Tag Archives: baking

Butter

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So: butter.

Wait: but, first, we have to talk about cake. So: cake. Remember that time I made a cake? So, I’ve made it twice more since then. During my third round of making the cake (6 ounces 100% bittersweet chocolate, 4 bananas, no nectar OR sugar), my baking companion looked at the blog I stole this recipe from, looked at my ingredients and said: “But is butter allowed on this diet?” Ugh. I knew I’d have to deal with this.

Loren Cordain’s The Paleo Diet doesn’t actually mention the word butter – one can assume it’s not to be considered, and therefore not worth mentioning. However, search for the words “butter paleo” in Google and you have all sorts of commotion about the stuff. True, it’s dairy, so strict paleo: THIS CAKE IS NOT FOR YOU. Sorry. I follow recipes, but I’m not a wizard and believe strongly in the power of butter. I’m not really interested in finding some other strict paleo substitute because if you’re strict paleo, you probably shouldn’t be trying to eat chocolate cake. This will only get you into trouble, so move along. Let those of us willing to fudge it a little for an occasional birthday feel OK about ourselves having not used flour or any of the other bigger nasties.

That being said, butter needs to be talked about. Just because many folks are like “yeah, whatever” with butter and paleo, doesn’t mean that your CROSSFIT COACHES are like “yeah, whatever.”

I made one of the wonderful folks at Crossfit Nyack this cake (second attempt) for her birthday last Thursday because I’m pretty sure her 8AM classes were the best part of my two week Christmas break.  Not that my Christmas break was bad. The classes just made it a little nicer. Anyway, I got a hug out of it and she was really happy, which was what I was going for. I told her what was in it (because I figured she might have been paleo-ing) and was clear about the butter – because I knew it was a thing.

Fast forward to Saturday and I caught a ride with her and another coach to a travelling WOD a few miles away and she offers us the cake, prefacing it with the fact that the other coach has not yet tried the cake because he’s being strict paleo and he doesn’t think cake can be part of that. I shrugged. No biggie. But, she does get him to try the cake (politeness? I feel a little bad now) and it went something like this:

Awkward.

The lesson from this is that we shouldn’t call this a paleo cake. “paleo butter” is a heavy Google search term for a reason. Call it a paleo-ish butter cake. Then, everyone is on the same page.

So, “paleo and butter.” I dunno. Sure, we can try coconut oil or some other thing that will keep the banana and eggs together, but I’m just too damned lazy. I’ll start calling this a butter cake. Solved.

Adventures in Chocolate Cake

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I don’t remember where I found this recipe for paleo chocolate cake, but for some reason, despite the fact that I wholly dislike chocolate, I spent $15 on bittersweet chocolate at Old World Market to make this cake.  I’d also like to note that I had no bananas and had to purchase those as well.  So, I did NOT make this with overripe bananas. Just regular ripe bananas.

To be honest, I don’t even know how “paleo” this cake is. While it is mostly banana and butter (paleo? jury seems to be out), it also has 70% bittersweet chocolate. Given, the recipe called for 81%, but I’m pretty sure both types have regular old non-fructose sugar in them.  So, I don’t know. I may have to do it with 100% baking chocolate next time and find some other way to add sweetness without failing at texture.

The cake came out OK. A little soppy straight out of the oven – the primary ingredients were butter and banana – but OK.  I dumped it out of the pan too soon and I’d like you to now know that it was very crumbly (no strong gluten strands to hold the damned thing together!)

Eating it the next day for breakfast (what? I usually have a banana…a banana covered in butter, cinnamon and chocolate can’t be much worse, right?  RIGHT?), it was much better – the texture of a good chocolate truffle, I think.  Not like I eat all that many truffles (see above on generally disliking chocolate), but I think the texture is almost spot-on. Best to let the butter harden before eating. There is literally a stick of butter in this thing.

This may be evidence that paleo is not really made for baking. Or baking is not made for paleo. One of those is right. Either way, I got a chance to try the East Rutherford School District cast-off Home Ec double-boiler I’ve had since 2004 (it works so well!) and learned how to cream butter (I’m sure this is a much more satisfying task when one is using actual sugar).

Make this cake and impress your paleo friends! Your non-paleo friends…that might be another story.