Chocolate Cake

I just had to share more pictures of the chocolate cake I made yesterday.  The kids ate it for breakfast and I was okay with that.  I whipped up the coconut cream, which was not like whipped cream, but worked nicely to add wetness to the cake.  I also took a bag of frozen mixed berries, added a little honey and heated them up to accompany the cake. 

Okay, I had a piece, too.  I'm really such a cheater.  But, I'm not having any adverse intestinal reactions, so I'm okay.  I would not recommend continuing with this sort of indulging if you are experiencing adverse effects.  Be well!

Day 34, Stage 6 (day 2)

I had a salad yesterday with mixed greens, strawberries, apple, cheddar and Gouda.  It was delicious.  I made a dressing with olive oil, a little bit of salt, a little bit of honey and a bit of ...vinegar.  I'm still alive today.  I had made the salad for my family and couldn't resist.  I ate a lot of it.  Not a problem that I can see.  Thank goodness. 

Okay, so I'm a super cheater.  I had chocolate today.  I made a chocolate cake.  It was so yummy. 

I found this recipe on Elana's Pantry...my new favorite site.  It's very similar to the blueberry muffins/cake that I made the other day.  I also made my own substitutions to cater to my pantry items.  It tasted like cake.  Not like coconut flour cake.  Like, real gluten-filled cake. 

Chocolate Cupcakes (with my substitutions).

1/2 cup coconut flour
1/4 cup cacao powder (the only thing I had was ghiradelli's dark chocolate powder)
1/4 cup cocoa butter nibs pulsed in food processor to teeny pieces
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
6 eggs
1/2 cup melted butter

3/4 cup honey
1/2 tsp all natural creme de menthe flavoring (you can't taste it in the cake, but it's enough to get rid of the coconut taste that angers my oldest son)

1. In a medium bowl, combine dry ingredients
2. In a large bowl, blend together wet ingredients
3. Blend dry ingredients into wet thoroughly
4. Line a glass pie plate with parchment and pour mix into it.
5. Bake at 350° for 35-40 minutes
6. Cool 
7. Serve

Makes one pie plate of cake.

Next time I make this...or tomorrow when I eat it...I may make a frosting with either raw cream or coconut cream.  I have a box of coconut cream I have wanted to try.

The lighting was terrible, so the shot is too.  But look!  It's cakey and lovely. 

Day 32, Stage 5-ish...again.

I made a super delicious cake today with coconut flour.  I got a recipe for a blueberry cupcake, but I didn't have paper muffin cups, so I just lined a pie plate with parchment, lessened the honey content and called it breakfast. 

As you can see, there wasn't much left over.  Actually, I had to rip the pie plate from my son's hands in order to take the picture.  

Here's the recipe with my own twists -

1/2 cup coconut flour

1/4 tsp sea salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

one egg

2 egg whites (I would have used 3 eggs, but I didn't have any...)

1/3 cup honey

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup melted butter

1 cup frozen blueberries

Mix all dry ingredients together.  Mix all wet ingredients together, sans blueberries.  Mix wet with dry until smooth.  Fold in blueberries.  Pour in parchment lined glass pie plate.  Bake at 350 degrees F for 55 minutes.  It still seemed a bit wet in the middle.  Perhaps it was because of my substitutions.  It was still yummy.  Yes, I ate some.  I hadn't had blueberries yet (and they weren't organic...gasp!), but I seemed to fare well with them today. 

Cultures and Coconut

I have been making my own yogurt for some time now.  I had always used store-bought yogurt, but I recently purchased a starter online.  In using store-bought yogurt, the homemade raw yogurt came out very strong.  The kids wouldn't touch it.  This particular starter created a very mild tasting yogurt, like the packet says.  I warmed the milk a bit, to a little over 100 degrees and added one starter packet.  I stirred, wrapped in a towel and placed it in my oven with the light on.  It sat there for almost 24 hours to make sure the lactose was all gone.  The milk I used (gasp) was slightly soured to begin with.  So the yogurt was, too.  But the kids didn't seem to care.  Score 1.

Coconut.  GAPS friendly coconut.  Coconut is important to our family.  We can't eat nut flours, so coconut flour is awesome.  It's much denser than other flours and requires a lot of eggs to create a palatable result.  I've made really yummy muffins with coconut flour.  However, the next day, they're not so yummy.  Tropical Traditions has a ton of delicious recipes to try out.  I didn't buy their flour this time around, though.  I wanted to try another company...Wilderness Family Naturals.  The prices were comparable to what I would pay via Amazon.com, with shipping being the just about the cost of one 1.1 pound bag of flour.  I haven't priced how much it costs in the stores...I should probably do that.  I like that Wilderness Family Naturals is family run and maintains it's relatively small status. 

I haven't tried the coconut flour yet.  I'm waiting until I move out of the intro diet.  I also purchased a jar of coconut spread.  I cannot wait to try it.