Kelly
Brozna graduated from the Tyler School of Art with a BFA in Photography in
2000. In 2007, she and her family moved from the East coast to Colorado.
She began to experiment with and create gluten-free recipes because her husband
and two daughters were allergic to various foods. After she removed dairy
and refined sugars from their diets, their allergic symptoms disappeared.
She has now created a wide variety of gluten-free dishes for her family and
has published them in a new book, The Spunky Coconut, which she and her artist
husband, Andrew, have produced. Here are some holiday-inspired dessert recipes,
which Kelly is sharing from her book.
They
say that smell is the sense most closely associated with memory, which completely
explains why the holidays are my favorite time of year. Turkey with rosemary,
cranberry stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, pecan pie... Each one conjures
up a picture in my head, a picture that comes back every year with the smell
of that food.
The nostalgia of the season begins when I wake up in the morning, buried under mountains of blankets, the cold morning air nipping my nose. The kitchen wakes up too. Coffee with a hint of cinnamon, herbal tea, or hot apple cider send little puffs of steam into the chilled air. What will we have today? Eggs, bacon, banana bread, pumpkin muffins?
Outside you can smell wood burning, leaves drying on the ground, and sometimes snow. Soups and stews, pasta, and meat cooked with dry herbs all have one thing in common: heat. It's impossible to imagine the holidays without hot meals, and baked goods. However, baking cake, cookies and pies isn't easy-especially from scratch. Family secrets and recipes are passed down from generation to generation. These recipes take time, practice, and patience.
Compound the work of holiday cooking with food allergies and intolerance's, and suddenly the holidays can seem pretty daunting. Celiac disease, dairy-intolerance, diabetes, MS, RA, autism-the list goes on and on. More and more of us are struggling to dramatically change our diets to improve our health, or the health of a loved one. All of the above health issues, and many more, benefit greatly from the gluten-free, casein-free, sugar-free diet.
What are gluten and casein? They are proteins which are very similar on a molecular level. Gluten is the protein in wheat, barley, rye, spelt and contaminated oats. Casein is the protein in cow milk. There are also trace amounts of casein in sheep and goat milk.
Fortunately, you can make foods free of these ingredients that everyone will love. Our family has been living without gluten, casein, and sugar for over 5 years now, and no one (typical diet or restricted) has ever been disappointed by our holiday feasts. Through year round trial and error I developed cakes, cookies and pies, that everyone could eat, and no one would guess were unusual. Healthy food that tastes amazing and is allergy-free means this holiday season, even if it's your first on a new diet, can be as memorable as ever. Cheers!
The
Spunky Coconut Cookbook
is available from
www.amazon.com
Contact
Kelly at:
kelly@thespunkycoconut.com
Visit
her blog at:
www.thespunkycoconut.com
Filling:
Add to food processor:
1 cup cashews
The nuts should be soaked for
at least 3 hours, rinsed well in
a bowl of fresh water, and strained.
Do this twice.
Purée with:
1 cup coconut oil, liquefied
Add a little bit at a time, and let
it pureÅLe for a minute in between.
Next add:
11/2 cup coconut milk
Not 'lite'.
1/2 cup honey or agave
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 tsp strawberry extract
Taste and add more if you like.
Purée.
Pour into crust.
Refrigerate at least 8 hours
to reach cheesecake
consistency.
Add fresh sliced strawberries after it's chilled for about 2 hours. Press them into the filling, or just spread them on top when it's set (in 8 hours). Makes one very large cheesecake, about 10 servings. For a smaller version, cut all the ingredients in half and use a glass pie dish rather than a springform pan.
This brittle is based on a recipe from a book my husband read, The Medieval Kitchen: Recipes from France and Italy. He also made me candied orange peel for my birthday once, using another recipe from The Medieval Kitchen. It was awesome. I changed the brittle ingredients notably because it originally called for honey and no oil. I thought that the honey made it way too sweet, and took awayfrom the spices. I also added coconut oil because after Andrew made the recipe from the book it was very soft, like honey with nuts in it. I wanted it to be more brittle-like, although my recipe isn't as hard as a true brittle.If you kept it in the freezer it would be very hard of course,which is why I take it out after 2 hours and store it in the fridge.
For those of you who like the combination of peanut butter and chocolate, but seek to avoid peanuts because they carry fungus, this is the brownie for you. Or if you're not a peanut butter fan, make them without Sunbutter, for one of the best brownies ever! Add a little mint and you have mint chocolate brownies! So many delicious ways to make them!
Ganache is usually a 1:1 ratio of dark chocolate and
cream, which is made by bringing the cream just
to a boil then pouring it over the chocolate. The
heat of the cream melts the chocolate and the two
are whisked together. This is exactly how I make it,
only I use coconut milk, and dairy-free chocolate
chips, like Enjoy Life. You can also flavor the
ganache with extracts if you like. I add some vanilla
to mine. Personally, I think all desserts need a little
vanilla!
Filling:
Add to bowl:
7 dates, pits removed
7 prunes
11/4 cups of water
Cover and soak for about 8 hours.
Add the dates and prunes, and their
soaking water to the blender with:
1 tbsp xylitol
1 tbsp ghee
1/2 tbsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp Quinoa Flakes
Purée.
Add 11/2 cups roughly chopped pecans (lightly toasted if
you like) to the filling.
Pour the filling into the pie crust.
Bake at 400° F for 10 minutes. Turn the oven down to
350 and bake for another 10 minutes.
Chill in the fridge for at least a few hours before serving.
Top with my Whipped Topping (see p. 32) or a scoop of
dairy-free vanilla ice cream.
When I get my juicer out to make zucchini
bread and carrot cake, I take the opportunity to juice carrots for my raw
carrot spice cookies. I don't know who loves them more, me or Ashley?
They can be as dry or chewy as you want, just start checking them after about
6 hours in the dehydrator, depending on their thickness. Keep in mind that
the dryer they are, the smaller they will get, so if you like a crunchy cookie, start oversized. I prefer them dry on
the outside and still soft in the middle, which takes about 10 hours for a
thin cookie.
Coconut Icing:
Add to food processor:
1/2 cup cashews,
soaked for about 3 hours,
rinsed and strained
1/2 cup agave
2 tbsp coconut oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup shredded coconut
Purée.
It is amazing to me and my family how little flour is in this cake or cupcakes. That's the joy and wonder of coconut flour. Honestly, no one can ever believe that this recipe is gluten, dairy and sugar free. It's as good or better than any cake I ever had before! Just be careful not to overcook it, and I think you'll agree! I love the If You Care(R) brand of unbleached paper muffin cups. Nothing ever sticks, plus they're better for the environment, and for my family. Then, what I do is reuse them by keeping them in a bag in the freezer between use; even better for the environment and my wallet!
What do you do with 6 egg whites left over the day after making custard pie? Use them in my coconut chocolate chip cake of course! Whipped egg whites are the secret to making this cake light, fluffy and moist. I've said it before, but we eat dessert for breakfast in my house. I like to make this quick healthy cake first thing in the morning, and serve us a warm, fresh slice. I have some tea or coffee from the French press, and we sit down at the kitchen table to eat, with the morning sun streaming in through the window. For a dense version don't beat the egg whites to peaks. Good either way!
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