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
  • Length of Visible Light: 10 h 44 m
  • Length of Day: 9 h 37 m
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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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Gluten free gingery starry starry nights & a girl crush

almond cookies gluten freeI found these almond based chocolate cookies in a book I enjoyed very much this summer. Gesine Bullock -Prado’s My Life from Scratch. Formerly known as Confessions of a Closet Master Baker, I wondered if the mass public just couldn’t take this woman’s fabulous sense of humor. It went from the first title in 2009 to the second in 2010. Maybe the title just needed to be shorter. Hmmmm… It’s her story of going from the stress of LA limelight to rural Vermont. It will be most appreciated by those who love to bake.

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Macaron bloopers and extra ganache

Macaron bloopers and extra ganache

So as the official macaron post was so long, I thought I’d save the first round, the one that made me practically cry but still tasted delectable, till later.

I’ll start by saying, for those who saw the original post I madly tried to get out Sunday night at 11.30pm, Hamburg time, after about 8 hours of work and a loony weekend, you are not crazy if you were curious about the spelling.. I did spell every mention of a macaron, including the title with 2 o’s as in the coconut macaroon that is not really my favorite cookie. I can’t even blame the spell check because I only discovered it, like today. I will divulge. I was trying to ride that crazy stat wave and get something else out for everybody to see. Let go my ego ahem eggo. Alas I could not even remember if the egg whites were folded into the dry ingredients or the dry ingredients were folded into the whites. And that was with the two cookbooks I mentioned. I kept reading it over and over and over, literally probably eight times. But my brains were scrambled.

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French Macarons… A cinnamon and ginger duet.

French Macarons… A cinnamon and ginger duet.

PHEW… what an exciting weekend. Thursday night I was doodling around checking to see if my new post was getting any action and yes, I was up to 35..45.. yes 75 in one day. This garnished excitement in my new little blogging world. Then about 8pm I looked and I had 140 hits. Hmmm… then 250 and I thought bummer I’ve been hacked spammed infiltrated. Then I had the notion to check freshly pressed and saw a familiar picture on the front page. Holy shit. How did that get there, not to be self deprecating, which I also have a knack for. I am pleased with my blog and the learning curve. However, if I had thought THIS chicken and glass noodle post would be seen by thousands I might have at least included a printable recipe. Must have been those scallions. Despite being catapulted into 15 minutes of blogging fame, my internet was still going off at 9pm (teen in the house) not to come back on till 6am. I checked my iphone till about 11pm. I woke up about 5.30 barely able to contain myself. O offered to make tea and keep me company till I could log on. I wasn’t sure if I should play all cool like ‘yeah whatever’ freshly pressed… that’s nice. But I’m not really a cool person and I wear my heart on my sleeve, so I can’t lie. What a thrill this has been. I’m enjoying seeing so many new faces and sites and don’t mind the occasional real estate broker hotline or tennis shoe extravaganza that seem to slip through the spam cracks.

All that being said… back to work- or fun I should say. I’m loving responding to comments but wanted to get this out next. I had Rosenkuchen planned for this post but found out Friday night through Biscuits and Bobbins about a macaron contest over at traveling foodies. I love making macaroons. Could I pull it off in a day? Make them and write a post? It was worth a shot. Here’s the round-up of their March Macaron Madness. Great photos and a lot of info!

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Holiday entertainment… naughty and nice

Holiday entertainment… naughty and nice

There are loads of sites to get all the latest and newest, and the traditional holiday flicks and music. Here are our family (and adult only- ok… not that kind of adult) favorites.


Although Charlie Brown Christmas show is classic and we love it, we don’t always watch it. But, the soundtrack officially kicks off our season.  This year it accompanied our holiday sugar cookie baking and decorating. I LOVE this CD and usually OD on it the first day because we listen to it over and over for about 5 hours. But then I’m ready for it again in just a few days.Cookie extravaganza… They didn’t quite look like the magazine ones….they were better:-)

Here’s a couple more fav’s…

 Starbucks Holiday tunes from 2009

Then for films… I’m going out on a limb here and starting with the naughty/nasty. Don’t watch Bad Santa with the kids! It’s raunchy funny and only for the thick skinned.  Then comes nice…..Nativity, A Christmas Story, Elf and the classic Miracle on 34th Street. Not pictured- A Christmas Carol and It’s A Wonderful Life… (of course)

And lest we forget these classics….. Here’s the original 1966 Grinch (with Boris Karloff, A Charlie Brown Christmas, Rudolf, Santa Claus is Coming to Town and Frosty the Snowman.

Ok. That’s it for now. We head to Spain tomorrow for 2 weeks. I’m hoping to get a couple posts and pics out while we are on the road. I mean those tech savvy peeps are doing it. Why can’t I. umm… because I’m a wee bit behind that curve. But I’m adding that to my 2012 resolutions. Get on top of that curve!

Happy Holidays

PS – Here’s one more Tim Allen film that’s fun.