Michele Rosen - Paleo Baking at Home

The Ultimate Resource for Delicious Grain-Free Cookies, Cakes, Bars, Breads and More

at home

creator of Paleo Running Momma

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To Diana, Emily and Drewmy favorite taste testers and kitchen companions. And to my husband, Adam, for always making me feel like a baking rock star!

I have lots of early childhood memories involving my favorite foods, but while testing the recipes for this book, I kept flashing back to one in particular. I must have been about three years old and it was the first time I was baking chocolate chip cookies with my mom. Now, my mom is not much of a baker, so this was a rare occasion in both of our lives! I can still feel the excitement, wondering whether it was really possible to make cookiescookiesfrom practically nothing. I remember looking up at her as she took careful steps to do everything rightcorrect measurements, mixing the dough the right way, scooping the right amount and so on. The cookies were good, but they browned too much on the bottom (seriouslyI remember this!) and I knew in that moment that (1) baking is truly magical and (2) there are always going to be ways to improve the outcome! In hindsight, that was the moment when I officially became a recipe tester.

Throughout my childhood, my mom gave me lots of freedom to experiment with anything I wanted to in the kitchenfrom attempting to make my own peanut butter without a food processor (not recommended!) to attempting to make soft pretzels from Wonder Bread (just me) to countless attempts to make the perfect chocolate chip cookie, to a pretty intense cheesecake phase when I baked a different flavor of cheesecake nearly every day. As I got older, my love for baking and cooking only developed further and I enjoyed preparing food and desserts for every social event, birthday, holiday and, really, just because I felt like it. Even though I enjoy cooking as well, baking will always have my heart and the magic never seems to fade.

When I started eating a Paleo diet several years ago for health reasons, I never doubted that I would find ways to re-create my favorite treats. However, writing this book has proven to me once again that its absolutely possible to use Paleo-friendly, real-food ingredients to bake anything. My blog, Paleo Running Momma, has been an outlet for me to share all my experiments in Paleo cooking and baking, and I love hearing how its become a go-to resource for many people looking to re-create their favorites with better-for-you ingredients.

Each recipe in this book is free of grains, gluten, legumes and refined sugar. Many recipes are completely dairy-free, and in others I use ghee (a type of clarified butter) as an alternative to butter. The lactose and casein are removed in the process of making ghee, so its suitable for many people who typically avoid dairy. Some recipes will give you the option to use either ghee, grass-fed butter or palm oil shortening.

In several recipes, you have the option to use either maple or coconut sugar interchangeably. I like to think of maple sugar as light brown sugar and coconut sugar as dark brown sugar, because the biggest difference they create is in the color of the final product. I tend to stick to maple sugar for anything light in color and use coconut sugar when I dont mind a darker brown color, or when baking with chocolate. I personally prefer the flavor and color of maple sugar, which is why I often list it first, and I encourage you to try it as well!

My goal is for this cookbook to become your go-to resource for any kind of baked treat you crave! Youll find everything from classic chocolate chip cookies to holiday favorites, such as double-crust apple pie and cutout sugar cookies, to authentic soft pretzels and New Yorkstyle bagels that completely wowed my whole family. I sincerely hope that these recipes bring you and your family lots of joy, and of course, a little bit of magic.

Since I bake all the time, I make sure I have my most frequently used ingredients and equipment at my fingertips, ready to go for a spin whenever I feel like creating something yummy! These lists are not completely exhaustive, but do cover most of what youll need to make any recipe in this book, along with a few tips that will help you have the most success with Paleo baked goods.

Pantry Staples

The following list is a guide to the most frequently used ingredients throughout this book. Having your pantry well stocked means you can whip up any recipe when a craving hits!

Flours: The flours I use in this book are blanched almond flour, tapioca flour (see Note), coconut flour and golden flaxseed meal. The majority of the recipes use almond flour or a combination of almond and tapioca flours, and a few use coconut flour as well. These flours each have distinct properties and purposes and cannot be subbed in for one another, so having them all handy means youll be covered for anything you want to bake. I buy all my flours from Amazon and love the brands Oh! Nuts and Anthonys Goods.

Each grain-free flour lends its own unique properties to Paleo baking, which is why I often combine flours to attempt to mimic the texture of traditional baked goods. While blanched almond flour is almost the perfect flour for grain-free baking, it works extremely well with tapioca and/or arrowroot flour to give breads, cakes and muffins fluff, cookies a nice chewy texture and pastry, a crisp, flaky texture.

Note: I often use tapioca flour and arrowroot flour interchangeably in Paleo baking and, for the most part, they can sub in seamlessly for each other. The exception to this rule for me is when using larger amounts of the flour (1 cup [112 g] or more) in which case Ive found tapioca lends a superior texture. I always choose tapioca flour over arrowroot for such recipes as piecrusts, bagels and pretzels, for the best texture.

Fats: Refined coconut oil and ghee are the most frequently used Paleo-friendly fats youll see in this book. If you are okay with using grass-fed butter, it can nearly always sub in for ghee. However, subbing in coconut oil for recipes that call for ghee often causes problems with the resulting texture. I use refined over unrefined (virgin) coconut oil only to avoid the strong coconut flavor of unrefined coconut oil, but using it wont affect the texture, only the flavor, of the final product.