Apple Honey Upside-Down Cake

Dairy free, paleo apple honey upside-down cake is perfect for cool fall days.

Subtly spiced and not too sweet, it's great for breakfast or dessert!

The tradition of dipping apples in honey to celebrate Rosh Hashanah inspired me to bake this apple honey upside-down cake. Apples and honey represent the double dose of sweetness that's hoped for in the year ahead. I didn't get this post ready in time to share before the holiday, but this cake is an ideal dessert for anytime in the fall. Whether or not you celebrate Rosh Hashanah, everyone can use a little extra hint of sweetness as the air turns crisp and the nights begin to fall sooner.

I based this recipe on my lemon olive oil cake, which is a dessert I've made again and again for all sorts of occasions. This apple honey upside-down cake is the perfect fall twist on my go-to cake.

To make this cake, I poured copious amounts of honey into the bottom of a parchment-lined pan, and then arranged apple slices on top. Since the apples and honey are so sweet, I only used a tiny bit of sweetener in the cake batter itself, and included a few hints of savory flavors to balance things out. Using extra virgin olive oil instead of butter makes the cake dairy free and provides a complexity that keeps the cake from being pure, unadulterated sweetness. And ginger and cardamom, spices that play on both the sweet and savory teams, are a welcome change from the usual cinnamon.

16 Paleo-Friendly Fig Recipes

A roundup of 16 grain-free, paleo-friendly recipes using fresh figs, 

from breakfasts and snacks to dinners and desserts.

Figs are in season now, and while they're great eaten just as-is, I also love cooking with them. I've been especially excited about figs this year, even writing a poem about them in the style of Pablo Neruda (scroll down in this post to read my ode to figs). My fiancé and I just moved down to Tennessee and, since my campaign to get him to raise goats with me has been unsuccessful, I now have my heart set on planting a fig tree or two. Hopefully in a few years I'll be able to make all these recipes with homegrown figs!

For now, store-bought figs will have to do. My local grocery store has plenty of black mission figs (pictured above in the top left of the collage), and I've also seen brown turkey and calimyrna figs. I wanted to round up all of the most delicious paleo-friendly fig recipes in one place in order to inspire us all to take full advantage while they're still around. I scoured all my favorite blogs and websites to find mouth-watering ways to use figs at every meal of the day. The recipes below should work well with any kind of fresh fig, or even a mix of more than one variety!

All of the recipes linked to here are gluten free and grain free, but some do contain dairy. If the original recipe doesn't list substitutions, I've noted ways to make the recipe dairy free. From breakfast bowls to pizza, salad to chocolate tarts, and smoothies to chutney, there's something figgy here for everyone!

Strawberry-Peach Crisp with Hazelnut-Pepita Crumble

This gluten-free strawberry-peach crisp is lightly sweetened with maple syrup 

and topped with a rich crumble made with hazelnut flour and pumpkin seeds.

Hello from Chattanooga, our new home! Ben and I packed everything up and drove from Boston to Tennessee across two days, arriving last night a little after midnight. I'm in love with my new city, which is Ben's hometown, already. So far we've driven around a bit looking at houses, and had amazing burgers at Main Street Meats (see my bunless burger on Insta!). We're also dogsitting for Ben's sister, so I get to spend time with this guy.

I spent a while editing the photos of this fabulous strawberry-peach crisp with hazelnut-pepita crumble today. The photographs make me a little sad, because this was the last photo shoot I did in our apartment in Boston, where I've taken all the photos for the blog so far and all the photos for my cookbook, Paleo Planet. I hope our next apartment has light that I like just as much!

Anyway, enough wistful reminiscing about the natural light at my old apartment. We're talking crisp today! I had some good-looking strawberries and peaches, but wanted to do more than just eat them. In part because I was trying to avoid packing, I decided to bake. (Yes, when I'm feeling stressed, I avoid whatever I'm worried about and bake instead. No, my fiancé has never complained!)

