Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Success! Have I mentioned that I love having an oven that works?  These cookies (recipe here) taste amazing, and are going to be perfect for s'mores, ice cream sandwiches or anything else that's sweet and needs a gluten-free substitute.

Before baking, I usually make sure that all of my gluten-full food is put away (I do have guests from time to time, and a husband that is not gluten-free). Then I wipe the counters and bake ware and clean out my mixer. I make sure to also use a fresh clean plate to set utensils on...Just in case. I have not had issues with cross contamination for quite a while, and the plate actually helps a lot with clean-up. If splitting a recipe (half gluten-free and half regular), I make sure to bake the gluten-free food first and completely cool and store it in airtight containers before starting to bake with the regular flour. I am careful to fold flour mixes before really beating recipes, and this keeps the wheat flour from flying into the air.  

 The hardest part is remembering not to taste-test...

Cookies for S'mores!

Summer is (finally) here in North Dakota, and I'm going to a S'more party Friday night. Since I won't be able to use regular graham crackers, I'm planning on just making chocolate chip cookies instead, using this recipe:

Chocolate Chip Cookies
1/2 cup butter (margarine if you must)
2/3 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar, packed
2 tsp vanilla (I use Watkins!)
2 eggs
1/4 cup apple juice
4 cups Domata Living Flour (so far, it's my favorite mix!)
1 pkg (small-sized) vanilla pudding mix
1 tsp salt
2 tsp soda
chocolate and butterscotch chips to taste

Mix the butter and shortening together, then add sugars and cream together.
Add the vanilla, eggs and apple juice and mix together.
In a separate bowl, mix the flour, pudding mix, salt and soda together. Add this to the batter.
Add chips and mix.
Bake at 350 for 11 minutes.

If I don't eat them all first, I'll post pictures of both the cookies and s'mores! I am in my new apartment now - with an oven that shuts and heats properly - so I should be able to post pictures :) Some of the previous attempts at food were yummy, but not pretty enough to post...

Birthday Cake

Today is my dad's birthday. Happy Birthday Dad!!!  My family loves cake (and all desserts for that matter) and once again there was a dillema about the cake. Some would concede to the fact that cake is not necessary - but not in this family. I have found that making GF cupcakes (and frosting them first) is a great way to mark which cake I can eat. We do not need a whole GF cake when I am the only one eating it.

So we pulled out a local church cookbook and found a recipe for chocolate cake. It tastes delicious, but it fell. I'm going to try it again with additional flour before posting the recipe becuase the cakes fell, but it's delicious and the cream-cheese frosting makes it even better.

Mom says she can't tell, and everyone else likes them too. I told them they had to save a few for me to eat tonight :)

Cake crisis averted successfully.

Now it's time to marinade the steaks.