Chocolate Lovers Ganache Tart / Vegan and Paleo

This may be the most simple decadent chocolate dessert. Chocolate ganache in a chocolate nut crust, serve it with whipped coconut cream and berries (or whipped cream for you milk lovers). Bring it along to a pot luck, or if you are like me, cut thin slivers off the leftover piece in the fridge, eating them standing up in the kitchen. Somehow it all disappeared too quickly.

cocoa and coconut syrup for the crust.

I needed to whip up a dessert to bring to a girlfriends dinner party over the weekend. I was late, as usual I had overbooked my day, and had not left much time to bake. Rifling through my recipe box the ganache stared at me. It had been staring at me for a few weeks. I used to make it often, but it had been ages. It would be fast, simple, and with minimal baking time of about 10 minutes. Perfect! 

Flax seed hydrating in water.

I whipped it up, no problem, and threw it in the fridge to set. But, I needed to be getting on my way over to the party and it hadn't quite set yet...really not much at all...it was still jell-O jiggling. So I fitted a basked with ice packs and my chocolate tart and crossed my fingers that any chocolate flood would stay off the car carpet. Miraculously not a drop was spilled, we stuck it in her fridge when I arrived. By the time for dessert it was well set and ready to slice with a sharp knife. 

Serve small pieces, it is quite rich and depending on the chocolate you use, can be on the bitter side. Better to see who really loves chocolate and wants to come back for more. 

If you have even a moderately stocked kitchen, you can probably throw this together from things in your panty. Usually I make one large tart in a fluted pan with a removable bottom. A very elegant, shinny, solid chocolate presentation. This time I used a throw away aluminum pan because I misplaced my tart pan. And sometimes, I make small personal tarts, they are easy and adorable. The crust to ganache ratio is different, but with some berries would be quite balanced. 

Chocolate Lovers Ganache Tart / Vegan and Paleo

• 1 Tablespoon ground flax seed
• 3 Tablespoons water
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder (sifted makes your life easier)
• 1.5 Tablespoon coconut syrup (honey, or maple syrup)
• 2 cups almond meal
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 can coconut milk (full fat)
• 1 lb (16 ounces) bittersweet chocolate (Taza or other vegan chocolate)
• 1 Tablespoon dark rum

Preheat oven to 350°. (makes a 9" or 10" tart pan, a 9" pie plate, or about 10 small tartlets)

Mix flax seed and water in a bowl. Let sit to hydrate for 5 minutes. 

Add cocoa powder and coconut syrup to the flax seed. Mix together with a rubber spatula. If you wisely sifted the cocoa powder this will go easily. If you are absent minded, like me, and didn't sift, you will now need to mush up many of the cocoa clumps. Sing something good, it goes by faster.

Add the almond meal and salt to the chocolate mixture. Mix everything together using the spatula. It will be dry and difficult at first, mix for about 1 minute and you will find it becomes more like a moist dough. 

Lightly grease your pan. Using your fingers, press the chocolate dough into a crust in your tart pan. Go up and sides and make sure there are no holes. If your hands get sticky, rinse them under cool water and return to crust making. 

Blind bake the crust for about 10 minutes in the 350° oven. Looking for it to puff slightly and smell a little toasted. There is nothing which needs to be cooked out, the flax will set and the almonds will be toasted. You can't mess it up, is what i'm saying. Just don't forget it and burn it. 

You can do this next step while the tart is baking. Open a can of full fat coconut milk, put in a saucepan and put on a medium low heat. Weigh out 1 pound of chocolate bits. If you have a chocolate bar, cut it into pieces. With a spatula, stir the coconut milk so it warms up but does not scorch. Heat it to just less than a simmer, just a few bubbles around the edge of the pan.

Turn off the heat. Pour in all the chocolate bits. Nudge them with your spatula to submerge them. But don't stir. (Double check the flame is turned off!) Give it a moment to melt all on its own.

About now you can remember to remove the tart crust from the oven to cool a bit.

Give the melting chocolate a stir or two. It will melt with no more heat, just stir with the spatula, it likes that. Once it is all velvety and smooth, you are home free. Stir the rum into the chocolate, stir to combine, and pour all the amazing melty chocolate into the chocolate crust. Dab the spatula on the top to flatten out the ripples. Place in the fridge to chill. This should happen in an hour or two, depending on how thick your tart pan is. 

