdone, delicious goo –which ended up as much on their faces as in their mouths.

So here, expedited, due to a request from Courtney (one of my favorite readers) are my version of Kelly’s Peanut Butter Bars. Hope these go over well at your mother’s day celebration, Courtney and best of luck as head chef!

Many thanks to my mom, for making our food with your own hands after long days at work. Happy Mother’s Day!

Vanilla Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting

Passover really threw me for a loop. It wasn’t the guests we had visit for the holiday. It was the 100 matzo balls for my son’s third grade seder. That, plus charoset and maror for everyone at the event. My house was overtaken by a cooking frenzy last week; I focused on that and nothing else (except my children).

Now everything has calmed down and I am happily back to this blog! I have been thrilled by the amount of chat in the comments over here. I have also received so many lovely emails from people thanking me for these recipes and all I can say is –you’re welcome! It is wonderful to love what you do and ALSO be appreciated for it. That is the proverbial icing on the cupcake.

Now, I am happy to introduce vanilla cupcakes with chocolate frosting and continue on my coconut flour recipe roll. I have been making (and testing) this dessert for close to two years and it is one of my personal favorites. I think it might be a hit with you too based on reports from taste testing friends.

Vanilla Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting
½ cup coconut flour, sifted
½ teaspoon celtic sea salt
¼ teaspoon baking soda
6 eggs
½ cup grapeseed oil
½ cup agave nectar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1. In a medium bowl, combine coconut flour, salt and baking soda
2. In a small bowl, blend together eggs, grapeseed oil, agave and vanilla
3. Mix wet ingredients into dry and blend with a mixer or hand blender until smooth
4. Pour batter into well oiled muffin tins
5. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes
6. Cool completely
7. Top with chocolate frosting

My friend Patricia claims she and her son have fought each other over these cupcakes. I hope you like them as much as she does.

Vegan Chocolate Frosting

This is my all time favorite icing recipe. Lately, I’ve been using it to frost cakes, cupcakes, and also as a filling between chocolate wafers. My son loves this double chocolate treat –chocolate wafers with chocolate frosting– packed in his school lunch.

I promise, I’ll put chocolate wafers up here on the boards soon. That recipe just needs a few more rounds of testing until it is ready for public consumption!

Vegan Chocolate Frosting
1 cup dagoba chocodrops
½ cup grapeseed oil
2 tablespoons agave nectar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
pinch celtic sea salt

1. In a small saucepan over very low heat, melt chocodrops and grapeseed oil
2. Stir in agave, vanilla and salt
3. Place frosting in freezer for 15 minutes to cool
4. Remove from freezer and whip frosting with a hand blender until it is thick and fluffy
5. Frost over cake, cupcakes or between cookies

This gluten-free, dairy-free, rich and creamy chocolate icing will fool all of the junk food junkies, dairy-lovers and gluten gluttons in your life –they won’t have a clue that they’re eating on your meal plan. Go ahead, see for yourself.

Passover Round Up

Passover is this Saturday! I have been cooking up many Pesach dishes of late and am happy to provide a round-up below.

A couple of notes:

I did not include a vegetable dish in the above list. Generally, I like to serve steamed broccoli or broiled asparagus with our Passover meal. I have linked to a squash pie recipe that I use during Passover as our squash “kugel.”

As you will notice, matzoh is conspicuously absent from the above list. I purchase a gluten-free oat matzoh for my boys, however, I do not eat grains, so I create an almond flour matzoh for myself to use as a vehicle for the Hillel Sandwich. My husband says the matzoh that I make is so bad, that I have deemed it unworthy of ‘blogage’.

Happy Pesach to you and yours!

Elana

Passover Torte

Ok, so in yesterday’s “reach out and touch someone” post I failed. In fact, I fell flat. On my face. Do you know how many comments were posted? One. Not much community in one post.

To cheer myself up, I can always read some Dooce. That woman makes me laugh out loud. Or I can listen to the Captain and Tenille’s Love Will Keep Us Together. Either way, I do not despair, Passover is near and for me, this occasion provides endless activity and distraction.

For the Jewish Betty Crocker in all of us, here’s a delectable cake recipe for Passover.

Vanilla Torte with Raspberry Filling and Chocolate Frosting
2 cups blanched almond flour
¼ cup coconut flour
½ teaspoon celtic sea salt
10 eggs
1¾ cups agave nectar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
½ cup raspberry jam
1 batch vegan chocolate frosting

1. In a medium bowl, combine flours and salt
2. In a larger bowl, whisk together eggs, agave and vanilla
3. Whisk flours into egg mixture until well blended
4. Line bottoms only of 3 nine inch cake pans with parchment paper
5. Divide cake batter evenly between pans
6. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes
7. Remove from oven when cakes are golden brown and a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean
8. Cool cakes for at least one hour
9. Run knife around cake to loosen from pan, remove from pan and peel off parchment
10. Place bottom layer on a cake plate and spread with jam
11. Add next layer of cake and spread with jam
12. Place top layer on cake and frost entire cake with chocolate frosting
13. Serve

Serves 12

This pareve torte is rich and sweet. Though it is a tad sweeter than most of my desserts, that’s because a) this one is for a holiday; b) my husband really liked it that way.

Still the cake has enough protein that it will not leave you with a high-carb hangover after your Pesach Seder. Now, if you eat too much matzah, well, that’s another story.

Coconut Macaroons

Passover is approaching.