I put the freshly cut fruit right into the greased baking dish and added a little maple syrup, a tiny bit of tapioca flour to keep the juices under control, and a pinch of salt and the seeds of half a vanilla bean to bring out the natural sweetness of the fruit. I mixed it all together right in the dish to avoid having to wash an extra bowl. (I did have to wash the bowl I made the crumble in, but that's it for this recipe: one bowl + the baking dish).

No-Churn Mocha Ice Cream

So, have you made Nigella Lawson's no-churn coffee ice cream? It's ridiculously easy and delicious, and when I discovered how simple it was to make really good ice cream with just a mixer, I was tempted to get rid of my ice cream machine!

To make the no-churn ice cream, you beat heavy cream, sweetened condensed milk, and flavorings until it's nice and thick, then freeze the ice cream. That's all there is to it! The only thing is that I'm not a big fan of cooking with sweetened condensed milk--there's so much refined sugar in it, and I try to avoid that whenever I can.



So I decided to try making my own sweetened condensed milk using maple syrup, with some guidance from this recipe from Gluten-Free on a Shoestring. The homemade sweetened condensed milk takes a while to make, but your house will smell amazing. You do have to watch it pretty closely but don't have to stir it constantly, so it's a good time to do some cleaning or other tasks around the kitchen. I got a lot of dishes done while I was making it! (Anything that gets me to do more dishes is good, and pretty rare.)

The results are so much more delicious than canned sweetened condensed milk! The maple flavor adds a caramel note to the ice cream that goes perfectly with the chocolate and coffee. In addition to working beautifully in this ice cream, the maple-sweetened condensed milk is amazing in hot or iced coffee.

Tiger Nut Brownies

This post is sponsored by Tiger Nuts USA.

Tiger nut flour is the secret ingredient in these super fudgy nut-free paleo brownies!

Have you heard of tiger nuts? They're a new-to-me ingredient that I'm really excited to share with you. Here are three fun facts about tiger nuts:

1. They are not nuts! Tiger nuts are actually tubers, which means they're a great snack option for anyone, even people with nut allergies.

2. Tiger nuts are a truly paleo food--scientists believe that they formed a large part of the diet of hominims and other early humans. They've also been found in Egyptian tombs from over 6,000 years ago. (I found this info on Wikipedia.) 

3. Tiger nut flour makes delicious brownies!

Bonus fact: tiger nuts are widely cultivated in Spain, where they're used to make a special kind of horchata. Grab the recipe here!

The folks at Tiger Nuts USA sell peeled and unpeeled tiger nuts as well as tiger nut flour. I haven't used the unpeeled tiger nuts yet, but I'm planning to use them to make tiger nut milk. (That has to be the coolest name for a kind of dairy-free milk, right? Why drink almond milk when you could drink TIGER NUT MILK??)

Cashew Chia Cacao Nib Pudding

This cashew chia cacao nib pudding is paleo, gluten-free, and easily made vegan. It's also a snap to make and surprisingly satisfying!

Happy fourth of July weekend! I made you a healthy dessert packed with superfoods: chia seeds, cacao nibs, honey, and cashews. Well, I am not totally sure that honey and cashews are superfoods, but they're not bad, right? I think this pudding would be a welcome change on a weekend when desserts are often pumped full of artificial colors and flavors. (Although, if you do need something naturally red, white, and blue, may I suggest my pico de gallo de frutas? Just use blueberries instead of kiwis.)

Since this pudding is a make-ahead dessert, it's perfect for having guests over. While you're out grilling lamb burgers and mixing drinks (agua fresca, perhaps?) these perfectly-sized treats will just be gelling in the fridge.

This was my first time using chia seeds and cacao nibs, and I loved them both. I wasn't sure how I'd feel about the cacao nibs since they're unsweetened chocolate, but while I wouldn't necessarily eat a handful plain, they were perfect in this pudding. Some of the cacao nibs are blended with the cashew and chia base to deepen the chocolate flavors of the entire pudding, and some are sprinkled whole on top. This gives each bite of cashew chia pudding this craveworthy chocolatey crunch. It's so good!

