It has been one whirlwind of a weekend. A distributors tasting at the wine store I work in on Friday. Then a wine get together with some friends on Saturday. We call our group Wasted and we lived up to our name, drinking some nice Australian and New Zealand wines. Then selling wine on Sunday. For the moment Im ready to take some time off from wine, I say, as I make plans to drag friends to yet another tasting this Friday.

With all of that I fell a bit behind in my cooking. I was missing some things to make one recipe. After thawing the meat for another meal the fella brought to my attention that it required being marinated over night. Crap. It was already 6 and we were a little punchy from spending the entire afternoon cleaning so there was no time or brain cells left to pull together a make shift meal. We got out the Indian take out menu instead.

Mixed grill, spinach chicken, and a black lentil daal, it was the comfort food we needed at the moment. While the fella was out picking up the food I threw together some flourless naan. It is not low fat and it it is not cheap. Almond flour will set you back about $10 a pound unless you have the patience and time to grind up your own. And between the nut flour and coconut oil, you are looking at a calorie monster. As a treat to fill the breadless void however it is perfect and oh so easy.

The trick is to whisk it up at the very last second, get the pan the right temperature and brown them to the right level on each side. My first couple naan came out well, the last one did not as my pan was too cold and the almond flour had sucked up all the liquid so the consistency was wrong. They really need to be fried up quick to get the right effect.

These are amazing. The coconut oil makes them taste a lot like the real thing and they are nice for sopping up all the delicious Indian sauces from your plate. And they smell dreamy, like a fresh baked bear claw. It sated my pastry lust for at least another week. Seriously I was at Lazy Janes, the best bakery/coffee place in town, this morning having brunch with friends, and I didnt even give the worlds greatest scones a second look. When I was a sugar addict I would have sold the dog for one of those fruity scones, flaky and topped with just the right amount of tart lemon glaze. Thanks to the power of almond flour I was able to just say no.

Flourless Naan

1 egg
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/3 cup coconut milk
(or 2 tablespoons soy/almond milk and 3 heaping tablespoons of plain yogurt)
1 1/2 teaspoon oil
1 cup almond meal/flour
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
coconut oil for frying (about 2 tablespoons)

In a small bowl, whisk together the egg, baking soda, coconut milk, and oil until frothy.

Melt about 1/2 tablespoon of coconut oil in a skillet over medium heat. Just before you are ready to fry the naan, mix the almond flour and salt into the wet mixture. Pour onto hot skillet in portions the size of a small pancake. Fry until bottom is browned, flip and fry other side until brown and crisped through.

Add another 1/2 tablespoon oil to pan and allow to come back to temperature before cooking the next bit of naan. The mixture will suck up all the oil and cake onto the pan otherwise. Repeat with the remaining naan mixture adding more oil each time as needed.

Original recipe from Oreganicthrifty blog.

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I was having one of those nights where the fella was out of town so there was no one to talk me out of my overwhelming urge for a brownie. A big ooey gooey chocolaty mess of a brownie. Rich and fudgy and melting off the fork before it even gets to your mouth kind of brownie. You know the kind Im talking about.

None of these adjectives however tend to apply to any gluten free brownie Ive ever seen. All of the recipes I could find online looked disappointing or down right scary. I was not to be deterred from my brownie craving so easily so I took Mark Bittman up on his promise to know How to Cook Everything. Sure enough he had a brownie recipe that I was fairly sure I could modify with some sort of nut flour and come up with something tasty.

When the hazelnuts fell out of the cupboard I took that as a sign. I toasted them and ran them through my little coffee grinder and made fine ground hazelnut flour, pouring it in until I had the gooey consistency I was hoping for. But it was still missing something, looking at the liquor shelf I realized what it was...booze! So I threw in some brandy just to be super decadent.

Now I crossed my fingers that this experiment would result in the best brownies ever as I was in no mood to be denied chocolate. I figured that if worse came to worse this would be a very yummy boozy batter to lick raw from the pan if it for some reason refused to cook. Luckily it didnt come to that because 20 minutes later I had the best brownies in the world in my kitchen. Better even than any gluteny brownie. These literally were the best brownies I had ever tasted.

The chef, the roomie, and her friends all happened to be witness to my fabulous creation so I sat them down and “forced” them to taste test my brownies. I didnt stop at the brownies however. I had made Carmel Pear Ice Cream from David Lebovitzs book The Perfect Scoop the day before and so put a tiny scoop of that on the warm melty brownies. The ice cream which was almost too sweet on its own was the perfect contrast to the dark chocolate. Everyone agreed these were the best brownies in creation. We made so many yummy noises the house was probably vibrating.

Then the chef had to go and say something about how the only way these could be any better was with raspberry sauce on top of the ice cream. So of course the next afternoon I bought some raspberries and made it so. He was right the chocolate, pear, raspberry creation is out of this world. As you can imagine this tray of brownies barely lasted two days. And Im still dreaming of them, trying to resist the urge to make more, trying to wait at least a couple more days before giving in and baking them again.

I was so focused on getting these brownies to turn out that I didnt experiment this time around with substituting in agave nectar. When I give in and bake them again I will update the recipe. Until then I put in parenthesis the modifications to the ingredients I think would make using agave instead of sugar work. If someone wants to give it a try please let me know what happens.

Gooey Gluten Free Hazelnut Brownies

8 tablespoons butter (reduce to 6 tablespoons)
3 ounces dark unsweetened baking chocolate

1 cup sugar (replace with 3/4 cup agave nectar)
2 eggs (replace with 1 egg plus 1 egg white)
1 cup hazelnut flour

pinch of salt
1/ 2 teaspoon vanilla (omit this)
1/ 4 cup brandy (reduce to 3 tablespoons)

Heat oven to 350 degrees (325 if cooking with agave nectar.) Grease an 8 or 9 inch square baking pan with butter.

Combine the butter and chocolate in a small saucepan over very low heat, stirring occasionally. When chocolate is just about melted, remove from the heat and continue to stir until smooth.

Transfer to a mixing bowl and stir in sugar (or agave.) Then beat in the eggs one at a time. Gently stir in the hazelnut flour (make your own by toasting, removing the skin from and grinding the nuts in a coffee/spice grinder until very fine), salt, vanilla, and brandy. Pour into the prepared pan and bake until just barely set in the middle, about 20 minutes. If in doubt under cook them slightly rather than over cooking them.

Top with Caramel Pear Ice Cream and Raspberry Topping for the ultimate dessert.

The sugar free gluten free version of this recipe can be found here.

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