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:

 

Stuffed Mini-Bell Peppers

My grocery store was out of the large bell peppers, which are a staple in my house, so I did the next best thing and bought a bag of mini-bell peppers. The kids like to munch on them, but there are quite a few in the bag, so we had several left over. 


When I cleaned out the fridge, I noticed I had too much cream cheese and I should probably use it up. 


So... I came up with Stuffed Mini-Bell Peppers. 

Stuffed Mini-Bell Peppers:

•  1/2 cup Cream cheese
• 1/4 cup Sour cream
• 4 slices Bacon
• 1/2 Smoked Gouda
• 1/2-1 tsp Onion powder
• 1/2-1tsp Garlic powder
• Salt (about 1/8 tsp--the cream cheese is already salty)
• White pepper (a couple shakes)
• 1 egg

In a medium sized bowl combine: cream cheese, sour cream, chopped bacon, shredded smoked gouda, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, and white pepper. Stir until all is smooth. Then add 1 egg and mix well.  

Then you take your pepper, and slice off the top.

Make sure you use a sharp parring knife and strip the membranes

Then stuff the pepper with the cream cheese mixture (you can use a spoon, but a piping bag is *much* faster and less messy. If you do not have a piping bag, you can make one with a ziplock baggie. Fill you baggie with the mixture, and then snip off a small bit of a corner of the bag, and voila! you have a piping bag!) 

I tried to stand the peppers up so that the filling would not leak out during baking. You can slice the peppers down the middle, and lay flat to bake if you'd rather. 

I'm an idiot and forgot to take a photo *after* they baked, so this is the best I've have.

And they turned out fairly well! Of course, anything with bacon must be good. It's a law.