No seriously, it's delicious

I promised a gluten-free chocolate birthday cake recipe, and I make good on promises.

I was really excited to test out my Asian sweet rice flour in a cake. We got our wedding cake from a wonderful bakery in Baltimore called Tenzo Artisan. Her gluten-free wedding cake was literally a dream come true for me, and so delicious. We very randomly stumbled upon her cake shop. We had actually gone up to Baltimore for a gluten-free cake taste test with Renee from Sweet Sin Bakery. Her cake was great and we were all set to go. We thanked her and headed down to Federal Hill for a little shopping. I got to chatting with one of the ladies in a shop and happened to mention we had just been cake testing. She asked where and I told her she wouldn't know the place because they specialize in gluten-free baking. She then said, "Oh, the place around the corner? She's wonderful!" I was confused because the place we'd just come from was on the other side of the city. She gave us the name of the shop (Tenzo) and we decided to drop in. Sure enough, gluten-free dessert galore! We set up a tasting with her and were truly amazed. When I asked her secret, she said, "Sweet rice flour!"

Anyway, both Sweet Sin and Tenzo products are wonderful. The woman who owns Tenzo is a former OB-GYN who decided she loved her baking hobby so much she'd follow it full time. I'm glad she did!
Isn't our little gluten-free cake adorable? She copied the pattern of some of the embroidery on my dress on the bottom layer. We served "normal" sheet cake to the rest of our guests. Our caterer wrapped up extra pieces for us to take with us to our hotel. We saved the top tier and took it with us on our anniversay trip. We had to keep it in a cooler because we were camping, which made it crucial to eat cake at four meals lest it go bad. I hope everyone has the opportunity to eat as much cake as possible in 24 hours before it goes bad at least once in a lifetime. Oh little cake, we have fond memories.

I tried out this recipe for my birthday cake and the result was wonderful. I had been planning to just find any cake recipe and substitute in some of my sweet rice flour, but I this was one of the first recipes I found and it just happened to include my flour already! I felt one happy step ahead. I didn't have any potato starch, so I used 1/2 a cup each of sweet rice flour, white rice flour and tapioca starch. I also used about 1/2 a teaspoon of xanthan gum. You can find the sweet rice flour at any Asian food market.

I made a two layer cake and used whipped cream between the layers. I frosted it with buttercream. The hubby said it was the best gluten-free cake he's ever had! I think he was exaggerating, because that Tenzo cake was seriously awesome, but this really was a close second.

Killer Chocolate Cake
(recipe from www.celiac.com, courtesy of Dave Ross)

Killer Chocolate Cake (Gluten-Free)

This recipe comes to us from Dave Ross.

Gluten-Free Flour Blend Ingredients:
25% Asian white rice flour;
25% Asian sweet rice flour;
25% tapioca starch; and
25% potato starch.

I use no Xanthan gum in these recipes. I buy a 12 oz. bag of each at an Asian store and mix them into a glass container for general use.

Gluten-Free Cake Ingredients:
¾ cup or 1 and ½ sticks butter melted
¾ cup cocoa powder
2 ¼ cup sugar
5 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 ½ cup gluten-free flour blend (above)
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1/3 of an 8 oz. block cream cheese warmed in microwave
1/3 cup milk

Preheat oven to 350° F

Gluten-Free Cake Directions:
Grease and cocoa 9” by 13” pan. Flour it with cocoa instead of flour. In mixer with whip mix melted butter with cocoa till smooth. Blend in sugar. Beat in eggs one at a time. Add vanilla, salt, flour, cream cheese, baking soda and powder and mix until smooth.

Blend in the milk, stopping to scrape the sides and mix a little more to be sure everything is well blended. Pour into baking pan and tilt pan to even out the batter. Bake for 45 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove from oven and set pan on a cooling rack. Leave in pan to cut and serve.

Check it out and enjoy!

I'm 25? Really?

"No!" says 13 me.

"Oh, Feathers, that is so funny. We won't ever be 25," says 11 me.

Today is my birthday. I am 25 and for some reason that is making me not want to have a birthday. So I thought I'd head over to Cake Wrecks to get myself in the mood, at least to make the gluten free cake I'm making. I found this amazing cake picture at the amazing blog:
Gummi Beaaaaaaars! Bouncing here and there and every where! High adventure that's beyond compare! We are the Gummi BEARS!

Gummi Bears was one of my favorite shows as a kid. We didn't have cable though and it was a Disney channel show, so we'd watch it every day when they used to do those two-week free cable trials. (Remember those days?)

