Tigernut flour is something I had heard of often, but never used, until I needed an option without almond flour, gluten, any grain flours, or nut flours. I also had to omit eggs in this case, which are substituted here with “chia eggs” – and it worked! This is a dense, moist bread, almost crumb cake like. If your kids are missing muffins on an elimination diet, give this a try in small muffin tins. I’ve baked it here as a sweet bread.
This tigernut flour recipe is easy on the gut – it’s compatible with auto-immune Paleo (AIP) and modified Specific Carbohydrate Diets (some SCD users can comfortably enjoy this flour).It’s low FODMAPS too – which means it may work for toddlers emerging from FPIES restricted diets. Of course, always check with your care team before going forward.
Tigernut flour is not from nuts at all, but from a root vegetable which is roasted then ground into a fine powder. Tigernuts were a food source for humans thousands of years ago! The flour yields a nutty earthy taste and texture. It’s a great source of gut-helping prebiotic fiber as well as minerals like iron, zinc, potassium, and magnesium – plus some protein too.
This flour can be a little hard to find, but it can be had on line. In my region in Boulder, Colorado, I found it at my favorite Natural Grocers. It’s also always available on amazon and Organic Gemini Tiger Nut Flour is the brand I have tested in this recipe. If it just isn’t available, the recipe works well by using 2/3 cup potato starch flour, 1/3 cup tapioca flour, and 1/3 cup coconut flour instead (omit the oat flour).
Tigernut Blueberry Peach Breakfast Bread
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A moist, sweet, dense treat for breakfast or snacking. Bake in a bread pan or in small paper lined muffin tins.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease a bread loaf baking pan with coconut oil. Line with parchment paper.
Combine chia seed with water in a small bowl and set aside. Allow chia seeds to gel for at least five minutes while you prepare other ingredients.
Combine the dry ingredients in a medium bowl, mix to blend evenly.
In another bowl, whisk together the melted coconut oil, vanilla, almond milk, and honey. Then stir in the chopped peaches and softened blueberries, followed by the soaked chia seeds. Make sure fruit is room temperature or warm, otherwise it will cause melted coconut oil to harden and it won't blend well.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and mix til evenly combined.
Scoop batter into prepared baking pan. It will be sticky. Press to smooth to an even surface in the pan. Dust cinnamon lightly on top. Option to drizzle thin strand of pure maple syrup on top also, and spread into thin layer.
Bake x 30 minutes for bread, and 20 minutes for muffins. Top and edges should be browned and toothpick will come out clean except for fruit. Bread will have hollow sound when tapped and top will be firm.
Recipe Notes
For peaches, you can use canned as long as organic and thoroughly rinsed of all packing juices. You can use frozen thawed fruit as well if preferred.
Substitutions: If avoiding all grains and you would like to omit oatmeal, option to substitute oat flour with 1/4 potato starch flour and 1/4 cup tapioca flour; or, sub oat flour with 1/3 coconut flour instead for SCD compliance.
Enjoy these GF CF double chocolate chip cookies with boosts from nutrient-dense sprouted pumpkin seeds (protein, healthy fats, minerals), organic cocoa (zinc, antioxidants), and reduced cane sugar! There’s no shortage of junky treats for kids who can’t eat gluten or dairy, with little more than cane sugar in them. No need to go there… Kids need and deserve random food celebrations, and this one can be enjoyed with confidence. A little more work than a standard chocolate chip cookie recipe, but worth it. This recipe is a variation from one I’ve found in The Whole Life Nutrition Cookbook, a favorite book in my kitchen. Modifications here make it safe for most kids with nut allergy, and enhance texture with the addition of egg and a different gluten free flour strategy. I’ve also shifted the profile of sweeteners for more nutrition from sources that give some minerals with the sweet, and deliver a lower glycemic index. Favorite ingredients that I’ve tested and liked for this recipe include Bella Gluten Free Mix (a Boulder original), Lily’s GF CF stevia sweetened chocolate chips, and Navitas Organic Cocoa Powder.
Double Chocolate Chip Gluten and Dairy Free Cookies
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A semi-crisp cookie treat with cocoa-y goodness, dotted with chocolate chips. Stir in walnuts as a last step with the batter, for even more crunch and nutrition.
