Baking Frenzy

With the cooler fall temperatures comes an innate desire to spend more time in my kitchen cooking and baking.  I have been baking much more than ever before since my son was diagnosed with food allergies and intolerances and I have decided to take a more traditional approach to eating for myself and my husband, as well.  This post features two recipes, one allergy friendly cereal and a bread that satisfies a craving I have had lately for a non-GF baked god (with eggs too!)  The good news is that is can easily be translated into an allergy-friendly bread with an egg replacer and GF all purpose baking flour!

I recently had the opportunity to meet Holly Larsen, the Co-founder of Tula's CocoKefir.  My family had been a fan of this product for quite some time (we love their new CocoYo too!).  Their story is inspirational.  Holly and I have been sharing some kid-friendly snack ideas since then.  She gave me this granola/cereal recipe to try and it was a big hit in our house with my little guy and I!  I would liken it to vanilla-infused grape nuts - crunchy and a little sweet.  Wonderful sprinkled on yogurt, oatmeal or brown rice cereal or with a little bit of milk or coconut milk poured over it!  I love the fact that I had the opportunity to use some ingredients that I had never tried before in this recipe - buckwheat groats, quinoa puffs and vanilla stevia (I used the Sweetleaf brand - it is worth it to buy the good stuff with no additives, as a little goes a long way...  there are hundreds of servings per tiny bottle!  I am excited to continue baking with it and look forward to adding few drops to flavor tea, coffee, etc. as well!)


Allergy-Free Granola/Cereal
(Thanks to Holly Larsen for this recipe!)
Ingredients:

• 1.5 cups soaked buckwheat groats (find these in the bulk section at your Co-op or Whole Foods)
• 3 cups quinoa puffs (From Nuts Online - just received them in the mail and they are awesome, a great add-in for any granola recipe or as a cereal substitute on its own!  Note that they are tiny - just tiny puffed quinoa "grains")
• 4 tbls coconut oil
• 1 tbls ground chia seeds mixed with 1/3 cup warm water (you can also find these in bulk!)
• 30 drops vanilla stevia (find this in the baking aisle at Whole Foods or your Co-op - a few drops go a long way, great to flavor beverages, too!)
• pinch salt

Directions:

Soak buckwheat groats in water overnight.  Drain and rinse.  Bake soaked buckwheat groats at 325 degrees for 20 minutes baking sheet (lined with a Silpat or parchment) to dry out. In the meantime, let chia seeds soak in water and melt the coconut oil.  Mix chia mixture with stevia. Mix chia/stevia mixture and coconut oil with dry ingredients. Spread on parchment/Silpat lined sheet and bake 40 minutes stirring periodically. Cool completely and store in airtight container.  Serve like cereal or sprinkled on yogurt - or as a snack all by itself! :) 

The ingredients: chia seeds (small clear bag, quinoa puffs (blue bag), groats (big clear bag), coconut oil and Sweet Leaf Vanilla Creme Stevia.

Before baking

After baking, crunchy and just the right amount of sweetness.  Made our house smell wonderful!

Sprinkled on yogurt - the little guy LOVED it. :)

Sweet Potato Bread

(A revised version of this recipe from the Coop: Stronger Together website.  It turned out so moist and delicious.  My hubby and I enjoyed a piece each when it came out of the oven.  A nice change of pace after lots of GF, dairy free, egg-free baked goods this fall!   I will try this allergen free next time, though - I am sure it will turn out great that way too!) 

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup whole cane sugar (aka rapadura)
• 1 tsp. brown sugar
• 1⁄2 cup coconut oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup mashed cooked sweet potatoes (or squash)
• 1 3⁄4 cups sprouted wheat flour (I used Arrowhead Mills)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1⁄2 teaspoon salt
• 1⁄2 teaspoon allspice
• 1⁄2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1⁄3 cup water

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Oil a 9 x 5 loaf pan.
2. In a mixing bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, salt, allspice and cinnamon together.
3. In a separate mixing bowl, beat the sugarsand coconut oil until the sugar is dissolved and smooth. Add the vanilla and mashed sweet potatoes and blend well. Stir in half of the flour mixture. Add the water and eggs and stir well. Add the remaining flour mixture and blend well. Pour into the loaf pan, sprinkle brown sugar on top of bread.  Bake for about 1 hour. Test for doneness by poking the center of the loaf with a skewer or toothpick. The skewer should come out clean. Let the loaf rest for about 15 minutes before turning it out of the pan.

The bread speaks for itself! :)  YUM.

This will be reposted within the following blogs:

Day2Day Joys
Fresh Bites Fridays
Allergy Friendly Fridays
Lunchbox Love - Vintage Cookery