I've always loved to bake and eat sweets. In college, I was the one that would bake a cake for each of my friends birthdays. Since going gluten-free, baking isn't the same. Experimenting with flours is frustrating, expensive and most of the time inedible in the end. Add in eating Paleo and it's even more limiting. I have found though that Paleo baking does have some benefits, one of which is the more limited options of flours. When I've been following other peoples recipes, it's much simpler when they only select from tapioca, coconut, almond, arrowroot, or potato flours.
Now that I've been cooking and baking Paleo for the best part of the last 2 years, I know what I prefer when it comes to baked goods. Today was the first day that I really thought, I can make my own Paleo baking recipe and I did! My main goal was actually removing sugar from muffins. Following my last Whole30 a few months ago, I'm having very bad reactions to sugar. I've found it's best to avoid it completely but muffins have just sounded so good! My solution was to use date paste as a replacement for sugar in muffins. First up, making the date paste!
How to Make Date Paste
Yield: about 1.5 cups
2 cups dates, pitted
water
1. In a large measuring cup, measure out dates. Cover in warm or hot water. Let soak for 1 hour to soften.
2. Strain dates but keep the date water.
3. Add dates to a food processor or blender. Start blending them on medium or medium-high power.
4. Slowly drizzle in about a teaspoon at a time the reserved date water. This will help get a creamier consistency.
5. Let blend until you have a smooth medium density paste. I opted for a bit thinner consistency and then found it did thicken in the fridge a bit.
6. Store in the fridge in a sealed container for up to 3 months.
With the date paste in hand, I decided that Paleo Banana Muffins were my best recipe to start with. I know from past baking that I prefer a muffin with a coconut and tapioca flour blend rather than almond flour. Keep in mind that coconut flour can NOT be substituted in this recipe.
Date Sweetened Paleo Banana Muffins
Yields: 30 mini muffins or 12 regular muffins
5 TBLS butter, melted
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 ripe bananas
1/4 cup date paste
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1. Preheat the oven to 350'.
2. In a large microwave safe bowl, melt the butter.
3. To the melted butter add the eggs, bananas, vanilla and date paste.
4. With a fork, mash the bananas and stir to combine. Make sure to break up any large chunks of bananas otherwise they will cook unevenly.
5. Add in the remaining ingredients. Stir until well combined.
6. Spoon about 3/4 way full into greased muffin pan, silicone muffin holders, or papered muffin tray. For mini muffins bake for 13-15 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. For regular muffins 22-25 minutes.
7. Remove immediately from pan to ensure cooking stops. Place on wire rack to cool. Muffins can be frozen for eaten later too!
We are banana eaters in my house. I usually buy between 8-10 pounds of bananas a week yet we always seem to be out of them. This last week I'm not sure what happened but we have a lot of leftover bananas. The only problem is, I won't touch them if they have spots. So it's time to figure out ways to utilize all these ripe bananas!
One great way is to dehydrate them to eat for snacks or use in my Homemade Larabars. Dehydrating usually takes about 3 hours to dehydrate 10-12 bananas. Another thing you can do is peel, chunk, and freeze the bananas for smoothies or banana ice cream. One trick we've learned is that they need to be flash frozen otherwise they all stick together.
Flash Freezing Fruit
1. Line a large baking sheet with tin foil.
2. Cut the fruit down to the desired size, if necessary. I chunk my strawberries, bananas, pineapple, and mango but leave my blackberries, raspberries, and marionberries whole.
3. Place the baking sheet in your freezer. If you have a check or upright freezer, use this for about 1 hour. If you only have your fridge-freezer it takes closer to 4-5 hours to get a solid freeze.
4. Remove the baking sheet from the freezer and immediately slide all the fruit off into freezer Ziploc bags and put back in the freezer. All your hard work will go to waste if you let the fruit defrost at all.
The easiest and most satisfying way to use up spotty bananas is to make pancakes! I've tried many different banana pancake recipes and finally figured out the easiest and yummiest one.
Easy Paleo Banana Pancakes
Serves: 3, 12-15 4" size pancakes
2 ripe bananas
4 eggs
4 TBLS coconut flour
2 TBLS coconut oil, divided
1. In a blender combine all ingredients. Whirl up until combines and smooth, about 1 minute.
2. Heat a non-stick skillet or grill pan over medium heat with 1 tablespoon of coconut oil.
3. Four the batter into the skillet to make 4 inch size pancakes.
4. Wait for the edges to cook completely and the pancake to look firm before flipping, about 3 minutes.
5. Flip and cook for an additional 1 minute.
6. Serve immediately.
These are great topped with fresh fruit, some seared banana bits, warm syrup or however else you prefer your pancakes!
