Brown Butter Rum Raisin Cookies

In the words of Julia Child, "with enough butter, anything is good". What she forgot to mention, was that with enough browned butter, everything is good! I hate to admit it, but fall is finally starting to creep in.  Granted, the weather here has been practically tropical (think 25-30 degrees!), but the leaves are starting to change and the nights are getting cool.  As a tea addict, my lemony summer teas are being swapped out for spicier cinnamon scented chai and licorice, and my cookies and cakes are about to get a whole lot more decadent!

This recipe came about for two reasons; one, I had a deep desire to satisfy my usual baking hankerings. Reason two, I had to challenge myself to not use any chocolate! As a chocoholic I am proud to say that I haven't had a piece of deliciously dark chocolate or chocolate in any of its wonderful forms, in two weeks! Quite the accomplishment for me, although I know I can keep going!

These cookies are great for just about any occasion, as most cookies are in my books, but the brown butter makes them just that much more special.

Browning the butter with your vanilla bean makes all the difference, not to mention it makes your house smell better than any Bath and Bodyworks candle ever could! The addition of soaking your raisins in a little bit of rum lends a depth to these caramel coloured cookies and pairs very well with the brown butter. (Don't worry, the alcohol burns off when you cook it) If you haven't browned butter before, not to worry! It's a simple procedure that requires just a touch of effort on your part. Enjoy this batch with some tea and a cozy sweater by a fire or if you're on the west coast, while you're soaking up this gorgeous September sunshine!


Brown Butter Rum Raisin Cookies

Makes 12-16

1/4 salted grass-fed butter

1/2 vanilla bean

1/2 cup coconut sugar

1/4 cup maple syrup

1 egg 

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp soda 

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup oat flour

1/4 cup almond flour

1 1/2 tbs coconut flour

1 cup oats

1/4 cup finely shredded coconut

1/2 cup raisins

1 tbs rum (I used Malibu Black)

1 tbs Galliano (Or 2 tbs dark rum if you have it on hand)

1 tbs hot water (or more rum!!)

In a small bowl, mix rum, Galliano and water. Add raisins and let soak for 20 minutes or, if desired, cook raisins in a saucepan until warm for 3-5 minutes to plump them up. (Or microwave them if you must)

In a saucepan (frying pan works too) over low-medium heat, melt your butter with your vanilla bean that has been sliced down the middle and squeezed. Leave the pod in the pan as your brown your butter. Using a spatula, gently swirl your butter as it begins to bubble. The butter will begin to brown and let off a nutty vanilla scent. The butter is finished when the colour has deepened and the nutty vanilla scent is apparent, 5 minutes for me. Discard pod. 

In a medium bowl, mix your brown butter, coconut sugar and maple syrup together until smooth, like a very soft caramel. Let cool for a few minutes.

In a separate bowl, combine oats, oat flour, almond flour, soda, salt and baking powder. 

Add egg to sugar mixture and mix until combined. Add extra vanilla extract if desired. 

Add dry mixture to wet mixture by folding it in with a spatula. This recipe is a lot more fun by hand! 

Fold in raisins, along with any remaining liquor that wasn't soaked up. 

Fold in shredded coconut and gauge to see if any further dry ingredients are necessary. 

Transfer bowl to freezer or fridge to harden. 

Once hardened, bake at 350 for 8 - 10 minutes, or until golden brown on the top. Remove from oven and let cool on sheet. These cookies should be very chewy and slightly undercooked when removed from the heat. 

Ultimate Go-to Grain-Free Chocolate Brownies

Brownies were never my favourite treat. They were either a little too sweet, too cakey or too crumbly. Of course one bite brownies and those amazing batches of brownies that that one talented mom always used to bring to the bake sales were an exception. We all had one of those, am I right?

Needless to say, whenever I tried making brownies I didn't really care for them. I always had terrible results;  not enough chocolate flavour, too crumbly, you name it, I did it. Brownies just weren't my game. This gluten-free version however, is a game changer. The brownie itself is best right out of the fridge since it gives it a fudgy texture, but it keeps a little crumble just the way I like it. I love the addition of the chocolate chunks, which add a deep dark chocolate taste to the finished product.

The best part about this recipe is that it makes the perfect base to build on. Want to add nuts? Go for it. Add some fresh seasonal fruit? Why not. Switch up the icing or omit it altogether? You bet. Play around with this recipe and make it your own.


