crispy chocolate cookies - you know, for putting caramel on

at that store where we got the caramel and chocolate calorie free toppings, they also had marshmallow and i decided that i wanted to make some sort of s'mores, even tho i actually hate marshmallow.  so i actually wasn't that sad when bf returned from the market without the marshmallow and just smothered one of these crispy cookies with caramel.  if you've been on this diet long enough, you realize crispy things are few and far between, so these might become one of my very favorite things in the whole world.  cook time + prep time ~1.25 hours, yields 18 cookies, about one carb per cookie

ingredients:

4 tbsp cream
2 oz unsweetened chocolate - broken up
1 large egg
.5 cup almond flour
.5 cup hazelnut flour
1 tsp baking powder
.125 tsp cream of tartar
pinch salt
1 tsp vanilla
4 tbsp butter
.5 cup granulated splenda

• melt chocolate into cream over double boiler, stirring often.
• remove chocolate from heat and stir in butter.  stir in sugar.  stir in vanilla.  stir in egg, mixing constantly.
• in a separate bowl combine flours, baking powder, cream of tartar, and salt.  slowly mix into the chocolate.
• at this point the mix will be super super greasy.  at least mine was.  i lined a bowl with parchment paper, put my chocolate mixture in that and threw it in the freezer for about 15 minutes until the dough became easy to handle.
• preheat oven to 400.  remove dough from freezer once everything is solidified and work it a little bit to incorporate all the butter.  if its still too soft to work with, just put it back int he freezer for a bit.
• on an aluminum foil lined cookie sheet place small rounds of cookies.  i suppose i could have rolled it out and used a cookie cutter or something.  i probably should have because i have these awesome star shaped ones my friend shandy got me once, but i didn't.  i just made a ball and then flattened the ball out on the cookie sheet.
• cook for 10 minutes.  when you take them out of the oven there will seem to be a pool of butter.  worry not.  all of this will magically disappear within a minute.  the cookies drink butter.  and before you can even get a picture of all the excess butter it will look like this:

the cookies are done when they're a bit firm to the touch.  don't over cook them or they will taste like burning.

i covered mine with caramel because no calorie caramel is my new favorite thing in the whole world.  i'm thinking about stocking up big time before they take if off the shelf because it causes cancer or something.

seriously, why does chocolate cake even need flour anyway?

while on vacay on a particularly crazy night, bf and i decided to order a piece of flourless chocolate cake that we each took the tiniest bite of all tiny bites, then, overwhelmed with guilt and fear, promptly tossed in the garbage.  first of all, it was horrible.  so not worth the probably 15 carbs that tiny bite was.  it was like a horrible dense fudge.  i vowed at that moment i would make the most delicious low carb flourless chocolate  cake when we returned home.  and i did.  cook time + prep time ~45 minutes, yields 10 servings, 1.3 carbs per serving.

ingredients

4 oz high quality unsweetened chocolate - well broken up
0.5 cup heavy cream
4 small eggs or 3 large
0.3 cup clarified butter
1.5 cup granulated splenda

• preheat oven to 375.  grease a 9 inch round pan, and put a round parchment on the bottom.
• when i try to make this again, i'm going to use more cream.  the end result of the cake was just a bit to dense in chocolate flavor.  but bf really loved it.  anyway, over a double boiler melt chocolate, cream and butter together until it reaches a really creamy consistency.  remove from heat and whisk in splenda.  
• in a separate bowl, whisk eggs.  slowly add eggs to chocolate mixture, whisking all the time.  put mixture in pan and heat for ~25 minutes or until a top is a little bit crispy.
• cool for about five minutes, then invert on a plate like this

now its time to tell you about something amazing i just found today:

its zero carb, zero calorie caramel!  and its delicious! no sugar alcohols either!  i can't believe no one mentioned this before, its so incredible bf and i went crazy.  we found it on the very highest shelf of our organic market between jars of the same brand of zero calorie raspberry dip, chocolate dip, and marshmallow spread.  we almost threw a party in the middle of the dang store.

so. i put a bit of this on a piece of that flourless chocolate cake with a couple of raspberries.  bf had his with some clotted cream and berries.  

we love love love this.  i hope you do too

let them eat cake!

i passed by a bar on my way home and there was a guy sitting buy the window drinking a porter and i literally drooled.  i miss porter.  all those times i was bein' mean to my guts, i wish i would have taken better advantage of porter.  le sigh.  anyway, here's a recipe for chocolate cake that i totally improvised.  it turned out pretty good actually.  cook time + prep time ~1hr, yields 12 servings, 3.92 carbs per serving

ingredients:

1 cup coconut flour
1 cup hazelnut flour
1 cup almond flour
1 cup granulated splenda
1 tsp baking powder
5 eggs
0.5 cup cocoa powder
2 tbsp vanilla syrup
0.5 cup butter (i used clarified, as you can see) - melted
1 cup diet soda
1 box sugar free butterscotch pudding
2 cup cold heavy cream

• preheat oven to 350F
• when i made this cake on sunday, i hadn't gotten my cuisinart mixer yet.  i had to do everything by hand.  it was horrible.  i'm glad i'll never have to do that again.  anyway, mix flours, splenda, baking powder and cocoa powder.  add eggs, vanilla syrup and melted butter.  at this point i was going to add water to moisten the dough but i read somewhere someone using soda instead of water in some cake, so i added diet root beer, see

• yah so mix it all real well, and put it in a 9inch well greased baking pan.  
• bake for ~20 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.  don't over cook tho. cool. (the cake, cool the cake)
• i wanted to make like a carmel topping for the cake but i couldn't figure out how to make that with the ingredients in my fridge, so i thought i'd do something with this butterscotch pudding i sort of bought on whim.  it said on the box that it had to be mixed with cold milk, so i used cold cream, then i thought i'd heat it with some butter and make something, i don't know.  but as i started whipping the pudding with the cream it got super thick, like a buttercream icing and i was like, "woah, this is super fracking awesome."  and so i iced the cake with it and it was delicious.

it was kinda dense, like brownies.  but nom.  enjoy!