Blueberry Buttermilk Ice Cream

The past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind. Last weekend I went to an amazing food photography and styling workshop in Plymouth, MA (more on that here), yesterday I took the comprehensive exams for my master's program, and somewhere in there I turned 30.

I actually love birthdays (especially mine), and so far I am feeling good about being 30. Ben's birthday is just a week and a half before mine, so we celebrated with a joint make-your-own ice cream sandwich party. It's hard to imagine anything more fun than smooshing ice cream between cookies with your closest friends!

This ice cream was not present at the party because it hadn't occurred to me yet--I was actually inspired to make this because of all the leftover buttermilk I had after making Ben's birthday cake. (He always wants a gluten cake for his big day, and who am I to deny a birthday boy? It's the only glutinous baking I do all year. I made him this chocolate cake and it was fabulous. The only change I made was using avocado oil instead of canola. The avocado oil is tasteless and worked great in the cake!)

For the party I made a classic vanilla ice cream in my ice cream maker and Nigella Lawson's no-churn coffee ice cream. If you don't have an ice cream maker (or even if you do!) you HAVE to try this no-churn business. I was blown away by the awesome, creamy texture and how easy it was to make. (It is, however, less healthy than what I normally make due to copious amounts of sweetened condensed milk. Worth it for a special occasion, though!)

Mocha Ricotta Pie with Strawberries

This pie is one of my absolute favorite desserts. It's in my top three of all time, right up there with almond butter thumbprints and salted caramel brownies.

What makes it so fabulous is the trifecta of a lightly sweetened, crunchy shortbread crust, a rich and creamy ricotta filling with chocolate, coffee, and a hint of lemon (yes, lemon!), and a topping of juicy strawberries. It reminds me of the amazing Southern-style chocolate pie I always used to eat at the now-defunct Marimont Cafeteria in Austin, Texas, but with a mature Italian twist and bright berries to lighten things up.

Really good dark chocolate and high quality, full-fat ricotta are important for this pie. (Good coffee won't hurt either, but I love my Café Bustelo.) I was so excited about having a tub of Narragansett Creamery ricotta in my fridge that I proceeded to completely forget I'd bought it to make zucchini lasagna, and dumped all of it into the filling for this pie.

Chocolate Doughnuts with Cherry Cheesecake Glaze

It's Friday! Paleo chocolate doughnuts with naturally-colored magenta glaze, anyone?

I, for one, am super pumped about the color here. It's all about eating the rainbow, and aside from red cabbage, those purple hues can be kind of hard to find!

You may be surprised that this vibrant shade is all thanks to a mere handful of SIX frozen cherries (and, full disclosure, a tiiiiny bit of post-processing in Lightroom).

When I came up with the idea of a cherry cheesecake glaze for doughnuts, I was excited for it be pink. I was really surprised, though, when I ended up with this lovely shade of fuschia! The color may depend on the kind of cherries you use--I always buy frozen dark sweet cherries at Whole Foods (even though they're called sweet cherries, there's no sugar added) because I love to put them in smoothies, but my new favorite use for them is this delicious glaze.

Matcha Avocado Ice Cream

I'm working with high school students this semester, and on Mondays we have great chats about our weekends. I always feel like a boring, lame adult because every time they're like, "What did you do this weekend?" I'm like, "Oh, I did a lot of cooking, and only a little bit of cleaning." Welcome to my life.

I was excited last Monday because I felt like it sounded a lot cooler to say I made ice cream. Cooler both literally and figuratively, I suppose.

Of course, they wanted to know what flavor, and I wish you could have seen the looks on their faces when they found out I put avocado in my ice cream. They didn't know what matcha was, and that part kind of flew under the radar--everyone was really stuck on the avocado.

You know what, though? It's not weird at all. I knew I wanted to make a matcha ice cream (because matcha in all the things feels like spring to me), and I decided to throw in an avocado because green tea and avocado are spring-green-colored soul sisters. The finished product doesn't taste like avocado, but has an added richness and health boost thanks to that sneaky addition.