When I was really little, I had invisible babies. No, not invisible friends, invisible babies. I used to make my mom wait to buckle me into my car seat while I buckled my babies into their car seats. One of my babies was named Zummi Gummi.

Oh, nostalgia. How precious you are! I'm 25? I used to look like this:



I thought 25 looked like this:
But always, always loved and will always love this:I'm excited to go bake my gluten-free cake with the sweet rice flour I found at Lotte. Recipe to come!

Winter Blues Begone!

Lenny and I were blessed to be able to visit my grandparents in Tampa over the inauguration weekend. We knew the DC area would be out of control, so we decided to skip town and watch the inauguration on television with the comfort of 70 degree weather in the background while DC people stood outside in arctic blast weather. We missed history in the making, but I was fine with that in exchange for this:
That was a lovely 70 degree day! Tampa had been the 80s before we got there, but the cold blast from the west that broughts temps into the teens here at home dropped Tampa to a little colder than average too. I was A-ok with that, given the home alternative!

I'd had a flight voucher with Airtran that had to be used up before the end of January. I've missed out on using up vouchers before, so I wasn't go to miss this one. Not with my affinity for travel! We got down there on a Saturday and left Tuesday night; a perfect mini-vacation! We had MLK Day off anyway, and DC areas schools were closed on Tuesday. We even got to spend the evening with Lenny's family on Friday night- his mom had graciously offered to drive us to the airport at 5 am!


When we got to Tampa, we reveled in the warmth, sunshine, and my sweet grandparents' happy faces. We had a delicious lunch at Cheesecake Factory, then headed to their house in the retirement community at Word of Life. We toured around the grounds a bit, then Lenny and I fell asleep on the couch. We were exhausted because lameo Airtran made our flights for the morning crazy. (We'd had to leave BWI at 6, arrive in Atlanta at 8, chill for three hours, then arrive in Tampa at 12:30. Thanks for the fun, Airtran!) We then went to a cool praise concert at the WOL conference center. The singer, Steve Green, was only okay, but his piano guy was incredible. He did a couple of songs on his own that were awesome, I really want a CD.


We went to church and played mini-golf the next day, then did a little shopping. Lenny and I had a blast going for a spin in my grandpa's electric bicycle golf cart. We had a delicious dinner (my Grandma's a great cook, it runs in the family) followed by these AMAZING "Lava Cakes" she made for dessert. They make non gluten-free folks jealous that gluten-free folk can eat such amazing stuff. I've tried making them twice since, but they haven't quite turned out like hers.

Monday was probably my favorite day. After a delicious breakfast we headed over to Tarpon Springs, a funky, touristy Greek town famous for sponge diving. They have the neatest little aquarium there with lots of demonstrations. I got to hold a python, and Lenny got to touch a baby shark.

The men needed an ice-cream pit stop of course, but then we went for a lovely drive and ended up at Honeymoon Beach. Walking on that beach was the highlight of the trip for me. It felt like winter at home had never existed. I am convinced that two hours holds almost all of the responsibility for my wonderful lack of winter blues this year. We ended that day with a delicious dinner at a southern bbq joint. Lenny loved the sweet tea. Ohh, bbq, I could eat you every day!
Barefoot in the water in January! I love Florida. I love my grandparents even more.


My grandparents treated us to an amazing trip the Big Cat Rescue on Tuesday. A simply wonderful place. I would give anything to be able to work somewhere like that. My grandma knows me so well, she knew I would love it. It was cold though, in the 50s and cloudy, so we went over to Chili's for a warm lunch afterward.

It really was a wonderful trip. I'm grateful for time like that with my family. Lenny and the Lloyds got to know each other better, we all had great quality time, I soaked in lots of vitamin D (something my celiac disease makes me very deficient in, and I think a huge contributor to my tendency for winter blues), we experienced new places, we spent lots of time outside, we played Dominoes, we looked at old family pictures and talked about genealogy, and overall had a splendid time. I'm going to Florida every year in January from now on.

On a side note, this is also the healthiest winter I've had in YEARS. Since the horrible two-week flu at Christmas, I've only had one little cold that my body actually fought off in 5 days.