Later than usual this year, my favorite spring holiday falls on April 19th, just over 3 weeks away. I especially enjoy the food traditions surrounding this holiday; during the next couple of weeks I will be posting all of my favorite Passover recipes.

Macaroons are an ideal Pesach dessert because they are made with egg whites and do not contain chametz, or leavened grain products. According to my 9 year old son, who is studying the Torah in school, we refrain from eating chametz because, “when leaving Egypt the Jews did not even have enough time to let the bread rise.”

Ironically, after a bit of historical research, I found that macaroons are actually a Christian food. According to mirabilis.ca, “macaroons originated in an Italian monastery around 1792. The name comes from the Italian word for paste, maccarone, which refers to almond paste. Macaroni means flour paste.”

I make this great gluten-free Passover dessert all year round; when I retested it today, my younger son ate an entire baking sheet of these yummy little cookies!

Coconut Macaroons
6 egg whites
1/4 teaspoon celtic sea salt
1/2 cup agave nectar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 cups shredded coconut

1. In a mixing bowl whisk egg whites and salt until stiff
2. Fold in agave, vanilla and coconut
3. Drop batter onto a parchment lined baking sheet, one rounded tablespoonful at a time
4. Pinch each macaroon at the top (like a kiss)
5. Bake at 325 350 degrees* for 10-15 minutes, until lightly browned
6. Serve

Stay tuned for more delicious organic, gluten-free Passover dishes and desserts!

* Please note, I edited this recipe on 3/28/08, modifying the baking temperature; the macaroons are more moist when baked at a higher temp for one or two minutes less.

Chocolate Cake — Coconut Flour Continued

Yes, I continue to roll out the coconut flour recipes. I am having a great time experimenting with this unique flour. I have been doing so for almost two years now and have created a small stockpile of recipes that work well with its light and fluffy texture.

This gluten-free, dairy-free chocolate cake (nut-free too) is a family favorite, with a thick, yummy vegan chocolate frosting.

Chocolate Cake
¾ cup coconut flour, sifted
¼ cup dagoba cacao powder
1 teaspoon celtic sea salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
10 eggs
1 cup grapeseed oil
1 ½ cups agave nectar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon orange zest

1. In a small bowl combine flour, cacao, salt and baking soda
2. In a large bowl using an electric hand mixer, blend eggs, oil, agave nectar, vanilla and orange zest
3. Add dry ingredients into large bowl and continue to blend
4. Oil (2) 9 inch round cake pans and dust with coconut flour
5. Pour batter into pans and bake at 325 degrees for 35-40 minutes
6. Remove from oven, allow to cool completely then remove from pans
7. Frost and serve

This frosting recipe is one of my all time favorites –I have been known to eat it by the spoonful and like to spread it on crackers.

The chocolate vegan frosting above is a nice complement to my vanilla cupcake recipe (made from almond flour) recently featured in the Denver Post. Go ahead and see for yourself on your next special occasion or for no reason at all!

Hamantaschen

Purim is this Friday, March 21st, less than one week away.

For those who aren’t familiar with Purim, it is a festival as opposed to a major holiday or “holy day.” Purim involves the story of the attempted destruction of the Jewish people, the subsequent escape to “freedom” and much feasting, a set of themes that run throughout many of our celebrations.

Purim is recorded in the Book of Ester and dates back to 600 BCE. At this time, Jewish exiles in Babylonia found themselves under Persian rule, with the spread of the Persian Empire. Haman, an adviser to the King of Persia, Achasverus, made plans to kill the Jews. Instead, Esther and her brother Mordechai thwarted these plans –with the help of divine intervention.

Rather than becoming the victims of evil decree, the Jews were allowed by the King to hang Haman; the day after his killing was designated as a day for feasting and rejoicing which we celebrate into the present. A bit macabre, though some Jewish holidays are.

This celebration now entails reading the Book of Ester and shaking groggers (noise makers) each time Haman’s name is mentioned. Further, children dress up in costumes (often as Haman, Mordechai or Esther, though anything goes these days), families exchange shaloch manos (English translation: “send gifts”) of food baskets and bake cookies called hamantaschen.

Hamantaschen, literally means Haman’s pocket in Yiddish. In Hebrew, these three cornered cookies, little triangles stuffed traditionally with poppy seeds or prune filling, are called Oznai Haman, or Haman’s ear. Alternatively, it is thought that Hamantaschen are a representation of the three cornered hat that Haman wore. Whatever these cookies represent, I love to make them every year in celebration of purim!

As I mentioned, traditionally Hamantaschen are stuffed with prune paste or poppy seed paste. While I liked the tradition, these tastes were a little strange to me growing up. Now, these gluten-free Hamantashcen are filled with a more familiar, yet slightly exotic filling. I hope you like them as much as we do!

Blueberry Muffins

Blueberry muffins are such a classic little treat. Great for breakfast, an afternoon snack with a cup of tea or even dessert. These muffins, made with coconut flour, are light, fluffy and satisfying.

This is the first coconut flour recipe I have posted. My favorite taste tester (that would be the beloved husband) and I had a conversation last night about my coconut flour recipes during which he gave me his blessing to post this one for blueberry muffins. The boys also gave their tacit approval by gobbling down a full batch.

Between those two stamps of approval (and several others that I won’t take the time to detail here), I would say these gluten-free blueberry muffins are ready for “prime time!” Enjoy.

Please note: longtime readers, this recipe uses coconut flour, not almond flour. These two flours have very different properties; substituting one for the other will not work. I have had a lot of fun cooking with coconut flour and am looking forward to sharing more of these light and fluffy recipes with you!