Brownies!

That's right! BROWNIES!! I was very excited to have these brownies in my life for about a week, and I've missed them ever since. I don't typically bake very often because it takes too much time, but these were totally worth it. :)

Special thanks to my good friend Zak Kane for going on this brownie adventure with me in his very own kitchen!

Recipe:

(Creates about 6 brownies)

Dry Mix:

1/2 Cup Brown Rice Flour

1/2 Cup Unsweetened Cacao Powder

1/4 TSP Baking Powder

1/4 TSP Salt

3/4 Cup Coconut Sugar

1 Cup chopped Walnuts

Wet things:

1/2 Cup Butter

1 Egg

1 TSP Vanilla Extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325ºF. 

Beat the wet ingredients together in a large bowl. Then add in the dry ingredients. Beat and stir until everything seems mixed pretty well. 

Pour the ingredients into a glass baking pan, and place the baking pan in the oven. 

The brownies were supposed to only take about 25 minutes to cook, but they ended up taking about 50 minutes, possibly because they were made at a high elevation (Flagstaff, AZ). Stick a toothpick in the middle of your brownies every 10 minutes or so until they are no longer wet on the inside.

When they are done, take them out of the oven and let them sit for about 15 minutes. Then you can cut them into whatever shape you want, stick one in your mouth, and die of happiness. They are SO GOOD!

KIND Healthy Snacks - Nuts & Spices Bars

I've been an enthusiastic fan of KIND Healthy Snacks ever since I absentmindedly picked up a KIND bar and happened to read their tagline, "Wholesome all natural ingredients you can see and pronounce." That made me really excited! Not only are KIND products gluten free, GMO free, and (some of them) dairy free, but they even have bars available that only contain 4 - 5 grams of sugar! In fact, every bar shown in the photos in this blog post are different flavors of KIND's 4 - 5 grams of sugar options. 

If they had sugar free bars available, I would be their biggest fan ever, but they come pretty close; I think 4 - 5 grams wouldn't be too bad to have every once in a while. I always keep a KIND bar in my purse in case of "emergencies;" in other words, for times when I get hungry and don't have food with me. So whenever I do have one of those "emergencies," I get excited to eat one of my KIND bars haha :)

KIND bars and other KIND products are available at every grocery store, and I heard they will soon be available at JoAnn's as well. Here is a list of the low sugar flavors they have available:

Dark Chocolate Cinnamon Pecan

Dark Chocolate Nuts & Sea Salt

Dark Chocolate Chili Almond

Madagascar Vanilla Almond

Maple Glazed Pecan & Sea Salt

Cashew & Ginger Spice

Nut Delight

Maple Glazed Pecan & Sea Salt is my favorite out of those; it tastes like it has a lot more sugar that it really does, in my opinion, and I like the maple and salt flavor combination. I typically only buy the last four, because eating chocolate on this diet makes me feel guilty. I suppose you could have a chocolate one - or any of these really - as a "dessert" or treat every now and then. 

Here are some photos I took of my low sugar KIND bars... I had fun with my little photo shoot. :)  

I like this brand so much that I even got a bumper sticker for my car. It makes me happy. I love their philosophy and the fact that their logo is friendly and colorful... I kinda want to get a KIND shirt too. :)

Coconut Pancakes

I discovered coconut flour the other day, so of course I immediately bought it with these in mind! They came out kinda crumbly because I did not have any milk, so I used plain yogurt and a little water instead... But they still tasted good. I thought they tasted great even without any toppings! 

Warning: Coconut flour does have some natural sugar in it, so its ok to use it every once in a while, but not all the time, since it's not really sugar free.

Recipe:

(Creates 1 Serving)

1/2 Cup Coconut Flour 

1/2 Cup Brown Rice Flour

3 Large Eggs

½ Cup Almond Milk 

1 Tablespoon Coconut Oil

¼ Cup Salted Almonds

¼ Cup Raw Unsweetened Cacao Nibs

1 Tablespoon Unsweetened Coconut Flakes
1 Tablespoon Raw Unsweetened Cacao Powder

1/2 Tablespoon Cinnamon

1 Tablespoon Xylitol

1 Teaspoon Salt

1/2 Teaspoon Vanilla

Salted Butter (to grease the pan, and can also be used to top the pancakes with when they're done)

Directions: 

Beat the eggs, almond milk, coconut oil, cacao powder, vanilla, and both kinds of flour in a bowl until there are no lumps of flour. Then mix in almonds, cacao nibs, coconut flakes, cinnamon, xylitol, and salt. 

