Happy St. Patrick's Day

 I buy eggs that come from free-range hens who typically eat a soy-free/gluten-free/non GMO diet.

Last months' eggs included these green beauties - just in time for St. Patrick's Day.

I will eat Green Eggs and Ham, ahem, Bacon from Vogets.

 

 I finally got a pic of my car trash popup  inside my car.   It's dark in my garage, so I snapped this after I got off work. Cute. And it looks awesome.

Bob's Red Mill 1 to 1 Baking Flour

 Chocolate Chip Cookies. 10 dozen.
Made for the drug dealer son and the freezer.

I made them with Bob's Red Mill 1 to 1 Baking Flour - make your recipes gluten free.

By far and away -  the easiest gluten free flour I've ever used.
Exchange it for 1 cup of regular flour. I've used it in several recipes and I can't tell the difference. Cakes are moist, Cookies are crisp and chewy.

The 1 to 1 flour made these with a nice crackle surface. Very pretty.

I have reached that age in my life where I need to store flour in the fridge. I rarely bake - I can't eat what I make as I eat very little grains. My kids are up and out of the house. I can bake for work but things have not been friendly there lately. 

I particularly WISH  ( please!) that Bob's Red Mill would change their packaging to a ziploc-style closure. They are packaged in cellophane bags which have to be closed somehow. I always throw them into a ziploc bag once opened to keep pantry moths out and because I've had that cellophane tear and produce a mess. So - Bob's Red Mill - if you are listening??? Ziploc closure would be very welcome.

 I also made some Daffodil pens for work today. I buy the cheap back-to-school (already?) pens, drill holes in the end and hot glue the flower stem inside and then wrap with floral tape. Easy peasy.
 
 My only rule is extreme cheapness. The daffodils came from an estate sale - marked 25 cents. She threw them in as a bonus.

While I have some customers who will steal even a flower pen, these tend to stay much longer than a naked pen.

Peanut Butter Cookies -- Gluten & Flour Free

These are all that are left. Easy recipe - you can find all sorts of versions online.

Peanut Butter Cookies

1 cup fresh peanut butter (not jif or other 'processed')
1 cup granulated sugar (or be daring and do 1/2 cup each white & brown)
1 Egg
1 tsp Baking Soda, optional
1 tsp Vanilla (mine has no alcohol - Cook's Vanilla), optional

Mix. Small balls on baking sheet.
Criss - cross a fork over tops.
Bake 350' about 8 minutes.
Let cool before lifting them off sheet.

Gluten Free White Birthday Cake

Bakery Girl's Gluten Free White Cake

1 cup Butter
1 Cup Sugar
4 Eggs & 1 Yolk
3/4 tsp Hazelnut Extract
1 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
1/3 Cup Millet Flour
2/3 Cup Sorghum Flour
1/3 Cup Tapioca or Potato Starch
2 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp  Salt

Preheat oven to 350'.
Grease & Flour cake pans. I used 2x 8" pans.

Mix all flours, bak. pwd. & salt. Set aside.

Beat butter with electric mixer until light & fluffy.

Add sugar, beat again for several minutes until light & fluffy.

Add eggs, one at a time, beating 2 minutes after each egg.

Add extracts.

Fold flour mixture carefully so as to not lose the light softness that you spent several minutes mixing in.

Pour into/ fold into  prepared cake pans and smooth surface as best as you can.

Bake until the top is golden brown and a toothpick comes out shiny but not sticky - around 18 - 20 minutes. (I needed 22 minutes -- 8" pans?)

Remove from pans after about 10 minutes and let cool.

Because of the double extracts, this smells devine out of the oven. Mmm.
Be sure to beat and beat some more. Goal is to incorporate lots of air into this batter.

When queried, the birthday girl requested chocolate frosting. I made a simple buttercream.
Loose measurements are:

1/3 cup softened butter beaten with mixer.
Add two cups of Powdered sugar and beat so butter sticks to sugar.
Add about 1 capful from the jug of milk (~ tbsp)
Add 1 -2 squares of unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled a bit.
Add several Tbsps of powdered cocoa.
Add 1 capful of milk again until it starts looking like frosting.
Add up to two cups more of powdered sugar
Maybe another capful of milk

To spreading consistency. Finger licking is necessary.

And then - because I don't stock birthday candles or other decorations anymore, be creative for the decorations.
I had little valentine colored sprinkles that made the chocolate pop. Cute.
You could also utilize some flag toothpicks by glueing a triangle of paper to the tips as a flag.

And here was the best deal: Gluten-free baking (whatever your reasons) is done well by the combination of select & certain flours. Of which you buy the entire bag from Bob's Red Mill and because you infrequently bake (my health problems go beyond gluten), you are stuck with the remainder - all these bags piled into the fruit drawer of your fridge. I asked for and got nicely, the precise amount of flours direct from bakery girl. Beyond helpful to me.

A moist, light cake.

Technically, the extracts are in an alcohol (grain) base. Feel free to substitute but be mindful of the liquid replacement value.
Those specialty bags of flour store longer in the fridge.
Since the butter has salt in it, I added just a sprinkle.
I had minimal problems eating this cake. Two slices over two days.

It Became A Really Good Day.

Friday.
The day of the garage sales. Work too - but we don't count that as part of really good.
This morning after finishing my am shift, I headed over to the next town to do a little garage saling. Along the way, I passed the field with the little lambs out frolicking - but as usual - no camera with me.
At the sale, I found 3 painted dressers that would be perfect for Lavender Hill Cottage , my creative friend's shop. Frantic texting back & forth - neither one of us owns a smart phone yet - produced an offer which was accepted. Before I even saw the dressers, I found a metal bathroom shelf which when queried, was only a dollar. Good vibes. No prices on anything but the prices continued to be fantastic.
My car would only hold two of the dressers so I will have to come back this afternoon to pick up the third dresser prior to going back to work.
What did I buy? A leather valise in great condition - perfect for storing some of my fabric - one of the smaller collections. I also got as a bonus, fabrics in the lower two drawers of one of the dressers which I split with creative friend.
Feeling smug about my good deal, I dropped off the dressers and headed home to bake a gluten-free white cake that bakery girl dreamed up. That's for my daughter's birthday cake.
I had time to check my etsy order page and pack up an order when I noticed an email from Best buy.
GIVING me a $125 coupon towards anything. Which means I am getting the IPAD for my birthday. Apparently part of my laptop deal from last fall.
Skip around the house. giggle.
I starting laying out the ingredients for the cake when I heard the unmistakable rumble of trucks outside. Running out to see  -- this--.

And this.

{{the shack}} wing parts

And this.

more wing parts

I picked up dog poop so no one would step in any but someone still managed to do so while pushing the fuselage back towards the hangar.
Then I ran back into the house to get that cake going so it would have time to cool and get it out of the pans before I needed to leave.

Meanwhile the guys unloaded all this.

Someday, it will turn out to look something like this.

One final pic.
Wait - I want you to know, bakery girl - your gluten-free cake recipe turned out stunning.
Out of the oven and it smells de-lish.
I'll post the recipe another time cause this day ain't over yet.

I get dibs on being PAT.

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.