Now Every Day Can Be a PAYDAY!

Candy.  I used to looooooove candy.  Well, I still looooooove candy, but it does NOT looooooooove me back.  Nope.  Not at all.  I know all the cool bloggers out there say stuff like "oh ever since I gave up sugar/sweets/crack etc, I can't stand the taste of it anymore!  It's positively grotesque to me now!" and so on.  That's great for them.  I'm happy for them.  Yay.  But me?  I miss candy.  Bread, meh.  Pasta, barf.  Even cereal and granola, two staples of my diet in my previous life, I can easily do without.  But candy?  Now that, I miss.  


One of my faves was PayDay.  I had a lot of faves, I also loved Baby Ruth, snickers, anything with dark chocolate, and a bunch of other crap.  Speaking of crap- do you know what PGPR is?  Take a look at the ingredients in a "chocolate" bar next time you see one.  Chances are, you'll see PGPR on the list of ingredients, and for sure if it's a Hershey's product.  What is it you ask?  Oh just an ingenious lab-created replacement for real cocoa butter, as in, the main ingredient in CHOCOLATE.  Yes, you see, why actually use real cocoa butter and chocolate in your CHOCOLATE bar if you can use something cheaper, artificial, lab-created, and a pitiful approximation of the real thing.  So if you are eating a Hershey's chocolate bar- well, sorry, but you're really eating Polyglycerol polyricinoleate.  Want to know more?  Read this.


Oops, sorry for that crazy tangent.  I really just wanted to talk about candy, and how I used to devour it, and love it.  But you know what?  I can make candy.  With real ingredients.  Without sugar.  That tastes awesome.  That is stupid easy to make.  Nothing artificial or gross.  You can pronounce everything in it.  It won't send you into sugar shock either.  And it's better than any flippin' PayDay I ever had.  If I can give up candy, so can you.  Try this, and you'll see.  It's so much better!

Homemade PayDay that isn't full of sh*t
8-10 medjool dates, pitted
1/2 cup salted peanuts
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tbsp pastured butter


Pulse your dates and peanuts until peanuts are teeny tiny specks.  Then, with the motor on, pour in your vanilla, and drop in some salt and your butter.  Pulse until just incorporated.  Spread mixture out onto wax paper and press flat with your hand.  Refrigerate for a few hours, then cut up as desired.  These are insanely good.  You know how sometimes you make a recipe, and you're almost disappointed by how good it is?  Because that means you are going to eat more of than you should?  That's how I feel about this.  So make it at your own risk.  But still, scarfing down a bunch of this stuff is a million times better than eating some artificial piece of junk made like a year ago in a factory halfway across the world.  #AmIRight?


Enjoy GFG's, XoXo

Grain-Free, Gluten-Free, Sugar-Free Caramel Date Cake

For those not in the know, during Pesach, or Passover, it is customary to abstain from eating certain foods, most commonly, anything leavened.  So for the traditional Passover Seder, or meal, you'll usually have an assortment of oddly flavored and textured desserts made of matzah meal, or flourless cakes and cookies.  But you know what?  Most of the GFG desserts I make are pretty much kosh for passover already!

This cake is easy enough to make just to have around the house but also special enough for a big dinner.  I was really eager to try this cake and I just knew it would turn out well- but I made a half batch this time just in case I encountered some hiccups. 

The caramel sauce topping is totally not necessary, but after my success with date caramels, I knew a yummy sugar free caramel sauce was possible.

This came out really moist from all the dates, and it is a bit sweeter than my usual desserts, since I knew that non GFG's would be eating it.  Try it out and see if you like it!

Caramel Date Cake 
1 1/2 cups almond flour
1/4 cup coconut flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
6 room temp eggs
1/4 cup oil or melted butter (I used grapeseed but melted coconut oil, walnut, or canola would surely work)
1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp liquid sweetener (like SF vanilla syrup for sugar free, honey, agave, brown rice syrup, coconut nectar, etc)
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 to 1/2 tsp almond extract
1 cup of chopped dates

for the sauce:
1 cup of water
3 large medjool dates, or 4 or 5 medium ones
2 tbsp butter

In a large mixing bowl, combine flours, baking soda and powder, cinnamon, and salt.  In a separate bowl, beat your eggs, then add your liquid sweetener, extracts, and oil.  Stir well.  Pour wet into dry and mix.  It will look really really wet at first, but the coconut flour starts to suck up moisture pretty quick.  Then add in your chopped dates and combine.  Pour the batter into a parchment lined, or well greased cake pan.  Bake at 325 and start checking at 20 minutes.  This should rise a good amount.  Bake until the top turns golden brown and a knife comes out just barely clean.

For the sauce, bring a cup of water to a boil and drop in your medjool dates, make sure they have been pitted and smushed up first.  Let the dates boil about 10 minutes.  The sauce will have turned dark brown at this point- use a fork to pick out all the fibrous bits and continue reducing. Once it's thickened up, drop in your butter and stir like crazy.  In fact, you should really stir like crazy the whole time so it doesn't burn.  Remove from heat and spoon over your cooled cake.  Another option would be to use a toothpick to poke lots of holes in the cake and pour the sauce over it, so the cake absorbs it.

I hope you try this cake, it would make a wonderful easter dessert too!  I really feel like the almond extract adds a really important extra layer of flavor, so don't leave it out.  If you wanted to lighten this up a bit, I have a feeling that greek yogurt could stand in for much or even all of the oil.  Or try half flax/chia egg and half real eggs.  Let me know if you do make substitutions and how they turn out!

Don't have any suitable sugar free sweetener?  You can make your own syrup pretty easily by mixing your preferred sweetener, stevia, xylitol, erythritol, etc, with nut milk or water.  Not into dates?  Try canned pineapple, strawberries, cherries, or blueberries!  Happy eating! XoXoGFG

Date Caramels, No Added Sugar

These Date Caramels are super yummy.  What- did you think I would go the rest of my life without caramel?  Sad!  No thanks.  These are an amazing approximation.  And a great jumping off recipe for many others- you could make this into a frosting, syrup, use it as the base for a cookie, or cut them up really small and sprinkle them over whatever you like.  Dipped in melted unsweetened chocolate they become gourmet dark chocolate candies!  Yum!

No Sugar Date Caramels
1/2 cup raw unsalted cashews
1 cup loosely packed pitted dates
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp unsalted organic/grassfed butter

In your cuisi, pulse cashews until finely ground.  Add your dates and turn on your processor, and add your vanilla in through the spout as it whirs.  Once the dates are completely broken up, add your butter and pulse until it's well dispersed and the whole mixture is glossy.  You'll spread the mixture out on wax paper and press together into a circle, with about a 1/4 inch thickness.  Let this cool in the fridge for a few hours, then cut into squares, bars, or form into balls!  Want some delicious sea salt caramels?  Sprinkle some sea salt over them and press lightly to make sure the salt sticks.

How fun are easy, no-bake recipes like these?  I love them.  You could opt to leave out the butter, they would be more like cashew cookie lara bars basically.  I think using RAW unsalted cashews in this recipe is absolutely necessary.  Any other nut and the flavor would be totally different.  Though still delish of course.  But try this with almonds or walnuts and it's another story entirely.

What's your favorite way to use dates?  Any recipes to share?  XoxoGFG