Paleo Cookie Dough Fudge
Paleo Cookie Dough Fudge is one of those recipes that you’ll find hard to believe is made with 100% Paleo-friendly ingredients.
It shows us that Paleo desserts really have come a long way.
Transitioning to a grain-free, dairy-free diet plan comes with many challenges and dessert has to be among the top complaints. (Second to coffee creamer substitutes, surprisingly enough.) I remember back when we ate dry pucks made of dates and coconut flour — and were excited about it! And don’t even get me started about when the whole coconut-oil-chocolate-shell situation hit the scene. Nothing was safe — coconut milk ice cream, bananas, strawberries, and even potato chips!
Seems like anytime someone figured out a new hack (which was fairly often back then), the whole community rallied with ideas, writing recipe after recipe to help all of you out there find a little more relief, and a little more success, as you took it one day at a time in this new Paleo journey.
Dare I say the most influential method that came into play had to do with the versatility of cashews.
Cashews were a game changer in the world of Paleo desserts.
And it’s the hero of this Cookie Dough Fudge. The cashews pureé into a creamy, buttery dough that when mixed with browned butter, vanilla, and some Paleo-friendly sweetener, melds into that familiar cookie dough flavor and texture.
Here’s why I think you’ll like this recipe.
You’ll get to enjoy one of the best parts of making chocolate chip cookies in fudge form! I’m talking about the batter, of course. 🙂
This cookie dough fudge is gluten-free, dairy-free, and egg-free. While it does call for nuts, this is impressively allergen-free.
I like that this recipe freezes well. It’s so easy to make a batch, stash it in the fridge, and take out a piece or two whenever I feel like having a sweet treat.
This recipe is from my favorite Paleo dessert cookbook, Clean Eating With a Dirty Mind. Written by my friend, Vanessa Barajas, here’s what she has to say about her Cookie Dough Fudge recipe:
We all know how delicious raw cookie dough is. It can be dangerous to eat, though, because it contains raw eggs. But who are we kidding… like that’s ever stopped us. This recipe is a game-changer. It tastes just like the real thing, and it’s egg-free. Now we don’t have to play raw-egg-roulette. The only dangerous thing about it is that you may not be able to stop eating it!Vanessa Barajas, Clean Eating With a Dirty Mind
I first met Vanessa at Paleo f(x), a conference based in Austin, TX. It was the best time! Thought leaders, authors, bloggers, and vendors descend on the conference center for a long weekend talking all things ancestral health, inflammation, and bio-hacking. It was so great to finally get to meet fellow bloggers in real life.
Fast-forward a few years later, Steph Gaudreau and I were wrapping up the first leg of our 8-city book tour in San Diego. Friends, Amy of Paleo Cupboard and Vanessa of Clean Eating With a Dirty Mind, popped by Barnes & Noble to cheer us on.
It just so happened that Vanessa was in the throes of writing this cookbook. Naturally, she brought the cupcakes that were left over from that day’s photoshoot. What a treat it was to sample the Rocky Road Cupcakes! Wow. These were just magical. If you do have the book, you can find this recipe on page 252.
Buy the book:
This recipe is from the ULTIMATE Paleo dessert cookbook written by my friend, Vanessa Barajas. Clean Eating With a Dirty Mind is 432 pages of the most decadent, creative, beautiful, and oh-so-goooood Paleo recipes you can find.
Don’t forget to Pin this recipe!
Once you get a chance to make this, let me know how it went!
How’d it go? How was it using browned butter? It’s not something that many of us are in the habit of doing… I find that it can be a barrier to trying a new recipe (when there’s an unfamiliar method involved), so I’m curious if that stopped any of you? Or better, did it inspire any of you? After all, “browned butter” is usually a selling point for most dishes!
Equipment
Ingredients
- 8 tbsp salted butter
- 3 cups raw cashew pieces
- 1 tbsp melted coconut oil
- ¼ cup coconut flour
- ¼ cup melted raw honey
- ½ tsp fine-grain sea salt
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- ⅛ tsp ground cinnamon (or ground nutmeg)
- 1 cup chocolate chips
Instructions
Prep the Pan
- Line a 9 by 5 inch loaf pan with parchment paper; set aside.
Make Browned Butter
- Put the butter in a medium-sized heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium-low heat. Stir intermittently using a rubber spatula. As the butter melts, it will start to bubble and foam. As it continues to cook, it will turn from lemon yellow to amber in color and will go from a loud bubble to a quiet simmer. When the butter is ready, brown specks will have formed at the bottom of the pan, and some of the specks will start to rise in the foam. The butter will also have a pleasant nutty aroma.
- Remove the pan from the heat and let cool for 15 to 20 minutes, until the pan is cool to the touch, before using. When transferring the browned butter from the saucepan, be sure to use a rubber spatula to scrape all the browned bits off the bottom of the pan–that's where a lot of the flavor is. The browned butter will harden when cooled.
- If you'd like to make this ahead of time, be sure to refrigerate in a covered container.
Make the Fudge
- Put the cashews in the bowl of a high-powered food processor and process until they turn into a meal. Scape down the sides of the bowl and process for another 5-minutes or so, stopping to scrape down as needed, until the nut oils start to release.
- With the processor running, slowly drizzle the melted coconut oil into the cashew meal and continue to process until it turns into a thick dough ball or reaches a dough-like consistency (it will be much thicker and drier looking than peanut butter).
- In a medium-sized bowl, combine the cashew butter, browned butter, and coconut flour using a hand mixer or whisk. Add the honey, salt, vanilla, and cinnamon (or nutmeg) and mix until combined and smooth. Press plastic wrap across the surface of the dough and chill in the freezer for 20 min.
- Remove the chilled dough from the freezer and fold in the chocolate chips. (Note: if the chocolate chips are added before chilling, they will melt and sink to the bottom.)
- Transfer the dough to the parchment-lined pan and press it down evenly.
- Place back in the freezer for 20 minutes to firm and set the fudge.
- Once set, cut into 15 pieces and serve.
- To store, keep the fudge in the freezer and thaw for a few minutes before serving.
Notes
Nutrition
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