Super buckwheat brownies

This brownie recipe grew from one I read at Cutterlight.com. These two write and cook from Alaska- beautiful images, stories and recipes.

New year mode for me does mean less sugar , wheat, dairy  blah blah blah. So everyone that eats my food also gets less sugar, wheat and dairy. At least till I want to start eating them again. No problem cutting out processed foods- we literally don’t eat them… except mayonnaise and maybe store bought condiments like kimchi I want to test out.  I don’t see wheat and sugar as villains per se- I just see them piling up calories.  Eat them in moderation- what a great idea. But generally I don’t. Dairy will be back in full force in a couple months when our four does kid and we have goat milk and cheese coming out our ears. Our cow, Else is ready to be bred. I’d so like to have fresh cow milk and mostly butter. I am trying to make a clear decision about time, energy and focus. I can’t decide if it’s something on my bucket list that should be tried for a year or if that’s not where I want my time and energy to go. She will likely produce 2-3 gallons/day (and that’s once a day milking)! Honestly, I want cream and butter- cow milk makes me a little congested. I must be nuts.

Back to the brownies.

I LOVE HOW PRETTY THIS IS BUT THE BITS ON TOP MIGHT BURN!

If you cook them at a lower temp- 325° with no convection fan they might hold out. These photos were taken before they went in the oven.

I manipulated Cutterlight’s brownie recipe to be GF with buckwheat flour and coconut sugar. Yes- it is still sugar and sweet and maybe a notch less on the glycemic index. Works for me.

I used Valrhona cocoa powder and their 70% Andoa Noire feves and Guittard’s organic 74% wafers. Both lightly chopped. I buy my chocolate by the kilo from Chocosphere. The base is buckwheat flour, almond flour and butter, eggs and oil (I did coconut, avocado and sunflower). You’ll likely want to fold in the nibs and goji berries so they don’t burn. You can mix everything but nuts, chocolate and berries, up together in one bowl, then fold those in.

Spoon into your cast iron or baking dish and bake. COOL THEM before cutting and eating. Brownies are easy but can trick you into thinking they are over or undercooked. They sort themselves out if you let them cool down. DO NOT judge until they are room temp. In this sense they are not a quick go to in my book. Stick with cookies if you need to bake and EAT immediately.

Our hens are laying again. HOORAY! I really miss having a steady supply of eggs. We have 28 hens of varying ages and 1 rooster trying to keep them all safe and in order. I actually tagged them last fall- we’ll cull the older hens for stew meat (we’ll probably let them go till around 4 yrs old or so). We bought 12 chicks Labor Day weekend 2017 from the farmstore- no shipping costs! They started laying little eggs this week as well- did you know they start smaller? It should be a good year for eggs. And goat milk ice cream!

 

super buckwheat brownies

  • Servings: 10-12pc
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*Note: Add superfood & nuts as desired!

Ingredients

  • ½ cup buckwheat flour
  • ¼ cup almond flour
  • ¼ cup almond butter
  • ½ cup coconut sugar
  • ⅓ cup cocoa power
  • pinch of salt
  • ½ cup- mild oils – I use sunflower, avocado an/or coconut
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 T brandy or bourbon (what you have on hand)
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • ½ cup dark chocolate chopped but I like it chunky or chips
  • ½ cup pecans chopped
  • ¼ cup cocoa nibs
  • ¼  goji berries

Directions

  • Easy way- Mix all ingredients in one bowl – add chocolate chunks, nibs and goji berries
  • For double, triple or more batches- Mix dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately- Then add chocolate chunks, cocoa nibs and goji berries.
  • -Spoon brownie mix into two greased 6” cast iron pans or one greased 9×9 square baker. You can also line baker with parchment paper and lightly grease.
  • Bake at 350° for 18-25min.
  • Remove from oven and allow to cool! Brownies need time to settle and adjust to the atmosphere!! I find they often seem undercooked or overcooked and then hours later they self adjust.
  • Remove from baker once cooled.
  • We eat straight from the mini cast iron pans till gone (hopefully they last more than 24 hours)

Now go make some brownies. And if you are so inclined #starroutekitchen – let me know if you do any recipe tweaking and how they turn out.

x wendy

  • SUNRISE: 7:37 AM    SUNSET: 5:15 PM
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chocolate mousse to ring in the new year

Here’s a little sweet treat you can make ahead for New Year’s Eve

Chocolate Mousse* in all it’s divinity

chocolate mousse-27

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Salted Almond Chocolate Chip cookies…

Salted Almond Choc chip cookies-4

Who has a teen out there? Or has vivid memories of one that recently left home… raise your hand. And was it a girl? Because they are hands down different than boys. Dramatic, emotional, funny, spunky, stubborn, wonderful, frustrating… and so on. Did you ever have round robin sort of conversations like this?

Me: “Hey Chloe- you did awesome this morning getting out on time. Thanks.”

Chloe: “Yeah, that’s cause you didn’t nag me.”

Me: “That’s because you were up and on time. And I really appreciated it.”

Chloe: “Well… It’s because you didn’t nag me.”

Me: “I didn’t nag you because I didn’t have to. You got up and you were ready.”

Chloe: “And that iiissss  because you didn’t nag me.”

Me: “Well isn’t it great when I don’t nag and you are up and out on time.”

Chloe: ”          ”

Whatcha gonna do! EAT COOKIES. Now that’s a close up.

Salted Almond Choc chip cookies-2

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chocolate and zucchini

chocolate and zucchini muffins

Of course this sounds familiar. No, not from the hundreds of zucchini bread recipes…just from one of the original food blogs, what was it? Oh right. Chocolate & Zucchini. One that I still peer into on a regular basis, she never seems short on ideas and is currently reaching out to her audience for inspiration on the title of her new book coming out in spring 2013. Go Clotide.

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Chocolate cake, chocolate buttercream, chocolate ganache… Movita style

First thing… can you please go vote for me at Movita’s place! Then I’ll explain…

And remember this isn’t about the best cake- it’s a popularity contest people. So just vote for me ok!!! Although, there are some pretty slick jobbies over there. But trust me, if you could sink your teeth into this chocolate cake, I guarantee it would rock your world.

I ran across movitabeaucoup this winter and must say, I was moved by her wit, charm and clever contests. I’m not usually one to participate in this sort of thing, a contest, but this time I decided I’d give it a go. Clueless where to start, I began trying to decide fruity or chocolaty. I thought and thought about what to bake. Despite the flood of ideas, just one, and only one, failed to surface and I procrastinated a bit.  Then sweet Movita posted a chocolate cake she made for her mother’s birthday. So call me unoriginal or brilliant but I decided if this was the cake she baked for her mother… someone should bake it for her. And we were all very happy with that decision, despite another 3# on the scale! It was incredible. The first words out of my almost 14yr old daughter, Chloe, was foodgasm. I was proud and scared in the same moment.

I had so much fun making it. I had a new box of Valrhona chocolate baking powder and a new bottle of vanilla… which I do not take for granted anymore as it isn’t easy to come by in Hamburg. We see a lot of recipes calling for a packet of vanilla sugar.

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