Imperfectly Paleo

I'm still very much a Paleo girl living in a predominantly non-Paleo world. In this part of the world (by which I refer to the real world in my geographical proximity as opposed to cyber world within fingertip proximity), living a Paleo lifestyle is just not that common. I'd go so far as to say rare. Chocolate Birthday Cake with Ganache Frosting  This week marked the birthday of someone super special to me and, breaking my rule of never imposing my Paleo guidelines on family birthday cakes, I decided it was time to test the waters. Alongside my desire to create a healthful cake for my family, my seflish ulterior motive was that I also wanted to be able to join in the cake-eating fun for once.

These remind me of The Purple Pieman from Strawberry Shortcake! Obviously they are not wicked in the least - being free from refined sugar, gluten and dairy. The sweetness comes from juicy blueberries and a ripe banana, which adds to the super squidgy texture. The hidden red cabbage adds that extra nutritional bomb, packed with polyphenols with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer benefits. Surely the epitome of healthy cake!  'The Purple Ones' - Blueberry and Red Cabbage Mini Muffins Conveniently, they are also nut-free for those intolerant and find many Paleo muffins use nut flours.

A 'Paleo Cheesecake' is about as oxymoronic as culinary contradictions go! Before you assume I have taken the imperfection of paleo eating to the extreme, I assure you no dairy, gluten or refined sugar are involved in this recipe. The real joy though is that the non-Paleo dinner guests who I created this for happily scraped the last morsels from their plates with no complaints. Raw Paleo Black Forest 'Cheese' Cake

This loaf is amazingly moist and squidgy - almost fudgey in texture and tastes like a completely indulgent treat despite being packed with courgette and good fats from avocado. It isn't excessively sweet (equivalent of less than 1 date per slice) and has a fresh zesty tang from the lemon - think of it as a nutritionally superior lemon drizzle cake! Lemon Thyme Courgette Cake

Whoop Whoop - could I BE any more excited?? Thrilled, ecstatic, over the moon and incredibly thankful to The Paleo Mom for featuring my first ever guest post. A sneak peek.. Chocolate Chestnut Chia Cake Check out the full post over on: Thepaleomom.com - guest post by imperfectly-paleo: Chestnut chocolate chia cake  xx

This is part soft cookie, part cake - couldn't decide which side of the fence it fell so have called it a Cookie Cake! They have a crunchy top reminiscent of a cookie when fresh from the oven but the inside is densely cake-like.

Whole Orange and Goji Berry Hot Cross Buns Happy Easter! Having never been a huge fan of anything other than the smell of standard hot cross buns I have finally found a version I enjoy - hurrah!

Beetroot Banana Cocoa Cake Ahead of my 4 year old starting school I worried about a great many things at length - how he would make friends, would he like his teacher, could he be trusted to wash his hands properly after going to the toilet, how damaging to his self esteem would it be sitting next to a boy with photographic memory. You get the idea. What I completely failed to register was the potential threat to his dietary well-being.

Whole Orange and Butternut Squash Breakfast Muffins Growing up, we were the sort of family who used all elements of a vegetable, fruit or meat in our meals. From the eyeballs of the fish to the feet on the chicken and the more mundane broccoli stalks (why only eat the florets?), nothing was off limits.

OMG - I think I just had a taste of Paleo nirvana when I ate one of these! Paleo Pina Colada Bites v1.0 Raw I wanted to replicate the flavours of one of my favourite but sadly hugely sugar-laden cocktails - the Pina Colada.

Parsnips are still plentiful at the moment here in the UK. We are eating them at least once a week simply roasted with thyme and olive oil as a quick and easy accompaniment to weeknight dinners. I used to pretend they were chips to dupe the children into eating them but nowadays they just yell, "Ooh, parsnip - yummm!"

The consumption of sweet potato in the Paleo world can become somewhat monotonous. Sweet Potato Cocoa Brownies So it's always fun to shake things up and include it in a sweet rather than savoury dish.

I had a surplus of ripe bananas in the fruit bowl and too many broccoli heads in the fridge. There sprung forth the unimaginatively named Broccoli Banana Bread. Broccoli Banana Bread jazzed up with a Mixed Seed Top I suggest the tasting come before the naming so as not to prejudice what is actually nothing more than a supercharged banana bread!

For my family... "I love you more than chocolate sauce, Than brownies and a cake, Than chocolate hearts, And berry tarts, And all that I can bake." 12/02/2015 Valentine Chia Gingerbread Love Hearts

I've just experienced a tastebud deja vu! Grain Free Super Seed Loaf (aka Paleo Vogel's!) Once upon a non-Paleo time, the crunch of golden toasted Vogel's Bread... spread thickly with crunchy peanut butter, softening from the warmth of the toast.

My 6 year old loves to bake (and eat!) cakes. She currently harbours aspirations to become a chef and keeps her own little recipe book which contains many imaginative and interesting concoctions. Carrot and Apple Spice Cake

My idea of a treat breakfast back when I happily scarfed gluten, dairy and sugar by the vat full, was a Starbucks skinny blueberry muffin washed down with a skinny latte. In hindsight I struggle to understand how I did not identify the correlation between this consumption and the massive blood sugar drop and entire body shakiness of a couple of hours later. Blueberry Bake

My 6 year old would happily spend hours discussing and debating her favourite foods. Simple Fudgy Brownie There is a scene in her Enid Blyton bedtime story where the children visit the magical Land of Birthdays and, at the empty birthday table, the guests get to wish for exactly what they please and it magically appears before them.

Coconut Cinnamon Banana Loaf topped with banana slices Pre-Paleo one of my favourite comfort foods was peanut butter and blueberry jam on granary bread. I don't miss it per se but I miss the comforting feeling of something simultaneously soft, stodgy, salty, nutty, sweet and fruity.

Quinoa is a pseudograin and does not contain gluten (of which I am intolerant). In recent years it has been awarded the prestigious title of Superfood, in light of its reasonable levels of fibre, phosphorous, calcium, magnesium and iron. Quinoa Bars