Double Chocolate Chip Gluten and Dairy Free Cookies
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A semi-crisp cookie treat with cocoa-y goodness, dotted with chocolate chips. Stir in walnuts as a last step with the batter, for even more crunch and nutrition.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease two baking sheets with coconut oil and line with baking parchment.
Place coconut oil, maple syrup, agave, ground almonds, ground pumpkin seeds, sugars, salt, egg and vanilla together in a stand mixer. Blend on high for about 2 minutes.
In a separate bowl, combine Bella GF baking mix, xanthan gum, baking powder, and xanthan gum.
Add dry ingredients to wet in the stand mixer. Use a dough hook to mix at slow speed until evenly blended. It will form a stiff, wet cookie dough.
Fold in chocolate chips, and walnuts if you're using them.
Form dough into balls in the palm of your hand, then flatten gently, and place on cookie sheet. If desired, press a half walnut, half a dried cherry, or an almond in the center of each cookie. Bake for 8-12 minutes. Cool on a wire rack. Cookies will harden as they cool.
Recipe Notes
Many of the super-sensitive kids I work with don't like the stronger flavor or aroma of virgin coconut oil. It works just as well to use refined coconut oil, as I've done here.
Add ground or finely chopped walnuts as a last step, for kids who are nut-safe and for extra flavor and nutrition. The original recipe also suggests trying dried chopped cherries too.
A mini-food processer or coffee grinder works well to grind nuts or seeds in this recipe.
I'm at altitude, so baking time was only 8 minutes to make these just right. You may need more time.
This recipe makes something between a stiff batter and a dough - a wet stiff dough, which still needs rolling in your palm to make the right shape and texture for the cookies. Your palms will get good and sticky with chocolate batter!
Don't skip the step of rolling the batter in palms then flattening on cookie sheet with a spoon or fingers. Spooning the batter directly to baking sheet will create sharp peaks or uneven lumps for you that won't feel good to eat.
For for kids with egg allergy, omit the egg. This will make a more dry dough, so reduce baking time. For me, this step made too dry and crumbly a texture. If you want to omit egg and keep more chewy texture, use ground chia seeds. Here's how.
For a more chewy texture, use 2 eggs instead of 1, if you find that the final product is more dry than you'd like.
If even almonds are unsafe for you child, you can use 1/2 cup of the ground pumpkin seeds, or use 1/4 cup pumpkin seeds with 2TBSP ground flax meal or 1 TBSP ground chia seed.
Lily's brand chocolate chips are GF, CF, and sugar free, with erythritol and stevia as sweeteners. Enjoy Life brand has some cane sugar but is GF CF. Both are non-GMO verified.
I have no affiliate relationships with any products mentioned here.
Most kids love chocolate, or, at least, chocolate milk. Using an elimination diet doesn’t mean they can’t have something even better. In fact, chocolate – or specifically, cocoa and cacao – are so full of health benefits that keeping them in rotation is a good idea. You can do that, and lose the milk protein allergens, plus the sugary low (no?) value stuff that’s in organic chocolate milk, not to mention any number of processed, GMO ingredient drinks like Muscle Milk, Boost, Ensure, or Pediasure. Yuck.
Go one better. Way better. Use a blender, VitaMix, or any strong and efficient machine to blend this all up. Let your kids experiment with ingredients they like. Cocoa powder tastes great with all sorts of other ingredients, from turmeric root (peeled fresh raw) to sesame tahini or sunflower butter to the old stand by, peanut butter. Use organic unsweetened plain cocoa powder to get the health benefits your kids deserve. Skip the store-bought, sugar-added stuff. You can sweeten to taste with better options! And, even if you’re using a pre-sweetened product like chocolate flavored grass fed collagen peptides to mix with your milk substitute, it will have a better texture if you use a blender rather than try to mix it with a spoon.
If you must buy a dairy and soy free packable version for school lunches, check out these favorites of mine (I have no affiliate relationship with these products. I just like them): Â Rebbl Chocolate Protein; check other Rebbl flavors here.