Cost of plane ticket: $200
Value of trip to health and happiness: Priceless


Lavish Lava Cake Recipe:
Serves 6-7
1-1/2 cups Semi-sweet chocolate chips (or 8 oz. chocolate)
5 Tbsp. butter, plus butter to grease ramekins or muffin cups
3 eggs SEPARATED
1/4 C granulated sugar
2 tsp. finely ground espresso (optional)
2 Tbsp. cocoa powder

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375 F. Generously butter six 3/4-cup size ramekins or custard cups, or 7 muffin cups.
2. In microwave-safe bowl, heat chocolate and butter on medium power 1-2 minutes until butter is melted. Stir, reheating if necessary, to melt chocolate; Set aside.. Stir egg yolks and 2 Tbsp. sugar into chocolate-butter mixture. Add espresso if using
3. Place egg whites in large mixing bowl, beat until foamy. Combine remaining 2 Tbsp. sugar and cocoa powder. Gradually bat into whites until soft peaks fold over when beaters are lifted.
4. Stir 1/3 of chocolate-butter mixture into whites mixture. Gently fold in remaining chocolate mixture until completely combined. Divide evenly between cups (Can cover at this point and refrigerate up to 24 hours before baking).
5. Bake 10-12 minutes until puffy and cracks form on top. Edges should be firm and center moist between the cracks. (bake 13-16 minutes if refrigerated). Cool 3 minutes. Serve in ramekins, or run knife around edges and invert cakes onto dessert plates. Serve hot with ice cream. Dust with cocoa powder if desired.

A Taste from Childhood

I believe every person with celiac disease has a certain food or dish they miss deeply. It's that one food that gives you a pang a jealousy to see someone else eat, the one that makes you secretly wonder how sick you'd really feel if you had just one bite. For some, it's a favorite meal at a restaurant you still frequent with friends. For others, it's a special holiday recipe of Mom's that just doesn't taste quite the same gluten-free. For me, it was something soft and chewy, warm and melty straight out of the oven; something that brought back childhood memories of cold, rainy days inside a toasty and comfortable kitchen; something that made my mouth water with yearning at the mere thought. For me, it was chocolate chip cookies.

No matter what I did, no matter what I tried, I could not find or make anything match that chewy, buttery consistency of a good chocolate chip cookie. Friends and family might try my flat, bottom-burned creations that crumbled in their hands and kindly say, "Well, it tastes like a chocolate chip cookie. The consistency is just a little different." So, while others baked their cookies, I would grumblingly satiate my appetite by gulping down handfuls of Nestle morsels.

Then, finally, a ray of hope for my cookie quandary. While visiting family for a weekend, a cry came from the living room. "Everyone, come quick! Alton Brown is making gluten-free chocolate chip cookies on the Food Network!" I dashed to the sofa, though cynicism quickly started to over-ride my hope. I had tried this so many times before. Who did Alton Brown think he was to figure this out, brilliant chef and food scientist aside? He's not even a celiac!

Yet the cookie in his hand didn't crumble. And he even called his recipe, "The Chewy Gluten-Free." Before I knew it, I had all of the ingredients assembled in my kitchen, recipe in-hand. I followed every direction, measured to the tiniest speck. I turned the cookie sheet in the oven after exactly seven minutes to ensure even cooking. I even let the cookies cool. The air was filled with the sweet of aroma of baked chocolate goodness. Here it was; the moment of truth. I lifted a cookie to my mouth and took a bite. Perfection; just like the rich, soft and chewy cookies we made growing up. I think tears of joy actually sprang to my eyes.

This recipe is slightly more complicated than the traditional chocolate chip cookie recipe, but it is worth every step. The most important step is to allow the dough enough time to chill thoroughly before baking. This helps the cookies stay set up while baking, and keeps them firm and chewy after cooling.

The Chewy Gluten-Free

Ingredients:

8 ounces unsalted butter
2 cups brown rice flour
¼ cup cornstarch
2 tablespoons tapioca flour
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ cup sugar
1 ¼ cups light brown sugar
1 whole egg
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons whole milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
12 ounces semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Melt the butter and pour into the bowl of a stand mixer.

In a medium bowl, sift together the rice flour, cornstarch, tapioca flour, xantham gum, salt and baking soda. Set aside.

Add both of the sugars to the bowl with the butter and using the paddle attachment, cream together on medium speed for 1 minute. Add the whole egg, egg yolk, milk and vanilla extract and mix until well combined. Slowly incorporate the flour mixture until thoroughly combined. Add the chocolate chips and stir to combine.

Chill the dough in the refrigerator until firm, approximately 1 hour. Shape the dough into 2-ounce balls and place on parchment-lined baking sheets, 6 cookies per sheet. Bake for 14 minutes, rotating the pans after 7 minutes for even baking. Remove from the oven and cool the cookies on the pans for 2 minutes. Move the cookies to a wire rack and cool completely. Store cooked cookies in an airtight container.

