Keto Valentine’s Day Love

Nora woke up yelling “Valentine’s Day!” She loves love. She made her own Valentines for all of her classmates after being inspired by the card she received from Grandma Sheryl. She started with making a heart, and wrote “Happy Heart Day” and just kept rolling until she made one for each member of her class! I only helped with the heart shape, otherwise it was all-Nora.

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For a little extra special keto treat to bring to school, I melted her daily B^3 and poured it into a heart-shaped silicone cup to re-harden with the apples on top. I also made a “cookie” of ground macadamia-coconut oil-blueberry to solidify in another heart mold. Easy!

Her teacher sent home a note asking the kids to bring cards to exchange, but she didn’t really specify that candy was not welcome. I’m sure Nora will see some candy today, and we’ve had a talk about it. As an alternative, I made some Lego-guy chocolates from the Charlie Foundation’s Chocolate Candy recipe (with video!). I added a drop of peppermint extract to one batch for a twist. Unfortunately the heads fall off when they pop out of the mold. Good thing they are not long for this world anyway.

Happy Valentine’s Day! Spread the keto-love!

Blueberry Almond Muffins

Snow days! Two days off school leading up to a weekend, playing in the snow and lots of together time means baking time to keep everyone happy and satisfied.

IMG_4517Nora requested toasting bread for PBJ sandwiches. Anders requested blueberry muffins. But I knew that once Anders had blueberry muffins Nora would want blueberry muffins, so I pulled out The Joy of Gluten-Free, Sugar-Free Baking and tweaked their recipe for Blueberry Hazelnut Muffins to make everyone happy.

And oh. my. good. ness. They are so good!

I made one batch (below) and took out enough batter for 3 muffins for Nora, in pink and purple silicone muffin cups. Then I put a bit of sugar into the leftover batter for the rest of us and re-mixed, added in the blueberries, and put ours in yellow and green silicone cups. They are nutty delicious, either warm and cold.

I’m also sure that the original recipe using milk of any kind instead of heavy cream would also be very good. If you’re into that kind of thing.

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Nutrition information for one Blueberry Almond Muffin, by www.caloriecount.com

Blueberry Almond Muffins
(makes 10 muffins)
90 g raw egg (2 eggs)
115 g (1/2 C) Organic Valley Heavy Whipping Cream
7 g (1.5 tsp) vanilla extract
5 g (1 tsp) lemon juice
85 g (3/4 C) Bob’s Red Mill hazelnut flour
85 g (3/4 C) Bob’s Red Mill almond meal/flour
30 g (1/4 C) slivered or sliced almonds
6 g (1 Tbsp) baking powder
3 g (1/4 tsp) salt
40 g frozen blueberries (1/4 cup, or more if diet allows)

Measure egg, cream, vanilla and lemon juice into mixer. If you want to add some liquid stevia or other carb-free sweetener, add it now as well. Mix thoroughly on low in electric mixer, or by hand.

In a separate bowl, combine nut flours, almonds, baking powder, and salt. If you want to add a powdered no-carb sweetener, add it here. Mix well. Add the dry ingredient mixture to the wet ingredients and mix on medium very well, one to two minutes. You want to beat a little air into it to fluff up your muffins. These ingredients are a lot of heavy lifting for the baking powder.

Measure 43 g of batter into each muffin cup. Then add 4 g of frozen blueberries to each cup, pushing them into the batter and smoothing over the top.

Bake at 350° for about 35 minutes or until golden brown on top and springy to the touch.

IMG_1401These are 2.17:1 ratio. Served with 25 g Organic Valley Heavy Cream plus 1 drop of vanilla flavoring and a thinned with a bit of water to make “milk” for a 3.5:1 ratio.

Now we are snowed in and need more baking supplies to make more of these! They will go too fast!