Paleo Chocolate Chip Cookies (egg free & nut free)

Paleo chocolate chip cookies that taste like soft Chips Ahoy? Made from plantains? You bet!

For all of you trying to stick to your healthy January plans, getting back to those good habits we gleefully forgot about over the holidays, this is what you should make when you are craving sweets and cookies. Because they taste sinful but are made of fruit!

For this recipe you want ripe yellow plantains. The ones I used are yellow but were not fully ripe. Its up to you, for a sweeter cookie, but more sugars, go for really ripe ones that are almost black. 

Peel the plantains, chop the fruit into smaller chunks and put 7 ounces into your food processor. (I started with a blender but it didn't work well with my semi-ripe plantains. So you will see I scooped it all into my food processor.) A vitamix would be awesome here. 

Measure various flours and sugars and baking things on top of the plantains. We have arrowroot, coconut flour, vanilla, cinnamon (optional), baking soda, coconut oil and coconut sugar. And chocolate chips, seriously. 

 

If you dont have arrowroot powder, tapioca powder or cornstarch will work in a similar way. 

Coconut sugar is one of those things, so delicious and good for you as sugars go. I love to bake with it and these days you can find it at most grocery stores. Maple syrup, honey, or cane sugar can all be substituted in the event you have eaten all the coconut sugar in your kitchen. It happens!

I love to use the mini chocolate chips I feel you get more chocolate in each bite that way. These vegan Enjoy Life ones are tasty. When I don't have those I use a bar of really dark chocolate, one that is so minimally processed, like 80% cocoa solids. The bar can be chopped up easily with a knife to get the 3 tablespoons of chips.  (Wait to add the chocolate until after all the blending, ok!

So there is the big mess of baking stuff.

(it got too messy to show in the middle here, so it was moved to the food processor.)

Now we are happily blending the life out of everything. We want it smooth. 

*Note: if it looks really dry during blending add some almond milk or something like that. start at 1 Tablespoon and add no more than a 1/4 cup. 

We are looking good! It is thick but without chunks. 

Sprinkle and fold in the glorious chocolate. (Seriously, what did humans live for before we got our hands on chocolate?) I wont tell if you put in even more chocolate. 

Prepare your baking sheets with parchment paper or a silpat. 

A small ice cream scooper for cookies is perfect here! This one scoops 1 and a half tablespoons. Use one of these or two spoons to make dollops of cookie dough on the paper. Keep them a consistent size so they cook at the same rate, I think 1 to 1.5 tablespoons if perfect. 

Press down the scoops to flatten the cookies. They don't melt much in the oven.

Dampen two fingers with water, to avoid cookie dough sticking, and press on the top of each cookie to flatten it, somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 of an inch. So it is short. 

Bake at 375° for 10 - 12 minutes. 

The cookies with soften, puff and then sink. They have pretty cracks and the centers will set. 

Let cool on the hot pans for some minutes. When the cookies are warm you can sort of taste the plantain flavor. Once they cool, the same plantain flavor is all gone.

Soft Paleo Plantain Chocolate Chip Cookies

makes 14 cookies

7 oz peeled ripe plantain

2 Tablespoons arrowroot powder

2 Tablespoons coconut flour

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)

3 Tablespoons coconut sugar

3 Tablespoons coconut oil

3 Tablespoons chocolate chips (or more!)

(up to 1/4 cup milk if necessary for mixing)

Note: I always regret it if I don't make a double batch of these! 

Dark Chocolate Paleo Brownies

Dark Chocolate Paleo Brownies

These dark chocolate brownies are awesome! With cocoa powder and melted unsweetened chocolate they are super satisfying. More cake like than gooey they are close to the texture of a chocolate torte. The top stays glossy and they cut like a dream. They are made with raw coconut sugar, which is super yummy and low on the glycemic index as far as sugars go.

I have found paleo brownies which taste good are rather difficult to come by. They are often too oily, dont bake through, or are dry. These were super fast to whip up also. Beware, you must be a lover of dark chocolate, because they do have some of that wonderful bitter component that we go for. (You could add in more sugar, like a 1/4 cup if you want.)

Dark Chocolate Brownies

5 ounces unsweetened chocolate

82 g (7 Tablespoons) vegetable shortening (non-hydrogenated like Spectrum)

1/2 cup coconut sugar

1/2 cup cashew meal (or blanched almond flour)

1 tablespoon coconut flour

3/4 cup Dutched cocoa powder

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

1/4 cup honey

3 eggs, lightly beaten

1/2 cup almond milk

Line a 9" square pan with parchment paper which comes up the sides for easy removal (these will stick to anything else I think.) Preheat the oven to 350°.

