Happy Birthday, Amy!

Amy Rose turned six years old today! (Her health story coming soon.)  She is extremely smart, capable, strong willed, particular and fun to be around. She will be a CEO someday, I'm sure.


A few days ago she asked for a vanilla cake, with white icing, sprinkles, and a bright pink strip on the side of the cake. And she wanted the icing to be made with strawberries and apples.


My first thought: Eww!


My second thought: How in the world do I create this cake for her?!

Thankfully by today she had forgotten about that request and instead wanted Cinnamon cake. Muuuuch easier. Whew! (recipe below) 

Amy helped to make the cake

 
Licked the bowl

We cooled the cake

And sang happy birthday

And, most importantly, we ate the cake!

It is definitely the best grain-free cake we've made so far. I found this recipe at Pretty in Primal.


Cinnamon Cake:

  Preheat oven to 350º
4 eggs
3/4 cup coconut milk (canned) or cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract ( you can use l tsp. if you want less vanilla flavor)
1/2 cup palm sugar (or other sugar)
1/2 cup blanched almond flour
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/4 teaspoon unrefined sea salt
Scant 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Stevia (I like NuNaturals NoCarbs Blend) to further sweeten- judge by tasting the batter. I always make sure the batter is slightly sweeter than I want the final product to be. Some of the sweetness bakes out.

Note on sweetener amount: you can further reduce the sugar and use more stevia, but I recommend using at least a little of some type of real sugar, since sugar contributes to a good crumb texture.

1. In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, coconut milk, vanilla extract and palm sugar.
2. In a smaller bowl, combine almond flour, coconut flour, salt and baking soda.
3. Mix dry ingredients into wet with a handheld mixer. Add stevia to taste.
4. Grease an 8x8 inch baking dish and pour in batter.

Bake for 30 minutes
Cool for 1 hour
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Okay, I followed this recipe except I used 1/2 cup turbinado sugar. I did not use the Stevia as I cannot stand the taste of it. Instead, I used 2 tbls of pure maple syrup. 

To this batter we added 3-4 tsp of cinnamon. And mixed well. 

ICING:

1 block of cream cheese
2 tbls maple syrup
Splash of milk (to thin)

Mix together using a Kitchenaid or an electric mixer. 

And here's what you get:

 

Baking for Easter

Wow, today was a doozie! (by the way, recipes of baked goods mentioned today will be posted within the next few days)


I went to the mall today to find a smaller sized dress (yahoo!), but I had to take Elizabeth with me, and that made my mission an impossible one. She was in one of her defiant, you can't do anything to me to make me do what you want, kind of moods, which means we walked at a snails' pace and meandered around a lot. I guess it was okay though because the Mall had NOTHING. It was either "Hi, I'm a hooker" or "I'm too old to go shopping" types of dresses. And the one stylish dress I did find, it was all black and dark purple, which is not very Easter-y. Bummer.


I did manage to find a t-shirt on sale, and just for kicks I tried on a size: Medium. No way it would fit, I thought, but it would give me a good gauge on how far I need to go in order to buy smaller sizes (I was an XL before GP) ---and to my surprise, it did fit. I was shocked. And happy.  Unfortunately, I think all the weight from my middle fell to my hips, so this is not true of skirts or pants. Well, that's okay, I'll take what I can get at this point. 


Anyway... Regina (8) had a very sick hamster and after visiting the vet it was decided the hamster had to be put down since he had developed a tumor. So in the midst of all the other Easter preparations, we had to have a burial. 


I made a pan of brownies. This time I used cashew butter instead of the sunflower butter. The cashew butter made a heartier brownie. It didn't crumble as much. And I think it will be more satisfying. I just ate a bite to test it out... we'll see tomorrow!

I had wanted to make the Coconut Cowboy Cookies for the kids (for tomorrow morning), but they ate all the bananas. Again.  Then I thought I'd make a cheesecake instead, but then decided I didn't feel like going through the 15 different steps for it. So I settled on a decadent chocolate cake. 

Tomorrow the kids can have the brownies. I'll have the cake. But that leaves Tom without anything... so I found a berry tart I could make him, but I'll do that tomorrow sometime. 


In the meantime, I had to make dinner, but all I had was ground beef. So I made the kids burgers. Now, the grocery store did not have any organic ground beef, so I bought the range-free, organic Bison meat. Blah, I thought. Anyway, the kids ate it without complaint... they didn't even notice a difference! I pilfered a piece from Elizabeth's portion and thought it tasted a bit bland, but it really wasn't that bad, surprisingly. 

Elizabeth gives her bison burger a "thumbs up"

 Then we dyed eggs, which did not hold the dye so well for some reason. 

Stuffed mini-bell peppers:

Buried Muffin. 

Stuffed Easter baskets.

Now it's 10:30 and I've realized I have only eaten once (chicken) today. Seriously, this is getting annoying.