Coconut Fruit Pancakes with Berry Reduction Sauce

Who says no flour means no pancakes? I present you flourless pancakes! Grain-free and delicious to boot.

I stumbled upon a blog a couple weeks ago that quickly rose to the top of my favorite blogs list. Green Kitchen Stories is a wonderful mixture of simple healthy food, delicious pictures, and fun stories about life and travel from David, Luise, and Elsa. If you haven't checked it out yet, it's worth a visit!

It was on Green Kitchen Stories that I first saw a recipe for flourless pancakes and I knew instantly that I just had to try it. The recipe called for unsweetened coconut, which acted as the "flour" giving substance to the liquid fruit and eggs. It also called for coconut oil, which I had never used but had been curious about for some time. I couldn't wait to try my own version.

On Saturday morning, I surveyed the fruit in my kitchen: two bananas, two pears, lots of clementines, and a bag of frozen mixed berries. Wanting to use some of everything, I decided on banana-pear pancakes with a berry-orange reduction sauce.

Oh, it was heavenly. So light and fruity; it was tremendously satisfying without the heaviness of usual pancakes. And the best part is that the house smelled like coconuts for hours after we were done eating. Just another trip to the land of swaying palm trees...

Coconut Fruit Pancakes with Berry Reduction Sauce

The Sauce

Start the sauce first so that it can simmer and reduce while the pancakes are cooking.

3 cups mixed berries
1 cup freshly squeezed orange juice (about 3 clementines)
1/4 cup honey
Sprinkle of cinnamon

Put all ingredients in a medium saucepan. Bring to boil, turn heat to low, and simmer about 30 minutes until thick and syrupy.

The Pancakes

2 bananas, sliced
2 pears (small to medium), finely chopped
100g/3.5 oz unsweetened coconut
2 tsp cinnamon
5 eggs
Coconut oil

In a large bowl, mix together the coconut and cinnamon until well blended. In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs. Add the bananas and pears to the egg mixture and mash everything up with a potato masher. Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until well blended.

Heat some coconut oil in a frying pan. When hot, spoon the mixture into the coconut oil using approximately 1/4 cup batter per pancake. When bubbles start appearing and popping on the top of the pancake, flip and cook for a minute on the other side. Serve hot with spoonfuls of berry sauce!

Serves 4.

Gluten-Free Cranberry Orange Muffins

Two weekends ago, Josh and I were at brunch at Watts Grocery enjoying a delicious Fall Egg Scramble when he leaned over to me, pointed toward the window, and in one excited breath whispered "It's snowing!" I looked outside, and sure enough, big white snowflakes were dancing everywhere. They were blowing this way and that, making little somersaults in the air and sticking to people's hair and coats as they walked by the restaurant windows. It looked like a scene from a movie.

I couldn't remember the last time North Carolina had seen snow this early. There was a buzz of excitement in the air. We walked onto the sidewalk and saw two little girls running hand in hand, mouths opened wide with tongues stretched out catching the snowflakes as they fell, giggling the whole time. Couples were smiling, walking arm in arm and looking up toward the sky.

There is something magical about the first snow of the season. It speaks of cozy winters, Christmas trees, hot chocolate, and warm evenings spent with friends and family by the fire. It also says "The holiday season is here!", which to me means baking time.

So the next morning, with a blanket of snow on the ground and crisp blue skies all around, I made cranberry orange muffins.

What I love about these muffins is that they taste of the holidays without all the excess sweetness you usually get. The tartness of the cranberries and the slight bitterness of the orange rind complement each other perfectly.

I find that each bite trails in its wake the memories of Christmas stalkings heavy with clementines...

Gluten-Free Cranberry Orange Muffins, from Rebecca Reilly's Gluten-Free Baking

1 cup brown rice flour
2/3 cup potato starch
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
3 tablespoons tapioca starch
2 tablespoons almond meal
2 teaspoons gluten-free baking powder
1 teaspoon Egg Replacer
3/4 teaspoon xanthan gum
Pinch of salt
3/4 cup hot milk
4 tablespoons melted unsalted butter
2 eggs
Grated zest of one orange
1 cup dried cranberries
Cinnamon sugar for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners.

Mix together the brown rice flour, potato starch, sugar, tapioca starch, almond meal, baking powder, egg replacer, xanthan gum, and salt.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the milk, butter, and eggs. Form a well in the dry ingredients and add the wet ingredients. Mix until well blended. Fold in the orange zest and cranberries.

Spoon the batter into the muffin cups and sprinkle each top with cinnamon sugar. Bake for 15 minutes.

Take muffins out of oven and allow to cool in pan for a couple minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

Enjoy with a hot cup of coffee or tea!

Gluten-Free Banana Oat Muffins

Oats. For a long time this was a word that I dismissed quickly, casting it aside and throwing it in the “not-for-me” – deep sigh – bucket whenever I heard someone talk about it or whenever it appeared in a recipe. I cringed at how unfair it was that, just because this super-healthy grain contained a small amount of gluten, it was off-limits to me.

Well, not anymore! Ha.

I realize, of course, that I’m a little late in making this triumphant statement. Gluten-free oats have been available on the market for some time now, but I’ve been afraid of trying them. They were off-limits for such a long time that, once they became available, I walked by the packages glancing at their “gluten-free” announcement with a dubious eye…was this a marketing ploy? I mean, how can you extract gluten from something that naturally contains it?

