Bread & Pastries

On the SCD forums there is this long thread going on right now about cinnamon rolls. Three different recipes were posted and everyone is making them taste testing, posting pictures and giving their opinions about which ones are best. There is one recipe for this bread, and two others for muffins. I tried this recipe first for two reason. 1) I'm familiar with the base recipe that was used to create this bread, and 2) I liked the idea of having a swirl in the bread over a solid colored muffin. Kind of weird that I made the decision based on looks, but the swirl was just really appealing to me.
The taste turned out really good, it wasn't too sweet, which I preferred because you can always add a sweeter frosting or butter mix to the top if you want to make it sweeter. And the swirl was very aesthetically pleasing :) As usual the bread fell when I pulled it out of the oven, that is so frustrating.

Cinnamon Twist Bread (<-- click to see original recipe)

• 1 cup Dry Curd Cottage Cheese (DCCC)
  
• 3 Eggs
• 2 1/2 cups Almond Flour (plus some extra for the counter)
• 1 tsp Baking Soda
• 1/4 tsp Salt
• 1/4 cup butter
• 3 Tbls Ground Cinnamon
• 2 Tbls Honey (I prefer honey without a flowery after taste)

Set oven to 350 degrees. Coat the inside of a 9x3 loaf pan with butter and then roll some almond flour around on the inside, dump the extra flour. Combine DCCC, eggs, salt and melted butter in food processor. Blend until creamy, it doesn't take long. Slowly add almond flour, maybe 1 cup at a time. When the mixture is consistent, add baking soda and blend briefly, just enough to get it mixed in. On large cutting board or counter top evenly distribute some almond flour on the counter to avoid dough sticking. Dash some cinnamon on top of the flour. Roll the dough out over the board about 1 cm thick, making sure it dough doesn't get wider than your pan. Coat dough with cinnamon and squeeze (or drip) a bunch of honey evenly over the top. Roll up the dough and put it in your greased pan. The dough is pretty moist, it's not like normal bread dough, I roll it up and then put the pan over the top, then flip my cutting board upside down (do it over the sink or you'll make a mess all over you counter!) holding the pan firmly against the board. Your dough roll should drop right in. Cook at 350 for 28-30 minutes.

I just made these coconut flour apple muffins this afternoon. I wasn't planning on making muffins today, but someone posted this recipe and I just happened to have all the ingredients in the kitchen. It seemed too good to be true. A sign from some higher power that I just NEEDED to make these muffins... and I'm really glad I did. MMMMM, soooo good. The first muffin I had (yes, I've had more than one in the brief time they have been out of the oven) was pretty good, but had that weird texture you get with coconut flour. Then Drew had one with butter on it. Butter! And that butter really made a difference. It made these muffins down right decadent. Here are the ingredients:

• coconut flour
• baking soda
• salt
• cinnamon
• nutmeg
• cloves
• lemon juice (or vinegar)
• coconut oil
• honey
• beaten eggs
• shredded apples

With just one pass at this recipe I did notice it was hard to keep the coconut oil in it's liquid state, since it tends to firm up at room temperature. Also, they didn't rise as much as I expected them too, so I'll put the baking soda in last next time. The original recipe was posted on the BTVC-SCD list by Terri. If you want the full recipe feel free to contact me. Also, you may have noticed the honey in this recipe, I'm trying out small quantities while slowly working honey back in. No immediate reactions, only time will tell if I can handle it on a daily basis.

Because I make my SCD 24 Hour Yogurt with half and half (I need to be fatter!) it's pretty easy to make a decent cream cheese substitute to put on my bread. Plus it's loaded with good probiotics for my tummy.

I take some cheese cloth and rubber band it around an open tupperware, nice and taut. Then I put about 1 cup of yogurt on top and let the cloth sag. Not too much though, I leave plenty of room for all the whey to drip off the yogurt. Then I put the lid on and let the yogurt drip over night. From about 1 cup of yogurt I'd say 4 or 5 table spoons of whey drips off. When it's done what you get is a pretty stiff yogurt. You can see from the second picture (click to see a high res version) that it holds it's shape, and when the cheese cloth is pulled back you can see the impression left on the yogurt. After that I just add a little salt! Once I learn how to bake a chicken, and can eat swiss cheese again I'll totally be having a cream cheese and chicken sandwich. I miss those.

I used the homemade almond butter I whipped up to make this bread. Looks almost half normal doesn't it? Pretty cool. It's still much more dense than normal bread, probably because I'm using almond butter instead of flour. It's easier for the body to digest. If you look at the bread made with unblanched almond butter you can see a huge color difference. This loaf of bread is also $5 cheaper to make, big plus in my book.

To make this bread I follow the instructions for the Louis Lang Bread in cookbook part of BTVC, but I use 1/2 cup less butter than the recommended flour, and I add 1/2 tsp more baking soda.