Golden Cake with Strawberries and Whipped Cream

How were your Easter and/or Passover celebrations? Ben and I had a few people over on Saturday and then went to another Easter dinner on Sunday. I won a pork crown roast from Snake River Farms over at Rhubarbarians, and it was pretty great. I also made this cake--we enjoyed one of the layers on Saturday, and brought the other one, pictured here, to the party on Sunday.

So, yes, I've been sitting on this cake recipe for an entire week. I apologize! I had one of those very busy weeks that I should have seen coming, but instead somehow managed to take me completely by surprise. Am I the only one that happens to? Between papers and evaluation reports and trying to get at least a little shuteye, it took me all week just to edit these photos.

Blueberry Frangipane Pie Bars

On the way to work the other day, I heard the Cheers theme song on the radio ("sometimes you want to go where everybooody knows your naaaaame...") and was overcome by nostalgia. I didn't watch Cheers as a kid, but I watched the show that was on right before it (Seinfeld, I think), and always left the TV on so I could hear the theme song. Even as a kid, it made me feel nostalgic.

I guess the idea with the Cheers song is that after a tough day, you can go to a bar where everyone knows you. But for me, it always felt like the song was really about going home, or going back to a simpler time. Because, as the song says, "making your way in the world today takes everything you've got".

If the modern world has you feeling a bit beaten down, I have a solution for you. Click the link in the first paragraph and listen to the Cheers song over and over while you make yourself a batch of pie bars. They are just the thing if "your third fiancé didn't show", "your shrink ran off to Europe and didn't even write", or if, like me, you've just had kind of a long week.

Matcha Mug Cake

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I made you a matcha mug cake. It's not at all Irish, but at least it's green!

I was excited to make something green for St. Patty's Day, but I don't like to use artificial coloring in my food. Since I had my heart set on making a dessert, using spinach or kale as coloring agents didn't seem very appealing. Matcha was the perfect solution.

If you haven't discovered matcha yet, I highly recommend it! It's just very finely ground green tea leaves, so it has a bit of caffeine and all the great antioxidants contained in green tea. The flavor is hard to describe, but it's exotic and a bit earthy. Matcha is delicious on its own in desserts, but also pairs well with chocolate. I've made these mug cakes with and without chocolate chips and still can't decide which one I prefer.

Blood Orange Mascarpone Panna Cotta

My winter survival strategy goes a little something like this: hibernate, obsessively check the sunrise and sunset calendar to track the slow lengthening of days, and eat all the blood oranges.

I buy blood oranges every time I see them at the store, but I love snacking on them so much that this is the first time all season that I've managed to use them for a blog recipe. I'm so used to having a supply of them around that when I turned to the fruit bowl the other day, ready to make this panna cotta, I was surprised to find there was only one orange left.

Luckily, that single fruit yielded just enough vibrant zest and sweet juice to lend the perfect amount of citrusy brightness to this panna cotta. If you're not familiar with panna cotta, it's like an eggless pudding. It couldn't be easier to make. The name means "cooked cream", but I'd hardly even call it cooking--the cream is warmed over low heat for less than five minutes, just long enough to dissolve the gelatin. For this recipe, the gelatin and cream are whisked with blood orange juice and mascarpone for an extra creamy, cheesecake-like finish. The panna cotta is sweetened with honey, which adds a floral note that plays nicely off the bright flavors of the orange juice and zest.

Mexican Almond Pulp Brownies

Have you tried making your own almond milk? It's really good, and nothing like the store-bought kind. I like to put it in my coffee, add it to smoothies, or just drink it plain, alongside a delicious paleo baked good. (If you're not a fan of almonds, you can follow the same steps to make milk using pecans instead! If I had to choose my favorite between almond milk and pecan milk, I would have a hard time).

So, if you have made your own nut milk, then you know about the pulp problem. After squeezing the last vestiges of creamy milk out of the cheesecloth or nut milk bag, you're left with a bunch of pulp.

It's sad to just throw it away. Especially when you could use it to make brownies instead!

