Chocolate and Rainier Cherries

To give credit where credit is due I found this recipe from one of my favorite blogs: PaleOMG. You can find the original post at http://paleomg.com/chocolate-cherry-muffins/. I want to give a huge shout-out to PaleOMG. They seriously rock it out and have so many wonderful recipes to try. I'm sure you'll see more posts of me blundering head-first into their recipes and want to make sure to give them full credit! They also have a great Paleo cookbook that I just picked up (http://www.amazon.com/The-Paleo-Kitchen-Finding-Cooking/dp/1628600101) called "The Paleo Kitchen".

The end result alongside PaleOMGs wonderful Paleo cookbook: The Paleo Kitchen.

These muffins (almost little muffin shaped brownies) are beyond good. My only complaint is *how* good they are! When I first read the recipe I was a bit daunted by some of the ingredients...where was I going to find coconut flour? Tapioca flour? Coconut sugar? The local grocery store definitely didn't carry most of those items. I even bought some glass jars to store the unused flour in the fridge for more of these delicious morsels! I like to think of buying these ingredients as "leveling-up my cooking skills".

Without further ado, lets get into this delicious recipe (taken from http://paleomg.com/chocolate-cherry-muffins/, check it out on PaleOMG!). I did add some of my own comments here and a little My Prep section:

Ingredients
-½ cup coconut flour
-½ cup tapioca flour
-½ cup coconut sugar
-½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
-½ teaspoon baking soda
-½ teaspoon baking powder
-3 eggs, whisked (The first time through this recipe I didn't have a whisk. A fork did the trick for the most part, although this time around I grabbed a whisk from my local grocery store.)
-1 cup applesauce (I ended up making my own applesauce; I just didn't quite trust the store brand stuff to be free of extra sugar...and it was fun! I found a recipe here from the PaleoCupboard; The only change I made was leaving the peels on the apples I used.)
-½ cup melted coconut oil
-1 teaspoon vanilla extract
-½ cup dark chocolate chips
-⅔ cup sliced fresh cherries (I'm lucky enough to live in Seattle, WA where Rainier Cherries are in abundance. They aren't cheap...I had a little bit of sticker shock at the register; They are so worth it though!)

My Prep
1. Whip out your cutting board, a sharp knife, and a bowl. It's time to slice some cherries! I experimented with cutting them a couple different ways. Somehow or other you have to get the pits out. At the end of the day, the hardest part was not eating the cherries as I cut them ;).
1-1/2. Preheat the oven! Make it wait for you; Not the other way around!
2. Pull out two mixing bowls; One for the dry ingredients and one for the wet ones.
3. I used one glass measuring cup for all of my (incredibly accurate I swear) measuring needs. In the future I think I'll try to acquire a half-cup measuring cup. That would probably help (and allow for easy leveling, etc). Wait, I guess I also used a teaspoon and a half-teaspoon measure for the vanilla extract, baking soda, and baking powder.)
4. Gather all the other ingredients within arms reach or so ;).

Please check out PaleOMG for the rest of the instructions! Juli from PaleOMG has been kind enough to allow me to share the ingredients lists from *her* hard work. She has asked that I omit the full instructions so that you go over and read her blog as well! She has a GREAT blog that you should check out at PaleOMG.com. 

I'll add some of my notes and pictures below as well =) but for full instructions on how to make these delicious treats, please head on over to PaleOMG as well. The more knowledge we have the more power we have; Juli's blog is full of great tips and tricks. Please read both!

My additional notes (and the rest of my blogging on this chocolate cherry muffin journey):
I forgot where I read it, but I always try to preheat the oven early. That way I make the oven wait for me, not the other way around.

Coconut Flour (Smells delicious! I keep mine in a jar in the fridge. I should probably label it eventually..).

Tapioca Flour (Also kept in a jar in the fridge).

The Coconut Sugar (Mmm...sugar. Everything in moderation ;)).

Cocoa Powder! This stuff smells like a chocolate factory exploded in your kitchen.

The baking stuff. From what I hear, you really want to try to be exact with these. I try to level off the spoon.

Homemade Apple Sauce! Easy..Just boil up some apples w/ a dash of natural honey and cinnamon. I enjoy leaving the peels on the apples =).

Organic Coconut Oil (Useful for so much! Seasoning cast iron pans, cooking steaks, you name it!)

Vanilla Extract (Smells like I've gone to vanilla heaven).

Local, free-range eggs from vegetarian feed hens. Sure; It's a little more expensive than other eggs, but think of the happy hens!

I kept getting everything stuck in the whisk. After a few more whisk-filling-swirls with the doomed kitchen tool at this point, I ended up just using a butter knife to mix everything. Not exactly gourmet, right? But it worked!

Mix it up!

Ok, so I'm not an advanced cook yet. Note the knife being used to get the mix out of the whisk. I ended up just ditching the whisk and using the knife itself to mix this stuff =).

A note on folding: For me, fold basically translates to, "Try not to crush".

The picture has gone into the past a little bit, but you can see the cut cherries and dark chocolate chunks. I couldn't resist eating two little pieces of chocolate. And maybe a cherry. Or two ;).

This next part was fun; I didn't have an ice cream scoop as called for by PaleOMG so I used the little spoon that came with my steamer/rice cooker that I basically never used because Paleo = no rice.

Almost done!

Not the prettiest looking muffins, but they were beautiful to me! Note the rice cooker paddle/spoon thing. I kept using it to form and mold the muffins in place. I ended up with 12 muffins =).

While it's baking...do dishes! I used the time to clean up my kitchen from all my previous cooking fun.

30 Minutes!

Oh my dishes! Knock 'em out! I try to keep a clean kitchen *as I cook*. It doesn't always work. I find that keeping your kitchen as clean as possible helps make cooking more fun (and easier)!

...CHOCOLATE!! AND CHERRIES! YAY!! =). Thank you PaleOMG for yet another DELICIOUS recipe!

I hope you enjoyed this recipe! Thanks to PaleOMG again (http://paleomg.com/chocolate-cherry-muffins/) and more to come soon!

The Simple Paleo Cook