We started from this recipe on epicurious, added some cinnamon and then made up our own molasses frosting! Yum!
Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar OR sucanat
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup currants, cranberries or raisins
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 tablespoon molasses
cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger to taste
Straight from the Esalen Cookbook. Healthy, moist, sweet (but not too sweet) and yummy! Perfect straight out of the oven, just cool enough to handle with butter melted over it!
Ingredients:
5 tablespoons butter, softened
1.25 cups sucanat
2 eggs
1 cup mashed ripe banana
1/3 cup buttermilk
1 cup unbleached flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
chopped walnuts for topping (or any other type of nut, if desired)
There are a couple options when making these cookies… you can make them the healthy way or the good way! We’re all for healthy desserts, but this time the healthy option just doesn’t measure up to the white flour and sugar version! We made them with sucanat & whole wheat flour and then sugar & white flour. There was no contest. The sugar & white flour version has a much smoother consistency, though if you were only presented with the sucanat and whole wheat flour version you probably wouldn’t complain… they just can’t hold their own in a comparison.
Two warnings:
#1 These cookies are super addicting!
#2 We’ve made these cookies without the chocolate chips and had friends ask why we wasted our time not putting chocolate chips in!
Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cup sugar OR sucanat
1 egg
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cup flour OR whole wheat pastry flour OR a mixture of the two
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup+ Ghiradelli chocolate chips (optional)
We found this recipe here, but made just a couple substitutions and upped the amount of spices.
Muffins Ingredients:
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup oats
1/4 cup sugar OR sucanat
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1 cup buttermilk (or make your own with 1 cup whole milk with 1 tablespoon vinegar)
1/2 cup mashed, roasted butternut squash (or pumpkin puree, if you prefer)
2 large eggs
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/4 cup yogurt
Topping Ingredients:
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/3 cup oats
1/4 cup brown sugar OR sucanat
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tablespoon whole wheat flour
1/4 cup melted butter
We were so excited to make this cheesecake that we forgot to take pictures when we started! Whoops! The original recipe came from Epicurious–we left some things out, tried the pecan topping but couldn’t get it right, so what follows is our version! The cheesecake also got ravaged at the party we took it to before we could snap any respectable pictures. So you’re going to have to take our word for it that it turned out beautifully!
Crust Ingredients
2 cups gingersnap cookie crumbs
(we only had one cup of crispy store bought cookies, so we used our soft molasses cookies for the second cup)
1+ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 stick unsalted butter, melted
Filling Ingredients
4 8-ounce packages cream cheese, room temperature
1.5 cups sugar or sucanat
3+ tablespoons all purpose flour
1.5+ teaspoons ground cinnamon
1+ teaspoon ground ginger
4 large eggs
1 15-ounce can solid pack pumpkin
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
From the Esalon Cookbook! We can’t wait to try more things out of this cookbook!
Piecrust
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1.25 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
2 tablespoons sucanat
1 cup cold butter
1/2 cup ice water
Pie Filling
6 cups cored , peeled apples, sliced into 1/4 inches slices
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 cup sucanat OR honey
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3 cup maple syrup
Maple Pecan Crumb Topping
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/3 cup whole pastry flour
1/4 cup sucanat
1/3 cup rolled oats
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons maple syrup
1/2 cup chopped pecans
Crust:
3 cups all-purpose flour (we did 1/2 whole wheat pastry flour and 1/2 white flour)
1 tablespoon sugar or succanat
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
20 tablespoons (2 1/2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
4 to 5 tablespoons ice-cold water
Filling:
3 pounds ripe peaches (approximately)
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 cup blueberries
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup (packed) light-brown sugar OR succanat
1/4 cup granulated sugar OR succanat OR honey
1 packet Stevia
1/4 cup all-purpose flour OR whole wheat pastry flour
1 large egg white, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
2 tablespoons heavy cream
We’re determined to make desserts that taste good and are good for you (well okay… desserts that at least aren’t horrible for you and don’t have processed sugar!). The original recipe came from Epicurious, but we made a decent amount of changes to get it sugar-free and we also substituted coconut oil for canola oil, since coconut oil is more beneficial.
Carrot Cake Ingredients:
1/3 cup dried shredded organic unsweetened coconut
3 cups (a little less than a 1 pound) organic farm-fresh carrots, shredded
1 cup agave nectar
1 1/2 cups organic all-purpose flour
1/2 cup organic whole wheat pastry flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
3 teaspoons organic ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon freshly grated organic nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sucanat
3/4 cup organic coconut oil
1 tablespoon organic vanilla extract
3 organic eggs
The base is the same regardless, but you have some options when it comes to the sweetener that goes with the flavor. If you don’t want to use sugar (we try not to!) we suggest agave nectar or succanat, depending on the flavor you choose. Succanat has more of a molasses taste to it, so we wouldn’t recommend it for the lemon ice cream, but it would be great if you wanted to make cinnamon ice cream or something more substantial like chocolate.
For our first try we decided to do lemon and strawberry & banana. The lemon came out very lemony (which we like!) and the strawberry banana was a perfectly smooth end of summer flavor.
Ice Cream Base
4 egg yolks
pinch of salt
1/4 teaspoon zantham gum
1 cup whole milk
1/2 cup half and half
1 1/2 cup heavy cream
Lemon Flavor
finely grated zest of 3 lemons
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
2/3 cup agave nectar or 3/4 cup succanat or 3/4 cup sugar
Strawberry/Banana Flavor
1 pint of strawberries
1 banana
1/3 cup agave or 1/2 cup succanat or 1/2 cup sugar