Weigh the chocolate and shortening into a small heat proof bowl. Melt over a bain-marie by placing the bowl over another small pot with about an inch of water in it. Turn the heat on to bring the little bit of water to a boil, turn it down once the steam starts seeping out the sides. The steam from below warms the bowl, gently melting the chocolate and shortening. Stir back and forth with a silicone spatula to aid the melting. When it is all liquid, pull the bowl off the heat to cool down. 

Measure the sugar, cashew meal, coconut flour, cocoa powder and sea salt together into a container.

Prepare to mix it all in a food processor or blender. Pour in the wet ingredients first; almond milk, eggs, chocolate mix. Layer the dry ingredients on top (this way they don't stick in the bottom of the mixing device.

Blend for about a minute, so it is all emulsified. Scrape down the sides if you need to. Add a tad more almond milk or water if it is too stiff to blend. Dump the batter out into the prepared pan. Spread with a spatula to to the edges and to look nice, because it does not rearrange itself while baking. 

Bake for 20-25 minutes, so a toothpick comes out clean. Remove from oven and let rest for an important 30 minutes. Finally you can lift the parchment paper and brownies out of the pan, fold back the paper and slice them so beautifully with a long sharp knife. I cut mine into 16 squares. Let cool sufficiently before wrapping up to store in the fridge. 

Disclamier: I was happily inspired by this post by Gluten Free on a Shoestring. To give credit where credit is due, thank you! But made several changes along the way which became my brownies here. Enjoy!

Paleo Vegan hot cocoa

After a serious session of snow shoveling, fingers and ears tingling from the cold wind that permeates all clothing, the obvious craving is hot cocoa.

When I was small and still building igloos and snow-women, my mother used to make hot chocolate in a big aluminum pot on the stove. She served it up with a ladle, enough for all of us and extra friends. I think she used half milk and half water with squares of baking chocolate, probably sugar too. It was warm and rich. 

My first encounter of French hot chocolate...chocolat chaud, I was an impressionable 13 years old. At a corner café, sitting outside pressed up against the window, I was ordered a chocolat chaud. Paris zooming by, trucks and petit cars, chic ladies skipping along the streets, a dressed up waiter set in front of me, a tea cup with a little black pool of chocolate, a pitcher of steaming hot milk, a little spoon and sugar cubes. He poured the milk into the night black of the cup, it frothed and made couds, dinner theatre for a young American girl. 

Perhaps the theatre made it taste better, but it is ingrained in my memory as the cup which all cups or hot cocoa are measured against. It changed my tastes and expectations for good. I have had the chance to travel to France many times since, and now it seems, modernization has affected the service of chocolat chaud, I couldn't find a place that serves it in such a way. Most come out pre-mixed, however, they do serve chocolate nice and bitter, with sugar on the side, unlike in the states. 

With the holy grail of Parisian chocolat in mind, how do I go about making it at home? (Without milk, because it makes my tummy hurt so badly.) A key to recent success is using fresh homemade hazelnut milk. It is richer tasting and more frothy. Refer to my recipe here. (if you are using store bought milk, thicker and richer is better like: Hemp milk, hazelnut, soy or almond.) This is a recipe for hot chocolate for two. Two intense cups. Scale up as needed.

straining fresh nut milk

1.5 cups fresh hazelnut milk
2 HEAPING Tablespoons of pure cocoa powder
Taza chocolate, 86% dark.
 Stevia "in the raw", 1 packet.

1 Tablespoon organic unrefined coconut palm sugar
**A drizzle of agave syrup, if you like.

(Optional but wonderful add ins are: vanilla bean, coffee/espresso powder, "mexican chocolate" spices, or mint! Have fun!)

place on a low heat to melt everything without boiling, or it will burn! A whisk is a good tool. Make sure it is nice a hot before serving in your most cozy mugs.
** The sugar is "to taste", and I find if I use a little bit of several types of alternative sweeteners (instead of all one type) the undesirable qualities of them are washed out. Stevia can have a strange aftertaste, but with the coconut sugar, it is virtually none.

*For a party pick-me-up, add a dash of whiskey to your cup ;)