Gluten-Free German Chocolate Cake

My grandma made a German Chocolate Cake from scratch for nearly every Sunday dinner we had at her house. She also made jello with perfect floating bananas and marshmallows.
You cannot replicate everything.

My creative friend was telling me about this recipe and I immediately was interested.The recipe is from Delectably Free. The cake is gluten, dairy and egg free. She writes about her food allergies on her blog and is amazing in her manipulations of ingredients.

Now, my auto-immune is a bit past gluten-free. And I have come up with a problem with my family. They want to feed me, or make things I can eat. We have always been a baking/cooking family. They seem angry that their efforts aren't appreciated by me. It's difficult -for anybody -to understand how limited my diet is. But if I want to maintain some semblance of enjoying life, and the ability to get projects done,  I can't do it when my stomach is all gassed up or a migraine is threatening because of too many immune responses. Or the bumpy lesions on my skin are so itchy I can't think.  The food I eat needs to be extremely simple. I have learned to say no.
Well - I may be projecting but anger/frustration is what I feel they are feeling. Lord knows I am frustrated.

My solution is to make some allergy-free recipes that show off some of these 'new' allergy-free ingredients - even if I will probably have an immune response to the recipe. I mostly eat raw foods and it gets pretty basic. I don't eat recipes. Some of the foods I eat are pretty weird. Like seaweed.

Once in a while, you get cravings for a particular food or a memory. For my family, I know everyone loved the German Chocolate Cake Grandma Vera made.

My creative friend made the recipe and said it was pretty close to the original but she and I both caution you - this is a spendy recipe to make.  Fortunately, you will have enough ingredients to make two. My friend tested it and declared it wonderful. I spent the last two weeks assembling the ingredients.

I especially liked the flavor from toasting the coconut and pecans.

Look at that tall layer.

I still need to add the third layer as I only own two 8" cake pans and I have to wait for the third layer to cool before I can add it to the cake.

It also has money in the cake. Cleaned coins are inserted after the cake has cooled. Old family custom in which the kids find pocket change.

 

Plus, it's my daughters birthday. This very tall cake will look spectacular with birthday candles and as I am writing this, do I even own birthday candles anymore??? Oh boy. In the big clean-out of clutter so we could put the wood floors in, I think I threw them out.

The recipe is here.

My changes: I used butter instead of Earth Balance soy-free spread. I don't plan on eating the entire cake, I prefer butter for taste, I don't react much to butter, and Earth Balance (Soy-free) is more than double what butter costs.

The cake consists of  the cake, the cream frosting and the toasted pecan/coconut mixture. I would suggest doubling the frosting recipe. Part of what I remember is the gooey coconut/pecan frosting. More is better.

Most of my ingredients were found here at my local grocery store where they have bent over backwards to stock allergy-free ingredients.
The owner of King's Cupboard in Woodburn kindly sold me 2 oz of Xantham Gum from an 8 oz package. 8 Oz. - for me - would have lasted longer than I want it on my pantry shelf. Not to mention, add to the cost of this cake.

Buying all of the ingredients for this cake is expensive. But the cake looks gorgeous and stunning. Even better, it tastes amazing. This is a show-stopper dessert.

Spring Sewing

 

I am playing with my serger today. I bought some interlock knit at Joann's a couple of weeks ago. Why is it so difficult to find knit fabrics - in stores in Oregon? I'm not up to ordering it on-line as I am still an old-school fabric buyer. I have to touch it, feel it, think about it.

Anyhow, I bought a yard of this knit at Joann's to make something for my great-niece Phea.  It shrank quite a bit in the pre-washing phase but that was okay - I didn't know what I was making for  Phea - yet.

I found Simplicity 7800 in my stash. I apparently made a size 4 for my daughter way back when but I have no memory of what I made or what it looked like. This time I am making size 3 for my size 2 niece. This pattern is for leggings in two lengths and a baby doll top with or w/o sleeves. I  have just over 3/4 yard after shrinkage but at least it is 60 inches wide. I managed to cut out the short leggings and the top without sleeves.

I love sewing for Phea. The seams are short and it doesn't take a lot of yardage. The leggings were quite easy to sew up. I am waiting for a measurement before I do the elastic waistband. Basically there are four seams: inner leg, crotch seam, hem and waistband seam.
I move on to the top and it comes together very nicely. 

When I bought the serger last fall, the instructor showed us how to gather fabric - like for a ruffle. Or, you could use the gathering foot and it would gather the skirt to the bodice - as shown on my pattern. Well - it worked well on my sample piece but the reality? There are seams and a placket on the bodice that don't want to feed through the gathering foot. This made for a terrible uneven gathering.
In all probability, the dress is too long for my size 2 niece, so I simply cut off the 'mistake' and tried a different way to gather the skirt to the top. This knit stretches a lot so I actually am waiting for it to come out of the washer/dryer before I take photos in hopes that whereas I stretched out the top to meet the gathered skirt, it will magically retract into looking better.
(If not, we'll cut it off again and attach this gathered skirt the old-fashioned way with my regular sewing machine and a basting stitch).
Did I mention the seams are short?

not quite dry- pardon the wrinkles.