Ultimate Grain-Free Chocolate Brownies

Makes 14-18 brownies

7 tbs coconut flour

9 tbs grass-fed butter, melted

7 tbs cocoa (raw or roasted, but roasted gives deeper flavour)

5 tbs raw unpasteurized honey 

5 tbs coconut palm sugar

1/2 tsp salt if using unsalted butter

1 tsp vanilla

3 eggs

1/2 -2/3 cup dark chocolate chips (soy-free)

Optional add ins:

1/2 cup chopped nuts
1/2 cup cherries or other seasonal fruit
1 tsp instant espresso powder (to deepen chocolate flavour)

Decadent Chocolate Icing

4 tbs grass-fed butter, softened

2/3 cup chocolate chips, melted

5 - 6 tbs cocoa

3 tbs raw unpasteurized honey

1 tbs vanilla whey protein - optional

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9x9 in glass dish with coconut oil or butter. (I use a pie dish, which works just as well)  Mix together melted butter, sugar and honey in a medium bowl. Stir until combined. Add eggs and vanilla and stir until blended. Sift cocoa and coconut flour into bowl and mix until just combined. Add in chocolate chips and other optional items if using. Bake on middle rack for approximately 12-15 minutes or until middle is set. Let it cool.

To make the icing, combine room temperature butter with all other ingredients in a medium bowl. Whisk together until you reach a glossy finish.

Frost brownies and place in fridge to set.

Salted Cashew Butter Cookies

Do you ever eat something so much that you need to stop and take a step back? You build up the courage to tell whatever food it is that you need some space, some time apart to see other delicious foods. Now don't get me wrong, it's not like you don't love it anymore, you just realize that the two of you are getting on a little too well and you just don't want to ruin it. You're simply being rational and want to keep your delectable relationship going for as long as possible. I feel ya. For me it was cashews. It started off in complete innocence, a handful of bulk nuts here and there. But I got carried away, as I tend to do when I obsess over certain foods. I had to pull back on the cashews for a while, see other nuts and such. I'm good now, I can have a cashew or two and be done with it. Pistachios however, those wonderful little things, are a different story.

My favourite thing to do with cashews is to make them into butter. Almond butter and sun butter have nothing on cashew butter, which tastes like the most incredible cookie dough you can imagine.  It's an easy butter to make since cashews are a softer nut. If you can make it past the butter phase without eating half the jar, you can transform said nut butter into a magical cookie. This cookie is a salty sweet chewy piece of heaven. The addition of sea salt makes you wonder if there's caramel in the cookie and the hazelnuts give it just enough crunch to balance the chewy texture. I do suggest making the butter from scratch, but store bought butter will work if you're in a pinch. 

Make sure to share these guys or you may find yourself as cashew crazed as I once was!

Cashew Butter

2 cups raw organic cashews

1 - 2 tbs coconut oil

2 tbs honey 

pinch of salt

vanilla (optional)

Set oven to 300 and lightly toast your cashews for 8-10 minutes. This eliminates any mold growing on your cashews ( a common thing for cashews) and gives them a delicious flavour.  Let cool. 

Process in a food processor or Vitamix until the nuts turn from chunks to crumbs to a paste. 8-12 minutes depending on your machine. Add remaining ingredients and process until thick and creamy. If you want a smoother, runny butter, add more coconut oil.  The thicker the butter the better for the cookies. 

Makes about 2 cups

Salted Cashew Butter Cookies

Makes 12 cookies

1 cup cashew butter

3/4 cup palm sugar 

1 tsp honey

1 tsp soda

1 egg, room temp

1/2 tsp salt

1/3 tsp vanilla powder or 1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips (soy free)

1/3 cup chopped hazelnuts

Sea salt for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 325. Blend all ingredients except chocolate and hazelnuts in a medium size bowl until well combined. Fold in chocolate and hazelnuts.  Mixture may be slightly oily. Roll into 1 inch balls and lay on a tray covered in parchment paper. Sprinkle each cookie with a little salt. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until cookies are flat and slightly brown on the bottom. Remove from oven and let cool on tray.

Fudgy Nutella Cookies

My boyfriend and I got into a heated debate a couple weeks ago. The topic? Nutella. He likes his on its own, straight out of the jar. (I seriously can't leave him alone with a jar of my homemade Nutella) To him, anything else is downright blasphemous. For me on the other hand, although I do love a spoonful straight from the source, I just don't think it's fair to limit such a magical spread to being the solitary star of a sandwich, or spoon for that matter. I spread mine over rice cakes with strawberry or raspberry jam, alternate icing layers of cake with it and even make room on the spoon for jam or ice cream. While I can admit it's amazing on its own, Nutella deserves a friend or two.