I still don’t know the answer to that question, but I am happy to announce that I took the leap, bought the questionable oats, and tried them. I loved them. And so did my body! I don’t know how they did it, but they got the gluten out. Really.

So, I can now (gleefully) state that oats, dear reader, are back in my kitchen. Along with all their high-fiber, cancer-fighting, heart-promoting, immune-enhancing benefits. Life is good.

Gluten-Free Banana Oat Muffins, adapted from half-baked baker’s recipe

The second I knew oats were back on the table, I found myself experimenting. I started looking around for inspiration and recipes and was thrilled to find a recipe for oat muffins that called for no flour other than oat flour! I am always trying to find ways to bake gluten-free with less highly refined flour, but it’s hard to do since all the very-white very-refined flours (like cornstarch or tapioca starch or potato flour) are what give gluten-free baked goods their light quality.

I immediately tried this recipe and was delighted with the results. You can even make your own oat flour from gluten-free oats by milling them in a food processor (1.5 cups oats equals about 1 cup oat flour).

These banana oat muffins are packed full of nutrients with 4 grams of fiber, 10% of your daily iron requirement, and 9% of your daily need for calcium in each one. I replaced the oil with unsweetened organic applesauce, so there is no saturated fat!

1 1/4 cup gluten-free rolled oats
1/2 cup yogurt, plain low fat
1/2 cup milk, low fat
1 1/2 cups gluten-free oat flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 bananas, large, ripe, mashed
1 egg, large, lightly beaten
1/2 cup lightly toasted chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 400ºF.

In a bowl, mix together the gluten-free rolled oats, yogurt, and milk. Let soak 10 minutes. Meanwhile, mix oat flour, salt, spices, baking powder, and baking soda in another bowl. In yet a third bowl, mix brown sugar, applesauce, mashed bananas, and egg. Add egg mixture to dry ingredients and mix well. Add to the rolled oats mixture. Gently fold in the walnuts. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups 2/3 full (they may end up being a little more than 2/3 full in order to use up all the batter, which is fine). Bake for 20 minutes. Makes 12 muffins.

Eat warm out of the oven!

These will last about a week if kept in a sealed container and are delicious after a couple days reheated and served with butter and honey. Enjoy!

Peaches and Memories

The air is still. The house is quiet. I sit in the living room watching the leaves outside slowly float to the ground.

It is a day of heaviness in the heart. Time stands still. And yet, as I watch the brown leaves fall, I am witness to the exact opposite: time, unstoppable, passes.

My grandfather passed away a couple days ago.

He was 88 years old. His life was long, full, and happy. He was ready to go.

But it is still hard to say goodbye.

I sit here, feeling the loss, and I find myself grasping for memories. I want to remember it all...the laughs, the games we used to play, how he used to call me his poupée, his princesse and twirl me around the living room.

As I let my mind wander, I am brought back to my childhood and all the summers I spent in the mountains of Switzerland where he and my grandmother lived. I remember him bringing fruit out, sitting on the porch together, feeling the bright summer sun warm my skin, and biting into the ripest most delicious peach I had ever tasted. I can still feel the tickle of the juice as it ran down my arm. We didn’t have peaches in Africa and I thought they were the best thing on earth.

I remember him asking me and my brother if we wanted to dance, a twinkle in his eye, and then laughing as we jumped up and down excitedly shouting “Oui! Oui, grand-papa! La Danse des Canards!” We would watch intently as he pulled out the old record and placed it on the record player, gently, allowing it to crackle a couple seconds before the music came on and filled the room. Then we would all quickly move to the middle of the living room and the three of us would start dancing around in a semi-crouched position, wiggling our butts, flapping our “wings,” and altogether being as utterly duck-like as was humanly possible. We sang at the top of our lungs, and my brother and I tried not to fall over laughing watching my grandfather do his best to be as silly as he could be. No matter how many times we danced to that song, I felt the same thrill and excitement every time.

Those are the memories I cling to...cheeks aching with laughter, deliciously sweet peaches, and endless bear hugs.

So this morning, searching for some comfort and the memory of childhood summers spent with grand-papa, I found myself in the kitchen baking peaches.

Gluten-Free Peach Muffins

In an attempt to make these muffins healthier, I replaced the oil with unsweetened applesauce. I was thrilled with the result! If you don’t have applesauce, you can use canola oil or melted butter instead.

1 ½ cups gluten-free flour mix of your choice
½ cup packed dark brown sugar
¾ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 eggs
½ cup unsweetened applesauce
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
3 small to medium peaches or 2 large ones (preferably organic as they are not peeled)

Preheat oven to 350ºF.

In a large bowl combine the flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon. Mix well until thoroughly combined. In a separate bowl mix the eggs with the applesauce, and vanilla extract.

Wash and dry the peaches. Cut them into slices and then cut the slices into small chunks.

Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour the liquid ingredients into the well. Mix slowly with a whisk until just combined. Add the peaches and gently fold into the batter with a wooden spoon.

Line a muffin pan with paper liners and fill each cup 2/3 full. If you have batter left over, distribute evenly across the cups. Mine all ended up being completely full. Bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in a muffin comes out clean.

When ready, take pan out of the oven and let sit for one to two minutes. Take out muffins from pan and put on cooling rack.

There is a lot of fruit in these, so they are very moist and don’t require any toppings.