Missy Sophea can wear this as a set or mix and match. I think I made these more to play with my serger and figure out the possibilities. I think if I tried the gathering foot again, I would attach the skirt to the bodice before I sewed the side seams.

I found another food I tolerate quite well and I am surprised to be eating it. It's Seaweed.
My local store is amazing in the array of allergy-free foods they keep getting in. I spotted two brands of seaweed a couple of months ago and so far, no reactions. Of course, this comes from Korea, so we'll see if a little radiation gets through in the next few months?
( here's hoping this is a humorous comment . . .)

 

 I have been using the seaweed sheets to pick up my eggs on Sunday mornings. Eggs show up on both my food allergy panels but I have never reacted to eggs. I've challenged them numerous times over the last four years.
I remember going to an ethiopian restaurant where they didn't use utensils but instead used a thin bread to pick up the food.  I like to have eggs on Sundays to break up my protein cycle and seaweed is high in Vitamin A which adds up nutritionally to a good start to my week.

 The seaweed sheets are quite delicate, very thin and very flavorful. They are inexpensive (for allergy-free food) and very tasty.

And finally, I leave you with some of my tulips. 

IZZE Blackberry Soda

 This is fantastic.

My daughter came home for the weekend and was amazed that our Canbyland Thriftway stocked her favorite  soda.

I read the ingredients and I can have it too.

They have Blackberry, Clementine, Pomegranite & Blueberry, which I am going to take for a taste test tomorrow. They have other flavors as well but since I don't normally drink a lot of soda, I'm gonna pace myself.

I also brought home this Crater Lake Rootbeer.

All of these are made with cane sugar, not corn syrup. 

The ingredient list is short and pronounceable.
And - MADE in PORTLAND, OREGON.

My daughter gets it as a drink at some restaurant in Portland. She didn't know they bottled it to sell elsewhere. So, it must be a well kept secret.

The Brazen Head

Eating in Ireland

I keep running into this conversation where the person I am talking to knows this other person who is so vegan, so allergic, so *insert trendy food disease* , that the afflicted person cannot travel out of their comfort zone.
Despite my dietary restrictions, I am choosing not to be so constrained.
Because of my job that often requires me to work over the course of 12 hours, I have found several foods that are always with me - just in case. Those are the foods I took with me to Ireland for the week. Fresh Cameo Apples, fruit roll-ups,  fruit & nut bars and my dairy-free, soy free chocolate.
I chose to think of the food I was bringing not only as insurance but to create a empty space in my bag to bring home treasures and souvenirs.
Bear in mind that it's not easy. My goals to try and eat 1000 cal. every day and to work on identifying when I am hungry are very serious. Food made me sick for so long that I have lost the ability to tell when I am hungry.

I had such a day when we traveled to Galway on the west coast of Ireland. We had probably walked over 20 miles each of the previous two days in Dublin -looking around and being tourists. We got distracted finding a place to eat breakfast. When we did, the only protein they had was yogurt. We then met up with my daughter and friend and got more distracted, then we hopped a 2.5hr. bus to Galway. Getting there with about an hour or two left of daylight, we decided to explore the town. I let myself get tired and I did not watch my protein intake. I was stopping and looking for somewhere to eat but my sister wasn't hungry yet. I was too tired to insist on eating and then it went too far. I shut down, going back into survival mode. I was only able to focus on putting one foot in front of the other. No street signs in Galway meant we didn't quite have our bearings - where was the hotel? I finally got what my brother-in-law had said about my sister making little bee stings.

But I have been to survival camp before. Albeit, its been over 10 months. Am I really that close to being there again? Have I not made progress? All-in-all, a somewhat frightening concept.
Looking around and finally being able to vocalize that I needed food, now the irrational part took over and rejected this place at 25 euro as too expensive, this place - nothing I could eat, this place - yet another salad. I needed protein and preferably warm.

Finally eating (warm mediterranean salad (chicken)), we were just a few blocks from our room. I went straight to bed and could remember those survival times when I was so tired I would go straight to bed without eating anything. I did get some serious sleep. Luckily, the hotel included breakfast and they cooked to order so I had some bacon (like our Canadian Bacon) and scrambled eggs. I felt better immediately and we were able to continue on our way - taking the great tour with Desmond to the Cliffs of Moher.

Lessons learned: I have to pay attention to eating on a schedule. I am not well enough to get distracted.
It is possible to travel easily to another country where the fish & chips (breaded and potatoes) are everywhere. One can also travel and not go on and on about your particular health maladies.
Get out of your rut - test the waters. 

One evening (in Ireland) with my daughter's friends, we ate at the Brazen Head - the oldest pub in Dublin. Here's my meal - roast of the day. It looked to be the most edible for me. I had already tried the fish &chips and a half-glass of guinness earlier in the trip and was terribly bloated the next day. I stuck with whiskey as the distillery process takes out more lectins than the guinness process. All that guinness barley is -sad. Really. :(
Here were the vegetables - peas with all of their starchy lectins and carrots which are more moderate for me.
The pork was good. I left the gravy and potatoes.