So let the blasphemy begin.  I made a batch of homemade Nutella the other day (See my chocolate cake recipe for the how-to), only to find that I had added the fixins in too early.  I ended up with a separated but thick paste, which tasted delicious but wasn't quite what I was looking for, so I abandoned that ship only to accidentally find myself in cookie heaven. These cookies are crisp on the outside, chewy and fudgy on the inside and the sliced almonds and homemade shredded coconut lend just the right amount of crunch to the whole ordeal.

Whether you are a Nutella purist or a sacrilegious strawberry jam and Nutella lover like myself, enjoy these cookies on their own, with jam or even as an epic strawberry ice cream sandwich!

Nutella Cookies

Makes 12

1 1/4 cup Nutella Paste (preferably homemade, see Nutella Paste recipe) 

1 egg 

3 tbs  organic coconut flour

1 - 2 tbs whey protein powder

1 tsp soda

1/2 cup organic coconut palm sugar (more if you like it sweeter)

1/3 cup sliced or slivered almonds

Sea Salt

Shredded Coconut or dark chocolate chips on top for decoration. 

If using homemade Nutella, make sure it's cold, or add a little chocolate and arrowroot powder to it so it sets better. (The firmer the Nutella the better)

1. Combine Nutella, sugar and egg in a medium sized bowl 

2. Sift in coconut flour, whey and soda

3. Add in almonds until just combined

4. Let sit in fridge until hardened, approx. 30 min - 1 hour. (I like to leave mine overnight sometimes)

5. Preheat oven to 350

6. Roll dough into 1 inch balls and place on baking tray lined with parchment

7. Press down balls slightly, then add salt if using.

8. Top with small piece of dark chocolate and coconut if using

9. Bake for 10 minutes, or until tops are cracked and cookies have spread. 

10. Cool on wire rack

 (ice cream sandwich made with local strawberries and coconut milk)

Tahini Ginger Molasses Cookies

If you're as into "alternate" baking as I am (although this is how people should bake, let's be honest!), you may have noticed a rise in popularity of the truly flourless cookie swirling around the internet. The formula is a simple one, basically it's one cup of nut butter for 1 egg, some sugar and baking soda and voila, you have truly flourless cookies. Sure the flourless peanut butter (or almond butter!!) cookie is a magical thing for some,  but is that really enough? Not for me. Baking without conventional ingredients is more than just refusing to follow the abomination that is the mainstream american diet. I will admit that it's a major factor, but why settle for boring plain jane almond flour cookies or cakes stuffed with heavy tapioca flour and gritty rice flour when you can make things taste even better than their american diet counterparts? It's like comparing Clark Kent and Superman here. Well maybe not, but I'm sure you all get the point I'm trying to make.

I have a couple of these nut butter cookie recipes up my sleeve, but this one is to die for. Yes, sesame is technically a seed, but tahini paste should not be overlooked in the baker's kitchen! The texture is chewy, yet the cookie holds its shape and chewy texture quite nicely even after a day or two. It's sweet enough to be dessert yet yields a flavour deep enough to be dipped in tea and happily consumed as a breakfast treat. The ginger pieces are optional, but if you know what's good for you, you'll ignore their sugar content and continue to eat in ignorant bliss. Sometimes you have to live a little!

Tahini Ginger Mollasses Cookies

1 cup tahini

1/3 cup organic coconut palm sugar

4 tbs organic blackstrap molasses 

1 tsp baking soda

1 egg 

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup chopped organic candied ginger

Preheat oven to 325 Fahrenheit 

1. In a medium bowl, mix all ingredients together minus ginger, until combined. 

2. Fold in chopped ginger until just combined.  The mixture will look oily. 

3. Refrigerate for 30 minutes 

4. Roll into 1 inch balls on a tray lined with parchment paper, make sure to leave plenty of space as they melt!

5. Bake for 8-10 minutes, depending on your oven, or until flat and dark golden brown. 

6. Cool on cooling rack

Chocolate Cake with Orange Nutella Frosting

I should never be left alone in the kitchen.  I leave a mess, I play my music too loud and I have to taste everything in sight. Leaving me unsupervised in the kitchen has it perks too; it usually ends with a cake or a batch of cookies on the counter that I may or may not pretend to know nothing about.