Recipe courtesy of www.foodnetwork.com

It truly is hard to even tell that these cookies are gluten-free. I baked them for several parties and no one knew they were gluten-free! They were gone in minutes. So do what I did when I made them the first time; bake a batch, pour a large glass of milk, and don't keep track of how many you eat!

The Most Wonderful Time

It's that time.

There'll be parties for hosting, staff breakfasts for eating, and friends bringing you cookies. There'll be potlucks, dinners, snacks. The holiday season seems to love to bring on love and good cheer with it's favorite friend...

No, not Santa.

Definitely not Jesus.

GLUTEN.

That's right, for the celiac, the holiday season turns into a vast array of parties and get-togethers full of wonderful, lovingly-prepared sweet and savory foods of all kinds you can't eat.

The Saturday before last, the hubby and I had four- that's right FOUR- Christmas parties in one day. You'd think it would be impossible to go to all of them, but thankfully (?) they were perfectly spaced; a brunch at 11, my staff party at 1, a friend's party at 4, and the hubby's staff party at 7.

By 6:00, I was starving. My head was literally swimming from having only eaten a handful of M&Ms, a mound of canned green beans, a scoop of fruit salad and a few tostitos. So, at the current party, I ate 3 non-battered chicken wings, something a celiac should NOT do when you don't know the hot sauce ingredients! My celiac mama would have shaken her head in dismay. Then I made the hubby stop at McDonalds for some french fries.

This is exactly the kind of thing that makes people pity celiacs. They look at me eating the mound of green beans and say, "Man, that stinks! You can't eat anything!" Then they take a huge bite of whatever they are eating and tell you how good it tastes. This is probably the most annoying statement in all the world. A part of me feels its near to saying to someone with a disability, "Man, that stinks! You can't do anything!" and then skipping away.

The thing of it is, I CAN eat almost anything; I simply can't eat gluten. I can come up with a tasty alternative to nearly anything in my own kitchen. But that's just it; I need a kitchen. When I'm outside of my own home, I don't want to risk eating something when I don't know all the ingredients. So many people are so sweet, and so dear, and truly do try. They will say, "Well, I think this should be fine..." then they will list their ingredients as best as they rememeber. But they don't know that a lot of spices contain wheat. They don't know to check for maltodextrin in their bottle of dressing. They don't know that I can't eat cheese that sat on a tray full of crackers because of cross-contamination.

So don't pity celiacs! I love holiday food. You should just see the spread my mom puts on at home. Our gluten-free Christmas cookies are delicious. My mom's gluten-free stuffing is to-die-for. We have gravy and rolls just like everyone else. It just takes a little more work! Yes, it's annoying not to be able to eat easily at everyone's parties. But sometimes it's just not worth the effort or awkwardness to find out how each dish was made and inconvenience your host to dig out labels from the trash only to find you can't eat it after all. When I get home, I'll eat like a queen.

But for those of us who face this, what do we do? Should we just sit and feel bad for ourselves at the party while everyone else eats Auntie JoJo's famous bundt cake? No! Make your own gluten-free treats. BRING THEM to your parties for people to try. When you sign up for the staff potluck, offer to bring a main dish, and surprise everyone with it's yumminess. Always keep safe snacks in your car (which I forgot that fateful Saturday) like chips or trail mix. Bring a "back up" gluten-free sandwich in case you get to a party and you can't eat something. Check with your host before arriving. Ask your boss who is catering the dinner party and call them yourself to find out what you'll be able to eat. Don't make anyone feel awkward, and remind them that you are fine with bringing something yourself to eat. If someone offers to make something specially for you, or asks what to make, thank them profusely and offer simple suggestions, or offer to bring something yourself. Use the opportunity educate people, and to show them that being gluten-free is the way to be!

Yes, this all takes a little more time, a little more work, a little more thought, and usually a little more money. But remember that your health comes first, and no morsel is worth losing precious hours spent being sick, tired, and achy. Being with friends during the holidays is about celebrating the gift from God of their friendship, and ultimately about celebrating the birth of Christ. The High King of Heaven was born in a barn and laid in a manger. Mary and Joseph were not allowed to celebrate the birth of a son with a feast and family. They were ostracized for a pregnancy that seemed shameful and not given a place to stay with family in Bethlehem. (Bethlehem was Joseph's hometown; the whole "no room for them at inn" wouldn't even have happened if family had welcomed them into their home.) What mattered to them was serving God and loving each other, not what delicacies filled their bellies.

But while you're at those parties, don't forget to scour the room for the little decorative Christmasy glass dishes; they are almost always filled with M&Ms! :)