almost cheating with strawberry shortcake

bf and i were going to make angel food cake again for this weeks dessert but have you seen the strawberries everywhere?! california has its faults, but being on a hundred mile diet here is incredibly easy.  i love fresh organic amazing produce all of the time.  so it turns out strawberries only have 5 net carbs in a cup which really isn't all that bad.  so i got to thinking about this strawberry shortcake my great grandma would make when i was a little kid.  she didn't make her own shortcake, she bought these mini cakes from the store and just made her own strawberries and cream but i thought i'd one up her so she knows i'm awesome (she's dead).  so here it is, cook time + prep time ~ some amount of time, yields 12 servings, 5.9 carbs per serving

ingredients:

4 cups strawberries - thinly sliced
0.5 cup granulated splenda
1 cup heavy cream
3 cup hazelnut flour
4 tsp baking powder
0.5 tsp cream of tartar
1 egg
1 cup cold butter - sticks quartered then thinly sliced

• make your strawberries first.  put the sliced berries and a quarter cup of the splenda in a bowl with a lid and shake 'em up real well.  then put them to the side and let them make delicious strawberry gravy.  i can't believe this worked.  i thought splenda would for sure let me down here but it didn't.  it kicked fracking ass.
• preheat oven to 350 and lightly grease a muffin tin with at least 12 muffin little indented thingamobbers.
• in your bad ass stand mixer, combine dry ingredients.  then over medium speed add butter small bits at a time.  you're really supposed to be "cutting" in some butter.  but i don't really know if i have the patience for all that, so i just threw it in the mixer.  it worked well, and the butter ended up little pearls in the mix and i feel like it worked just fine.  
• add two-thirds cup cream and egg to the dough, and after it is all well blended, evenly distribute between your twelve little muffin guys.  not the paper muffins, but the metal holders.  why don't you understand what i'm trying to tell you?
• cool for about twenty minutes or until golden on the edges.  let sit for at least an hour.  the longer they sit the easier it will be to handle them to get them out of the muffin guys.
• whip up the remaining cream however you like and serve one cake with a third of a cup of the strawberry junk with a tablespoon of whipped cream.

viola!

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

i'm pretty sure angels aren't bakers

i wanted to make some sort of nom nom trifle because i wanted to.  i figured that angel food cake might be easy to turn into a low carb recipe because its mostly egg whites.  so i attempted to make one.  i figured granulated splenda was even lighter than regular sugar so it wouldn't make the eggs collapse.  i do know that almond and hazelnut meal are heavier than normal flour but i thought i'd be okay.
my stupid angel food cake collapsed.  i think its because boyfriend poked it too hard.  anyway, here's the recipe.  cook time + prep time: 1 hour, yields 12 servings, 1 net carb per serving

ingredients

0.5 cup almond flour
0.5 cup hazelnut flour
1.5 cup egg whites
1.5 tsp cream of tartar
1.5 tsp vanilla
1 tsp almond extract
1.5 cup granulated splenda ground up so that its powdered
1 cup granulated splenda regularish

• preheat oven 350F.
• mix flours and powdered splenda very well.  set aside
• whip extracts and tartar into egg whites.  then start whipping your stupid egg whites like a mad person.  i think i would have had more success if i had received my dang Cuisinart stand mixer that still hasn't even shipped yet!  instead, i employed the help of my my boyfriends superior mixing skills.  add the splenda in quarter cup increments and mix until its dissolvedish.  then start whipping it really fast until firm peaks form.  firm peaks, the internet taught me, is when it makes a peak that doesn't droop.  don't over whip though, because something happens to the eggs and they turn into something lame.
• fold in the flour mixture, small parts at a time, very carefully so that the eggs don't fall.
• very carefully spoon whole mixture into ungreased pan.  i think you're supposed to use some sort of bundt pan, but i just used this new loaf pan i bought for making bread.
• cook in oven for ~40 minutes or until it springs back when you touch it.  but don't touch it unless you think its done, because if you poke it too hard you'll break it and then it'll be all flat.
• i read a recipe that said to turn the pan over immediately when it comes out of the oven then leave the pan on until its cool to the touch, then remove the whole shebang from the pan.  so this is what i did.  thats when i realized the cake had fallen.  didn't matter though.  was still totally rad sauce delicious.  so crazy delicious.