Grease a large pan with butter and coconut oil. Use 2 large spoonfuls of the mixture for each pancake. When small bubbles start to appear in the middle and the edges seem to be kind of hardened, flip the pancakes over and brown on the other side. 

Serve with a cup of almond milk, and sprinkle salt, xylitol, and cinnamon onto each individual pancake. And/or butter the pancakes. Or eat them plain; they're still delicious :) 

Cheater additions: I added few drops of maple flavored agave sweetener on some of the finished pancakes. It wasn't really necessary though, I really liked the flavor the vanilla and coconut flour added! 

I thought the mixture looked kinda beautiful before I added in the cinnamon, nuts, and cacao powder. :)

Mixture once cacao powder, nuts, and cinnamon were added. 

How to Satisfy a Chocolate Craving!

Unfortunately, sugar-free chocolate bars usually contain bad sugar substitutes and other ingredients that are not good for you... But fear not! I have discovered some chocolate that has no sugar in it whatsoever! In fact, unsweetened chocolate is the only ingredient. Huzzah!

So you may get all excited like I did and bite into it expecting it to taste amazing, but instead you'll taste a very bitter, unsweetened cacao flavor... But there are ways to remedy this.

As I have said before, I typically put raw unsweetened cacao nibs, xylitol (a safe sugar substitute - it's good for your teeth too!), and cinnamon in my plain yogurt to satisfy my chocolate cravings. (This is why those ingredients are also featured in the photo, as another option.) But just now I discovered something that tastes even better!

(Note: Don't overdo it with this chocolate; although it is completely sugar free, too much chocolate is still bad for your liver, especially when its a processed chocolate bar... All good things in moderation. Yet apparently, the raw, unsweetened cacao nibs are a lot easier on your liver. Therefore, I'd advise you to alternate between the chocolate bar and the cacao nibs on different chocolate craving days so that you don't overdo it. Or just use cacao nibs every time, if you'd like to play it safe.)


Recipe:

(Creates 1 Serving (Unless you have a severely intense craving, then this is probably only half a serving.))

1 Handful of Raw, Unsweetened Cacao Nibs - OR - 1 square of a Ghirardelli 100% Cacao Unsweetened Chocolate Bar (can be found in the baking aisle of Whole Foods, and most likely in other health food grocery stores as well) 
1/2 Teaspoon worth of Xylitol
1 Spoonful of Plain Cow Yogurt


Directions:

Snap a square of chocolate off of the chocolate bar, as if it was a regular, delicious, sugary chocolate bar. Break it into 2 or 3 pieces, (to make it last), and put one in your mouth. (Or, drop a pinch of cacao nibs into your mouth.)

As you can see in the photo, I am the proud owner of a xylitol shaker, so I pretty much just shake some xylitol directly into my mouth. It probably ends up being about 1/8 of a teaspoon or so for each bite.

Then get a very small spoonful (like only 1/3 of a regular spoon) of plain yogurt and put that in your mouth as well.

Chew, and enter a magical fantasy land where you start to believe that you are eating chocolate like a normal person.

Swallow and repeat with the other pieces of the square, or the rest of your handful of cacao nibs.

You're welcome :)

Bonus! Here is another photo of my chocolate craving satisfaction kit, since the label on the chocolate bar was hard to read in the other photo.

Yogurt and "Chocolate Chips"

So this one is nearly the same as the yogurt and nuts recipe, except this one focuses more on the cinnamon and cacao and doesn't require nuts. This is a quick thing to make that satisfies my craving for chocolate, so hopefully it does the same for you!

Recipe:

(Creates 1 Serving)

1 Cup Plain Cow or Goat Yogurt

1 Tablespoon Raw Unsweetened Cacao Nibs

1 Tablespoon Unsweetened Shredded Coconut

1-2 Tablespoons Cinnamon

Almonds and/or Pecans and/or Sunflower Seeds (optional) 

Xylitol

Directions:

Mix yogurt, cacao nibs, cinnamon, and some coconut in a bowl, sprinkle more coconut, cinnamon, and xylitol on top, and enjoy!

Cheater additions: You can add a few blueberries or raspberries if you want, since berries aren't very sugary.