Cocoa and Cacao Shake
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Make it as chocolate-y as your kids like. This version is big on fruity, full chocolate flavor. Experiment with all sorts of additions! Pictured here is cocoa with turmeric root and flax.
Make it as chocolate-y as your kids like. This version is big on fruity, full chocolate flavor. Experiment with all sorts of additions! Pictured here is cocoa with turmeric root and flax.
When I was little, I hated cake. I only ate the frosting.
My mom always made her own frosting. The canned stuff wasn’t around yet, and when it was, she was too thrifty to buy it. You could say I’m sort of a frosting snob. It should be really good, as good as the cake (which I now like, a lot); it has to make or enhance the cake. Cheap store bought frostings and cakes have a lot of weird fat in them, along with GMO corn syrup, or other odd ingredients (propylene glycol, GMO canola or corn oil, fake colors, preservatives) that make it taste as artificial as it is.
Real frosting is basically good butter (organic grass fed) and powdered sugar (made with organic non GMO tapioca starch), with smatterings of flavorings or liquid (cream, coffee, brandy, coconut milk, almond milk, etc). There is so much powdered sugar in it that when you make it, the butter absorbs tons of it somehow and you end up with a smaller amount of frosting than total ingredients that you began with. So when I was needing to make a birthday cake recently with zero sugar in it, that was also gluten and dairy free, I was a little lost.
This cake could have no cane sugar in it at all. For kids with SIFO or SIBO, who struggle to manage any sweet carbs at all, you may be able to get away with a small amount of coconut sugar at birthday time. Coconut sugar works well enough in the cake itself as a cup for cup substitution, if you don’t mind a more brown-sugar or caramel slant on the flavor. But that wouldn’t fly for the frosting, because coconut sugar is grainy, just like regular granulated sugar.
The only recipes I could find for “sugar free frosting” were just frosting made with artificial sweeteners. No thanks.
So I worked up this compromise using honey from our own hive, and much less powdered sugar than frosting recipes usually call for: One quarter cup, versus 2 cups, in most recipes. Unflavored grass fed collagen and tapioca flour stand in to give the frosting structure and spreadability. It worked and was delicious.
I have also made a lemon version of this frosting. In that case, grate fresh lemon zest, and add about a Tablespoon to the butter when creaming it. Use lemon extract instead of vanilla, and add 1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice also. Hoping to work out the chocolate version soon too! Flavored stevia drops can also let you vary this. Let me know what you think!
Honey Buttercream Frosting - No Sugar Allowed
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A lightly sweet, spreadable and relatively healthful alternative for cakes and cupcakes - when cane sugar and artificial sweeteners are a non-starter. This recipe will cover a single layer cake; double the recipe for a double layer cake.
A lightly sweet, spreadable and relatively healthful alternative for cakes and cupcakes - when cane sugar and artificial sweeteners are a non-starter. This recipe will cover a single layer cake; double the recipe for a double layer cake.
Place cold (not warm or melted) butter in a stand mixer and beat til it is pale yellow or white. Stop the mixer from time to time to scrape butter down off sides into center, and continue beating. Depending on how hard butter is to start, this may take 10 to 15 minutes. If you are making lemon frosting with lemon zest, beat it with the butter.
Add honey and beat again til smoothly combined.
Blend dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Add them to the butter and beat until smooth.
Add vanilla (or lemon extract and lemon juice) and blend for 2 more minutes. Add coconut milk or milk substitute and blend again until smooth. Taste with your finger; if not sweet enough, add 1-4 drops stevia or more as desired.
Frosting will be soft, spreadable and not very glossy without MCT oil addition. For glossy finish, blend in 2-4 drops of MCT or Brain Octane oil. Too much will make the frosting slimy.
Spread on cooled cake or cupcakes. Ok out of fridge for up to two days; after that, refrigerate, or refrigerate right away.
Recipe Notes
Makes about 1 and 1/2 cups, or enough to frost an 8" cake round. You may wish to double the recipe to thickly frost a 9" cake. You can substitute any flavored liquid for vanilla extract. For a lemon variation, add 1 TBSP grated fresh lemon zest and 1-3 TBSP lemon juice instead of vanilla flavoring .