boyfriend made some whipped cream and we topped it with some lower carbed berries and it was quite nice.

tear me a sue.

people be goin crazy for those almond cookie balls i made last night.  boyfriend was all, "these remind me of some fancy italian cookie."  and italian cookies made me think about lady fingers which of course made me think of tiramisu, so i made it.  its quite about different than any normal recipe, but its still pretty fly.  prep time + sit time: 4 hours (most of that is just sitting in the fridge time) yields 8 servings, 5.37 carbs per serving.

ingredients

1 cup almond flour
1 cup hazelnut flour
5 tbsp butter - melted
18 packets splenda
1.25 cups granulated splenda
1 tsp almond extract
1.5 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg + 6 egg yolks
1 lb mascarpone cheese
0.25 cup strong coffee
2 tbsp rum
2 cup cream
1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

• follow last night's recipe for almond cookies, but i used just 5 tbsp of butter this time cause last night was a little greasy.  instead of balling dough, lay out flatly onto a cookie sheet about a quarter of an inch thick and cook at 350F for about 10 minutes or until dry and sticking together.  you can totally do this ahead of time or whatever.
• to make the custardy part mix egg yolks and splenda packets together super duper well in a heavy bottomed sauce pot.  add 2/3 cup of cream and put over medium heat.  stir constantly, seriously, never ever ever stop, constantly scraping the sides.  i did this with a spatula in one hand and a whisk in the other.  keep stirring until it starts to boil then remove from heat.  i then transported to a pyrex bowl that had a lid and put it into the fridge for about an fifteen minutes.  add mascarpone  cheese and mix really well.  put yolk misture back in the fridge for about an hour.  thats when i made the cookies.
• to make whipped cream, whisk remaining vanilla and remaining cream until it becomes a solid.  this is where that stupid kitchen aid mixer comes in handy.  but i don't have it.  put aside.
• mix together rum and coffee for putting on top of cookies
• when cookies have cooled, cut sheet into four rectangular pieces that you'll use for layering.
• once all your layering ingredients are all solid like, in a dish that will hold it all together, place one piece of your cookie.  top with a quarter of coffee mixture.  top with a quarter of the custard mixture, then a quarter of the whipped cream.  keep doing this until all ingredients are used then sprinkle with the cocoa powder.  

i tried to start this on a place but it got all droopy so i put it in this tupperware that is super unattractive but the perfect size for my tiramisu.  you then have to put it in the fridge for at least three hours for it to totally totally totally set.  this is important or it won't be pretty.  which is hard cause at this point you've prolly licked the custard and stuff and you want it real bad.  well, suck it up!

i don't have a finished photo because i'm sucking it up.  i'll add it in the morn.

now its morning.

peaceful cookie balls

today has really been all about improvisational ball cooking.

so boyfriend enters the living room, where i am sitting and exclaims, "i want some chocolate cookies!"  then he began repairing the bookshelf that collapsed and i decided that i should make him cookies since he was doing chores.  so i pulled some ingredients from around the kitchen and this is what i came up with: black and white almond cookie balls. prep + cook time: 30 minutes, yields 9 white cookies & 9 black cookies, ~1.22 carbs per cookie

ingredients:

1 cup almond flour
1 cup hazelnut flour
1 tsp almond extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
6 tbsp melted butter
1 tbsp sugar free cocoa powder
1.25 cup + 1 tbsp granulated splenda

• preheat oven to 350F
• mix together flours and 1.25 cups of the splenda.  add butter, egg, and extracts and mix well until very oily dough forms
• form dough into balls ~ 1 inch in diameter and place on cookie sheet about an inch apart, though this doesn't really matter because they don't do anything like rise or spread or whatever.
• place balls in oven for ~6 minutes
• while balls are cooking, mix together cocoa and remaining splenda
• after the six minutes have passed, remove balls from the oven.  roll the tops of nine of the balls in the cocoa powder mixture and put back on the cookie sheet
• place balls back into the oven for four minutes, then turn heat up to 400F.  cook for another 4 minutes then remove from the oven.  cookies should have a sort of crisp outer shell but super soft core

these black and white cookies will make the world a better place.