OK! I have about a million things I want to blog about in the next week and a half covering my travels over the last… 4 or 5 months.

First, CAKE! Gluten free cake made out of coconut flour. I downloaded the recipe in a pdf from Picadilly books, but I can’t find it anywhere on their website or on Amazon right now. I have every intention of buying the book though, because every recipe in it has been a total taste success… something that’s hard to say after tasting some random gluten free baked goods out there. Coconut flour, in my opinion, is the way to go. I think I could make some good change opening a #gf bakery in Calgary using coconut flour. The only issue might be the amount of eggs needed. Wheat intolerance folk will be fiiiiiiiiiiiiine. True celiacs may have problems if they have egg allergies. Which would suck, obviously.

In case Picadilly puts a link up to the innards of the book, this their site. Or maybe you want to read the lonely Amazon review? You’re welcome.

The cake:

Basically, I beat the hell out of the batter in my fancy new 90th Anniversary KitchenAid, divided into two round cakepans lined with parchment paper AND THEN I stuck the two cooked cakes together with (UTTERLY FABULOUS) whipped coconut milk.

Did you know you could even do that? You take a can of coconut milk, throw in some vanilla and (I used) icing sugar and you whip it, whip it good. It doesn’t really take on a whipped creamy consistency until you chill it. I poured what was left of mine after the cake was assembled back into the can and stuck it in the frigo. Because I am brilliant.

There were some slidey issues, but before it went into the fridge things were straightened out. Is that toasted coconut on the top? Oh, why YES! it is.

This cake tastes soooo much better the next day after it has been refridgerated. I’m not sure why. The coconut flour is moist and firm (probably because this cake has oooh, 9 eggs in it). I went with a coconut theme just because I wasn’t sure how much coconut would come through the chocolate in the cake. I really had nothing to worry about.

I used a dirty plate. And put the picture on the internet. To show you the magical dollop of coconut whipped cream. It was divine. Really. Also, the flash was a necessity in the first two pictures. Which is worse than the faint natural light coming from the one window in my subterranean kitchen. But not a lot.

FIN.

Next time, maybe a Hawaii round up or a cookie revelation. Or a post only about my newly acquired love for borscht.

This is an original recipe… meaning I didn’t google anything to see why this might not have worked out before I tried it.

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp butter
• 3 eggs, separated
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 tsp vanilla
  
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 3 tbsp coconut flour

What I did:

I melted the butter and mixed all the ingredients except for the eggs. With the eggs, I only mixed the yolks into my batter at first. I beat the egg whites ’til soft peak stage and then mixed them into the batter right before cooking (ie. after I made a pot of coffee and praised how awesome these were going to turn out).

What happened:

Something completely unphotogenic. Basically, I got nice fluffy waffles. Nice fluffy soggy waffles. Served with fresh organic strawberries and organic nonfat french vanilla yogurt. And maple syrup.

What I’ll try next time:

Brown sugar or regular sugar instead of honey. I think the honey cooks too quickly in the waffle iron and doesn’t provide enough structure. I need some sweetener with stability.

Maybe some more coconut flour?

I thought that beating the egg whites would make the waffles fluffier (i was right!) but maybe their structural integrity was compromised. I might have to try this again without beating the whites. That sounded racist.

Next up: Birthday cake!