Since it was a long weekend and everyone was home I had to share my kitchen, but I woke up early enough yesterday to get some baking out of the way before anyone else got up. The result? A truly wonderful, delicious and easy chocolate cake.  Long weekends call for cake. It's in the unofficial rules of Canadian holidays, I swear! I have been dreaming about this chocolate cake for months on end.  Back in February I thought I had created the best chocolate cake recipe ever.  I had tested it multiple times in cake and cupcake form and it was a real winner. Unfortunately my computer crashed and I lost the recipe.  I finally came back to it, only to improve on the original using a tip I learned from a small town Saskatchewan cookbook; a little apple cider vinegar goes a long way when making a good chocolate cake.  Those prairie women sure were right.  I won't claim that this is the BEST CAKE EVER, but I sure will stand behind it being an awesome, super-fantastic, serve to anyone, even gluten-free haters, amazing and mouth-wateringly delicious kind of cake! 

The cake is so moist and fluffy you could eat it plain, but I paired it with a creamy frosting, since we're sticking to those rules about official cake-making weekends.  The cake is just chocolatey enough to satisfy a craving, without leaving you in serious need of a glass of milk or a cup of tea.  The orange zest lightens up the heaviness of the nuts and chocolate too!  This classic chocolate cake would be great with any kind of icing, but something about that pop of orange against the dark chocolate seemed fitting for mix of rain and shine we had all weekend here. 

Enjoy!

THE Chocolate Cake

Makes 1 9-inch cake. (I used two to make this cake)

1/4 cup salted Kerrygold butter, melted

3 eggs

1/4 cup coco sugar 

2 tbs honey 

1 vanilla bean, scraped, or 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 cup cocoa

1/4 cup coconut flour

1 and 1/2 tsp baking powder, divided

2 tbs coconut milk

2tbs coffee

1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar

Homemade Nutella Paste* 

Makes about 2 cups

2 cups hazelnuts

4 tbs coffee

2/3 cup milk of choice (I used coconut)

3 tbs Kerrygold salted butter

1 cup dark chocolate chunks (at least %70 cocoa)

1/2 vanilla bean, scraped, or 1 tsp vanilla 

1/2 tsp salt (only if using unsalted butter)

Orange Nutella Icing

Enought to ice 1 9-inch two layer cake

1/3 cup kerrygold butter

1 cup homemade nutella

1-2 tbs coffee

1-2 tbs coconut cream from the top of the can

2 tbs cocoa - for deeper flavour (optional)

1/3 cup homemade icing sugar +  3 tbs arrowroot powder **

2 tsp orange zest

For the Nutella Paste,  

Toast nuts @ 300 for 5-6 minutes or until skins become shiny and detached from nut.

Using a tea towel, rub the nuts to remove skins. Not to worry if they don't all come off.

Once cool, grind in a blender or food processor until it begins to form a paste that looks similar to almond butter or peanut butter. Remove from machine.

Heat milk of choice in a saucepan over medium-low heat until simmering point - do not let it simmer - turn off heat. Add the coffee grounds and let steep until desired coffee taste is achieved.  Strain coffee milk mixture into a medium bowl filled with the chocolate and butter. Let melt.  Add vanilla and hazelnut paste.  Chill until the mixture hardens. (Troubleshooting: if the mixture is not thick enough, melt slowly over low heat and add more chocolate)

For the cake,

Preheat oven to 325 Fahrenheit (I did 10 min @ 325 and 7 @ 300 since my oven is freakishly hot)

In a medium bowl mix melted butter with sugar and honey.

Add eggs and vanilla and whisk until well combined and somewhat frothy, 2 minutes.

Place a sifter over the bowl and put cocoa powder, coconut flour and 1 tsp of baking powder inside. Sift ingredients into bowl and mix until combined.

Place remaining baking powder into milk and coffee mixture and place in bowl. Sprinkle apple cider vinegar over milk and coffee mixture and blend batter until smooth.

Using a spatula fill a 9-inch greased round baking pan and cook until fork comes out clean. For me, it took 17 minutes as I mentioned that my oven is insanely hot. (Feel free to let me know how long it takes you!)


For the icing, 

Whip butter in a stand mixer or electric mixer until pale and fluffy, about 3-5 minutes.  Add your solid Nutella paste to the bowl and whip until combined. Add remaining ingredients and whip until nice and fluffy. If too thin, add a little more Nutella paste or arrowroot powder. If too thick, add more coffee or milk.  Store in fridge if not using right away. This icing stays stable at room temperature so feel free to ice your cake in advance!

 *Note that I've made this Nutella extra thick so it can be used to make thicker icing. If you want to make the Nutella for spreading purposes, add at least an extra 1/4 cup of milk to the mixture.

** Note that homemade icing sugar is simply a 1:1 ration of coconut palm sugar and arrowroot powder, blended in a Vita-mix or food processor to make a fine powder