Paleo Chocolate Hazelnut Biscotti

Biscotti! Why didn't I think of biscotti?!

Brian is a big lover of the beautiful bread rolls that are piled up in his office every morning. He's making a big effort to go paleo with me, but the temptation to eat these soft french rolls is huge. My thought was to make something easy, portable and a bit decadent that he could take with him and eat instead.

Plus, I just made a batch of hazelnut milk and had the nut meal left over which I made into hazelnut flour.

My only problem was that I couldn't find a paleo recipe for biscotti specifically using hazelnut flour. I had to get creative. After scouring through quite a few recipes using almond flour, pistachios, coconut flour, etc. I figured I had a good idea of what I needed.

Here's what I did:

• 1 c. hazelnut flour
• 1/3 c. coco powder
• 1 tbs manioc flour*
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 1 organic free range egg
• 1/3 c. raw honey
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/3 c chopped (soaked and dried) hazelnuts**

Preheat your oven to 350f (or 177c).

Put all your dry ingredients into a food processor or blender and pulse until they're well combined. My home-made hazelnut flour was still a little bit clumpy and this also helped to make it more fine. When your ingredients are mixed well, put it all into a medium sized mixing bowl.

In a small bowl, combine your wet ingredients and mix well.

Add your wet ingredients to your dry ingredients and smoosh it all together until it's good and sticky. Add your chopped nuts and moosh some more.

Now you'll have a nice sticky mess. Grease your baking sheet with coconut oil or butter, and grease your hands as well. This stuff is sticky! Scoop it all out of the bowl and form it into a log.

I know, I know

Yes, it will look like a giant turd. I laughed out loud at this point. Feel free to do the same, food can be hilarious, right? Or maybe I'm just a twelve year old boy, ha.

Now flatten that log into a rectangle about 3/4" thick.

More mooshing

Bake for 17 minutes, then remove it from the oven to cool.

Once it's mostly cool, cut the still-soft dough into biscotti sized pieces and lay them on their sides back on your cookie sheet.

Bake for 18 more minutes at 300f (or 150c).

Let cool completely. They should be nice and crispy once they're done. If they last longer than five minutes, store them in an airtight container. I have no idea how long they'll keep, and at the rate Brian is eating them I may never find out.

I'd say they're a big success! And I know what I'm having for breakfast tomorrow.

*You could substitute 1 tbs tapioca starch, or arrowroot powder
**I put the nuts in a plastic bag and crushed them with a garlic press, which is the heaviest thing I have in my kitchen. Note to self: buy a meat tenderizing hammer or something.

Let me know if you try making these, and how they come out!

Paleo Dessert - Dark Chocolate Almond Bites

I caved.

We've been really good about staying away from sweets, but my husband has a huge open space in his belly reserved especially for chocolate. He craves it!

He's been known to buy a dark chocolate bar or two on the sly (which is admittedly much better than the caramel milk chocolate bars he used to get!), so I got to thinking about how we could both enjoy a bit of a treat without mainlining the chocolate directly into our veins. Maybe by mixing it with nuts we could fool our brains into thinking we're eating a larger volume of chocolate while we're actually eating nutritious nuts? Brilliant!

I got to looking around and found an organic bar of dark chocolate in the baking aisle at the grocery store and improvised.

Here's what I did:

Ingredients:

• 100g dark chocolate*
• 1tbs organic grass fed butter
• 1 tbs raw honey
• 300g raw almonds (about 1 cup)**

Optional:

• Coconut flakes
• Pureed ginger
• 2 or 3 drops of peppermint oil
• 3 or 4 drops of pure vanilla

Melt about a teaspoon of butter in a cup and use your finger to rub a bit of it into the inside of your tiny paper cupcake cups. This helps the paper peel easily off the finished product.

Break the chocolate into small bits and melt together with the butter and honey over low heat in a double boiler, or be lazy like me and microwave it ten seconds at a time until smooth with no lumps.

Stir in the almonds to coat. You could probably add another half cup of almonds or so if you like them thinly coated.

With a small spoon, drop about four or five almonds into each paper cup. Pop them into the freezer for fifteen to 30 minutes to set the chocolate.

Once they've hardened you can pile them all into a plastic food storage container and keep them in the fridge. Or if you have no self control like me, you can keep them in the freezer so they take a long time to warm up enough to eat. Whatever slows you down.

*The bar I found was 76% cocao with very little sugar
**Best if soaked overnight and allowed to fully dry. You could put them in a warm oven for a few hours to speed up the drying process.

What else you can do:

• Sprinkle the top with coconut flakes, or even stir the coconut directly into the melted chocolate.
• Mix 1-2 tbs ginger puree (or more if you like it strong) into the chocolate. The ginger ones were my husband's absolute favorite! I got scolded for "stealing" one from him. I swear I heard him whisper "my precious" as he ate his that night.
• Use peppermint oil or vanilla to flavor the chocolate. Get creative!

Now we have a ready snack that satisfies our chocolate craving without completely blowing our carb quota. Somehow just knowing they're in the house keeps the hubs from sneakily buying it at the store so his random binges are more under control. Now I just need to talk him into eating one or two, instead of four.

And I need to talk him into sharing those ginger ones. Yum.