Coconut Flour Waffles - Take 2

DISCLAIMER: This recipe is intended to be a starch-free/sucrose-free recipe.
This syrup is NOT low calorie or sugar-free.
Please use caution when adding a new food to a special or restricted diet—
—What works for my family may not work for yours.

I have a slightly uncomfortable confession to make—I don't like coconut flour waffles. This being said, the reason is mainly that I don't need to like coconut flour waffles. I make them for my two oldest children who need to avoid starch. So when I first posted a recipe for coconut flour waffles, I was making waffles for kids who had never had anything better. I also wasn't too concerned with the flavor being amazing because they always drenched their waffles in sugar-free syrup anyway and wouldn't be able to discern the flavor of the waffle. However, in the years since I first posted that recipe it has gotten an amazing reception on Pinterest, and I have recently gotten some comments on it which made me doubt the excellence of the recipe. I don't want any of the recipes on this blog to be subpar, so I humbly submit to you a new, improved recipe for coconut flour waffles which hopefully will tickle your taste buds and please your palate.

Banana Bread

When I was growing up, banana bread was one of those things that I could only ever remember my dad making. When the bananas would start looking so disgusting (to a young child) that they were ready to be thrown away, it was time for Dad to make banana bread. His recipe came from the Betty Crocker cookbook—you know, the one with the red cover—and it was the only recipe for banana bread that was ever made in our house.

The recipe yields 2 loaves, but in a family with 8 bread lovers, those loaves didn't stick around very long. It wasn't quite as bad as "if you blink you missed it," but it was close. Nowadays, with my family it lasts longer, but only because my little boys can't eat it. I still have to exercise restraint to not eat the entire loaf myself......in one sitting.....for real.

Zucchini Bread for CSID-ers

DISCLAIMER: This recipe is intended to be a starch-free/sucrose-free recipe.
This syrup is NOT low calorie or sugar-free.
Please use caution when adding a new food to a special or restricted diet—
—What works for my family may not work for yours.

There's not really much to say about this recipe. I wanted to make a version of zucchini bread that my CSIDers could have because there was a lot of zucchini and I really like zucchini bread. I started with my recipe for "normal" zucchini bread and proceeded to modify it as I saw fit in order to come up with this recipe.

Once comment on the nature of quick breads like zucchini bread and banana bread and the like—these are not really what I would consider bread. I have often fallen prey to the though process that banana bread is bread and that makes it good for breakfast, but it's time to start being honest with ourselves. Zucchini bread is really just cake. There is a much lower ratio of sugar & fat to flour than regular birthday cake, but quick breads often fall closer to cake than bread in the baked goods family tree.

This is not to say that I think you shouldn't eat banana bread or zucchini bread or those deliciously huge muffins you bought from the club store for breakfast. I am just saying that we need to be a little more honest in realizing that they really aren't that good for you. But hey, at least with zucchini bread you are getting some vegetables, right?

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the recipe. My oldest would probably eat it all day long, and his little brother really really wants to like it, and always asks for it, but never seems to be able to get that into it. Oh well. Have fun baking!

—Sam

CSID-Friendly Blueberry Syrup

DISCLAIMER: This recipe is intended to be a sucrose-free recipe.
This syrup is NOT low calorie or sugar-free.
Please use caution when adding a new food to a special or restricted diet.
What works for my family may not work for yours.

There isn't really much backstory to this recipe. Yesterday the boys woke up and wanted waffles for breakfast and I didn't have any other plans so I said okay. I must have been dreaming about IHOP or something, because I suddenly was taken with the idea of making a blueberry syrup to go along with their waffles. So I plugged in my waffle iron and got to work.

Heavenly Dinner Rolls

I have a thing for breads. My wife says I have a gift for them, in fact. It is true that I love to bake bread, and have been doing so for a long time.

At first, I followed recipes found in books and online. These worked pretty well, and I learned a lot about baking from the experience. Then, when I was serving a LDS mission in Switzerland, I found Betty Bossi's Brot und Brotgerichte, and discovered that one can use a standard bread recipe and technique to make lots of different types of bread. I also learned the basics of the science of bread baking—namely that you can substitute ingredients as long as you somehow make up the difference.

Then, while working for Lofthouse, I was able to take a series of online classes from the American Institute of Baking, called "The Science of Baking." As part of this course I learned about bakers' percentage, which changed how I view baking forever. In short, bakers' percentage, unlike formula percentage, sets all ingredients as a percent of the total weight of flour. Why is this so life-changing? Well, it means that you can easily change the amount of one ingredient without having to recalculate every other ingredient. I always use this technique when I am writing a recipe.

This recipe started as a desire to make a really, really rich and delicious dinner roll to accompany some baked potato soup. I wanted something that was airy yet filling, sweet and rich yet chewy, and full of delicious flavor. The secret to achieving all of this is in the technique, the ingredients, and some patience. And without further ado, let's dive into the recipe for the best dinner rolls you will ever have.