5 Minute Cakes!

Thanks to my Mother in Love who sent me this awesome recipe for 5 minuet cakes you can bake in your microwave! I'll share the recipe she gave me with you. These awesome cakes are great for snacking and for dressing up for desserts and really only takes 5 minuets to put together.
I have to say I was a little leery at first. Cakes you can bake in a mug in the mircrowave. Really? But they turned out awesome!

Here it is:
Ingredients:
4 TBSP all-purpose gluten free flour (I used Namaste gluten free flour)
4 TBSP sugar
2 TBSP cocoa
1 egg
3 TBSP milk
3 TBSP oil (I used butter bc we ran out of oil)
3 TBSP chocolate chips (maybe next time, I'm leaving tomorrow morning and don't have time to shop)
2-3 DROPS vanilla extract
1 coffee mug

Directions:
Add dry ingredients to the mug, and mix well with a fork.  Add the egg
and mix thoroughly.  Pour in the milk, oil and vanilla and mix well,
being sure to scrape the edges of the cup to incorporate all the dry
ingredients.  Add the chocolate chips and mix again.

Place the mug in the microwave and cook for 4 minutes (900 watts) on
high.  3 minutes (1000 watts) on high

The cake will rise over the top of the mug and then sink down when the
microwave turns off.  Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a
place.  Run a knife around the edge if it doesn’t slide out easily.


I hope you enjoy this fun recipe and get to have a nice sweet treat for a change. Thank you Deni Breitenbach. These will make a perfect snack for our trip tomorrow!

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Cookie let down

So my husband found a recipe for Trefoils cookies. I thought I would try to make them with gluten free flour. The recipe was simple and easy:
2 sticks of butter
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
pinch of ginger
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest/ optional
2 cups all-purpose flour

I followed the directions closely and mixed the ingredients just substituting with gluten free flour. The dough looked great! I thought to myself these cookies will be great! I rolled out the dough and cut them with a cookie cutter and placed them on a greased cookie sheet. I put them in the properly heated oven and set the timer. 10 minuets later I checked on them and they were not browning yet. So I left them in there for 2 more minuets. When I came back to check on them they looked like 4 inch flattened piles. I took them out and tried to scoop them off with a spatula and they crumbled badly. They looked like a pile of sand. At this point I am thinking, I know how to bake. I know how to make cookies. What went wrong! Why are these cookies nothing more than crumbs!
Perhaps I didn't make them thick enough I thought so this time I just rolled the dough into 1 inch thick balls and placed them on the sheet and popped them into the oven. I left them in the oven a little longer to cook as well. About 15 min. They came out looking great! I thought yes, finally some good cookies. I took my spatula and started to take the cookie off the sheet..... crumble...crumble...crumble... Ah! What in the world. I managed to get about 5 cookies in tack onto a plate. I thought getting them off the cookie sheet was a challenge,  then I tried to eat one. Oh, boy!

The best I can figure is that flour has gluten, which holds and binds the goopy mess we call dough. Yes gluten, the very thing that makes pasta elasticy, and streatchy so you can make the pasta. Yeah, the very thing I am allergic to. It isn't in the flour I used. And then there's eggs. They help to bind as well. There were no eggs in this recipe. So taking out the only factors that would have held these cookies together, made them turn to sand as soon as I touched them.

Oh man, what a let down.

Tasty/Not so Tasty

Here are some of the gluten free foods that I got to try over the Holiday's as my awesome family came into town and bought me many different brands to try. Some were awesome... and some were awful. = (

Namaste
 is a brand that has many gluten free mixes. These are awesome because you can make a lot of variety of things with out buying all the extras in order to make it! Cookies, cakes, biscuits, and pie crusts. It does have a little bit of a different taste, but not one that makes you gag or screams Gluten Free! My family had some of the  Cake made with this brand and they loved it as well! I give this brand 4 stars.

Almond Dream
An ice cream made from Almonds and has different flavors. I had a coffee flavored one that was amazing! It is dairy free and gluten free, which made my stomach feel awesome as dairy has a tendency to make me feel horrible. I give this brand 4 stars

Gluten Free Bisquick
Great product. It tastes just like the regular kind of Bisquick and leaves no after taste. I give this product 5 stars.

Julies
I had their gluten free Ice Cream Cookies. These have an after taste. If you can get beyond the taste they are ok. I would give this brand 2 stars.

Van's Waffles
These are ok. They have a somewhat whole grain taste. They taste better with a little jam on them. I give them 3 stars.

I will follow up with some more brands I got to try a little later. These are the best that I have tried so far.

Thank you for joining me on my journey.

Gluten Free Mania

Since I found out that I have Celiac disease, my life, and my eating habits have changed. Anyone who has been down this road can relate to the bombardment of suddenly realizing that nearly everything in your diet has some wheat product in it. How frustrating just the realization was, that everything had to change and as quickly as possible. And then the flooding of information on gluten free materials, blogs, recipes, and sympathizers with their support groups come rushing to your aid out of nowhere. After about a month you find yourself eating things that taste like they came straight from the barn floor, and wondering if this is what you're stuck with for the rest of your life. Then with renewed strength and resolve you decide to forget the gluten free mania, and eat only veggies and protein, only to realize your mood swings, irritability, and fatigue are from not getting enough nutrients. Because lets face it, it's a heck of a lot easier to eat a burger with no bun, than down spinach and turnips.

And so the birth of yet another blog has come to pass! And I'm writing it. Ironic yes. Helpful... I hope.
I plan to record some of the tasty and not so tasty gluten free products in order to help other despaired Celiac souls.

Thanks for coming along on my Adventure!