These Mexican almond pulp brownies are adapted from a brilliant recipe by Alanna of The Bojon Gourmet. (Alanna takes some of the most gorgeous food photos out there, so if you haven't visited her site, be prepared to want to make every single thing.) My version gets its unique flavor from a teaspoon of cinnamon and a dash of cayenne pepper. The result is like a Mexican hot chocolate in brownie form.

Salted Chocolate Chip Hazelnut Cookies

I've had four snow days in the past two weeks. Luckily, I've spent my extra time off pursuing an admirable goal: baking the ultimate grain-free chocolate chip cookie.

My quest began when I saw these soft and chewy chocolate chip cookies on Alexandra's Kitchen. Alexandra's blog is one of my favorites. Everything she makes is mouthwatering, and I love her detailed tips and stunning, perfectly lit photographs. Basically, I'm a huge fan.

I had to have those cookies.

With a caveat, of course: I wanted them to be paleo-friendly and grain-free.

I've made paleo cookies before and thoroughly enjoyed them, but they weren't the kind of cookies that could blow regular, gluten-containing cookies out of the water.  They didn't have the holy grail: the perfect combination of crunch and chewiness.

I set out to find some grain-free cookies that fit the bill--cookies that were crisp around the edges, but chewy and a tiny bit underbaked in the center.

Cinnamon Hazelnut Date Cake

The humble date is much more delicious and versatile than one might guess based on its appearance. Dates are appealingly sticky and sweet, and their complex flavor makes you think a few aromatic spices like cinnamon and allspice may already be inside the fruit.

For this month's Secret Recipe Club, I had the pleasure of perusing Ros' blog, The more than occasional baker. As someone who also tends to fire up the oven more than occasionally, I was excited to see all the fabulous baked goods on her site.  From classics like chocolate peanut butter squares to innovative treats like parsnip cake, her blog has it all.

As soon as I spotted this cinnamon date cake, though, my mind was made up.  A beautiful Bundt cake sweetened with dates and flavored with cinnamon sounded like just the thing for a snowy January weekend, and it was!

For this recipe, you pit a bunch of dates and soak them in very hot water. (The pitted dates look just like hearts, so I had to stop and take a few photos. Looks like I'm in a valentine's mindset already!) The soaked dates and then blended into a paste in the food processor so they can permeate the batter with moisture and flavor.

Cranberry Orange Bread

My family doesn't have a well-defined set of Thanksgiving traditions.  Growing up with divorced parents, I often divided my time between two Thanksgiving dinners, having the main meal at one house and dessert at another.  Things always felt briefly desolate as I was shuttled between the two under the cover of early nightfall, but a slice of pie (or three) put an end to that pretty fast.  And I wouldn't have wanted to miss out on spending time with either of my families.  

My mom and I usually had dinner at a friends' house, and didn't have to do much of the cooking.  (I don't think either of us has ever roasted a whole turkey, unless she did a bunch of turkey-roasting before I was born and neglected to tell me about it.)

Almond Butter Thumbprints with Salted Caramel

My mom, my boyfriend, and I are really grateful to Karen of Karen's Kitchen Stories for introducing us to these amazing cookies.  I know it's a bit hard to believe because this was a pretty big batch, but we ate them all between the three of us.  I was not interested in sharing with anyone else because they were too good.

Even though they're paleo cookies made with almond butter, they taste very similar to traditional peanut butter cookies, and the crumbly, buttery cookie and creamy salted caramel are an unbeatable team.

Pear Galettes with Pistachio Frangipane

"Can I have this?" Ben points to the last slice of galette, sitting alone on the cutting board.

"NO!" I scream in my mind.

Sensing my hesitation, and because he's a nice boyfriend, Ben asks, "Do you want some of it?"

Um, yes.

"How much?"

All of it.  "Half of it."

Ben smiles and cuts the slice in two, leaving me what amounts to one eighth of a galette, then devours his share.  And he doesn't even like pears!  That's how I know these galettes are good stuff.