Paleo Apple Fritter cupcakes

Of course I was baking again…..How else it could be? And….as always…or at least almost always I get inspiration from PaleoOMG website 🙂

So…she was making doughnuts. I decided to make cupcakes….I increased a bit the amount of apples for topping, but everything else is pretty much the same and you can find original recipe here.

RECIPE:

Ingredients

For the donut

• 1/3 cup pecan meal
• ½ cup applesauce
• 4 dried medjool dates, pitted or 10-12 regular dates
• ⅓ cup Coconut Oil, melted
• 3 tablespoons Coconut Flour
• 4 eggs
• 2 tablespoons raw honey
• 1 heaping tablespoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• pinch of salt

For the topping

• 5 apples, cored and diced (I used honey crisp)
• 2 tablespoons Coconut Oil, melted
• 3 tablespoons almond butter
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 2 tablespoons coconut milk
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• pinch of salt
• 3-4 tablespoons coconut sugar

 

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.
2. Let’s get your toppings started early. Place a tablespoon or so of coconut oil in a large skillet over medium heat.
3. Add your diced apples to the pan, mix around, then cover to help soften your apples.
4. While your apples are cooking, make your dough for cupcakes.
5.  Add your pecan meal, dates, honey, applesauce and coconut oil to food processor and puree.
6. Then add your eggs and vanilla extract, and puree.
7. Lastly add your coconut flour, baking soda and powder, cinnamon, and salt and puree until all incorporated.
8. Grease your donut pan and pour in your donut mixture half way up (to keep room for your topping on top).
9. Now finish off your toppings. To your apples that have been sauteeing up, add your coconut milk, almond butter, maple syrup, cinnamon, vanilla extract, and a bit of salt. Mix well.
10. When your toppings are well combined, pour 1-2 tablespoons of your mixture onto each cupcakes, sprinkling each with a bit of coconut sugar.
11. Place in oven for 30-35 minutes until cooked through.
12. This made 12-15 cupcakes.

 

Sunday tradition adaptation week2

So, yesterday was our pancake Sunday again. This time we also had Keven’s parents driving over to have dinner with us and to meet our new family member Nora. As I already wrote, they were very agains us having a pitbull as a family dog, but at the end of the day it is us raising a dog not them. However, because they are afraid of this type of dogs, I think it is a great idea for them to see our puppy as often as possible so that they would not see her growing that much and would feel comfortable around her. It is really easy to feel comfortable around Nora because she is super calm and low energy dog, especially when you compare to Chihuahua that my sister-in-law has. My sister-in-law came around with Johny Cash (her chihuahua), so that later on Nora would not “kill” him. I could definitely see some pitbull features  in Nora when she finally decided to play with Johny and got too much into game. They are similar wight category now, just Nora is much more clumsy and her direct movement definitely could be treated as an aggression sometimes. But it was a good lesson for us to learn how to snap her out of it.

Getting back to breakfast. I made for everyone crepes with wholewheat flour mixed with all purpose flour. I also made some sliced melon and fruit salad that consisted of cubed apples, kiwi, banana and blackberries. As I can’t use any sugar in any form, I did not put anything on the fruits, especially because everyone can add to their crepes what they want: nutella, maple syrup, honey. For myself I decided to make a zucchini pancakes (of course I shared them with everyone) that I found on Diane Sanflipo website. Sorry that I did not take picture of it, but it is definitely worth making 🙂 Everyone tried them and liked them, I ate them with Sunshine sauce 🙂

Zucchini Pancakes

Ingredients:

• 1 Tbsp coconut flour
• 3 eggs sea salt & pepper to taste
• 2 cups shredded zucchini (I used grater, and 1 zucchini is about 1 cup)
• brew leaves of fresh basic (finely chopped)
• coconut oil or bacon grease to pan-fry in (amount will vary)

Process:

Mix all the ingredients together. Make sure that coconut flour is not in lumps. Diane advises to sift them into the eggs and beat together, but I simply mixed and left to stand for 5mins. I think standing gives time for coconut flour to absorb more liquid. Heat the pan with oil over medium-low heat. Spoon the pancakes of desired size. I got from the batter 8 pancakes,  as I made them fairly small, but you can make big ones and have one in a pan per time. Eat them alone or with sausage or bacon.

 

Creating Traditions

I like traditions…probably in every family you have some kind of traditions. As we recently moved to new city, I also try to create some small traditions….Like, every Sunday we have “Sunday Breakfast” with friend at our home. Usually we would have pancakes, but each time we would try something different….I learned how to make dulce de lecce, because my friend mentioned it and it brought me memories from my travelling in Brazil, so I though it would be nice to include that into our breakfast. I did not buy it, because I like learning how to make things and I used the traditional method, rather than condensed milk method :)))) Today we were having blueberry and apple pancakes with blueberry sauce. It is more about meeting at least once a week and spending time together. After that usually we go for some rock climbing :))))

Me and Keven also have Friday pizza tradition. We would either have a pre made one or we would make our own and accompany it with some nice movie or TV show.

Back in my country, Lithuania, I also had some traditions with my friends, for instance, me and my flatmate would go every sunday afternoon to read in a coffee shop in the old town of Vilnius. We would either take our own books or browse in the shelves there to find something to read. I believe it is nice tradition as a way to spend time together and also spend it doing something for what you maybe would not have time during the week. It is so relaxing to sip coffee with a good book in your hands 🙂

With other group of my friend I was establishing tradition to meet once a month to learn something. Someone would prepare a little bit before and would introduce a skill to others. So, we were learning how to make sushi, how to play poker, how to juggle, how to make public speaking….So, my idea with this project was that in a year we would learn 12 new things that maybe we would not learn otherwise. I just love learning, for me as long as I am learning and can apply it one day, I am happy. It is the same with my jobs, as long I am learning and moving forward, I really enjoy it and put a lot of effort, but if it become too automatized and my brains do not get enough challenge, I start feeling trapped and dull.

Anyways, I think that traditions bring stability and let us create some valuable memories and experiences in our lives. I don’t think that it is easy to start tradition, it is even harder to continue doing that, but I think that reward is definitely worth putting an effort.

I wonder what are the traditions that other people have and that they find significant and important to follow.

 

Related articles

• Traditions (curlers.wordpress.com)
• 10 Recipes For Perfect Pancakes (huffingtonpost.com)
• Family Traditions and Celebrations (drkaytrotter.wordpress.com)