Natural Parenting Blog Party, continued: What's a Party Without Cake?

I am having so, so much fun participating in the blog party hosted by Jenny, the Peaceful Housewife.  I have been able to meet some amazing new bloggers and learn more about some of my favorites.  But now, I am going to brag just a little:  I get to meet up with the Peaceful Housewife, Littlemama Midwife and Gentle Mom in Training for a real party next week!  I am so excited!  And I am bringing cake.  :)

If you read our answers to Jenny's questions, one thing stands out that we all have in common:  a love for chocolate.  I love cake, too.  It relaxes me to fix cakes.  Eating them isn't bad, either.  Last summer, I started fixing what I think of as Amaya's birthday cake.  It is a chocolate layer cake with cheesecake and cherries between the layers.  I had planned to work on it during early labor so that when she was born, we could all share a celebratory cake.  It didn't quite turn out that way, but I still associate it with her, which is funny now since she cannot tolerate chocolate.   Pobrecita.  She will grow out of that, I hope.

I've mentioned all the other food allergies we have dealt with before.  This cake is egg-free, dairy-free if you use frosting instead of cheesecake, and wonder of wonders, actually works gluten-free, too!  The GF part still amazes me, because nearly every recipe I found was either EF *or* GF, but not both.  This was my go-to cake for the kidlets when they were small, although it is delicious with regular flour, too.

Amaya's Birthday Cake

3 C flour (regular or GF.  When we were GF, I just used a mixture of 2 1/4 C white rice flour with 3/4 tapioca flour)
2 C sugar
1/2 C cocoa powder (really chocolatey, but that is always good)
1 C mini chocolate chips (DF)
2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp vanilla
2 tsp vinager
2 C cold coffee
2/3 C minus 2 tsps of canola oil
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Cheesecake filling (if you are in a hurry and don't mind a little junk food, you can use 1 1/2 tubs of premade cheesecake filling.  Otherwise, mix cream cheese, vanilla and powdered sugar). Fresh cherries and berries or 1 jar of cherry preserves for topping.
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If you are going dairy free, forget the cheesecake filling and instead mix 1/2 C cocoa with 2 lbs powdered sugar, a good splash of vanilla and 1/4 C of shortening.  Add a little coffee if it is too thick.
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Preheat oven to 350*, and grease and sugar 2 8" round cake pans.  Mix dry ingredients, including chocolate chips, then add wet ingredients.  Mix and pour evenly into pans.  Bake for 25-30 minutes.  Cool.  Once the cake is cool, cut carefully into layers.  Place bottom layer on your serving platter and spread it with frosting or cheesecake filling.  If you are using fresh fruit, add some between the layers.  If you are using preserves, only put them on the top layer or it will cause them to slide apart.  Add another layer of cake and another layer of filling or frosting, and repeat.  For the top layer, either cover it in frosting or cheesecake filling and fresh fruit, or warm a jar of cherry preserves, stir well and pour over the top of the cake.  Any extra can be drizzled over individual slices of cake.  (Somehow, I always make the top of the frosting look messy, so I like this method a lot.)

I wish you could enjoy it with us, but I am sure that we will all eat a slice in your honor.  :)

Best ever vegan strawberry cupcakes

As a small child, I once ingested a large bite of strawberry-flavored chapstick.  From then on, I avoided anything strawberry as even the smell was nauseating.  Fortunately, as I got older and tasted more real strawberries, I discovered that my aversion was only to the nasty, artificially flavored stuff.  My birthday girl made these cupcakes for her seventh birthday, and they were so yummy that we didn't have leftovers, despite making a full batch!

Ariana's Vegan Strawberry Cupcakes

1 12 oz package frozen strawberries, thawed
1 1/4 C coconut milk (can use regular milk)
2/3 C shortening or butter
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 C sugar
1 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
2 3/4 C flour

Preheat oven to 375 and spray or line muffin tins.  Mix dry ingredients in a bowl.  Add the first four ingredients to a blender and puree.  Pour contents of blender into bowl with cry ingredients and mix well.  Fill muffin tins about 2/3 full and bake for 28 minutes.  Cool on rack.  Makes 24.

Frosting:

2 lbs powdered sugar
1/4 C butter-flavored Crisco
1/3 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
about half a package of frozen strawberries (around 6 oz).

Puree strawberries in blender and then mix with remaining ingredients.   You may want to adjust the amount of powdered sugar to desired consistency.  Frost cooled cupcakes, and refrigerate any leftover frosting (or eat it with a spoon :shifty eyes:).

I wish I had more/better pics, but just grabbed this with my phone before they disappeared.  I might have to make another batch so that I can properly illustrate this post...

Decadently Rich Pumpkin Fudge Cake (DF/EF/etc)

Joelito, our three-year-old pastry chef, came up with this version this morning. This moist cake is like melted Mexican chocolate, and allergy-friendly, too! I know that baking is supposed to be very precise, but as I've mentioned before, sometimes his enthusiasm gets the better of him.

1 C pumpkin
1 C apple cider
1/2 C brown sugar
1/2 C sugar
generous amount of pumpkin pie spice (Joel emptied the can, but it was almost gone anyway--maybe 2 tsp?)
several shakes of allspice
2 3/4 C flour (if gluten-free you can sub most GF mixes and the cake still comes out well, a rarity with egg-free cakes! We usually used 2 C rice flour and 2/3 C tapioca flour.)
1 C dairy-free chocolate chips
1/2 C canola oil
1 tsp salt
scant Tbsp baking powder

Mix well, pour into a greased and floured 9x13 pan and bake at 350 for about 45 minutes.

While the cake is baking, we mixed sugar, cocoa and Smart Balance light and boiled it like you would for a fudge sauce. Remove from heat, add a Tbsp of coffee and good splash of vanilla and stir well. Pour over the warm cake when it comes out of the oven.

It is the perfect autumn chocolate and spice combination. Yum!

The most amazing scones ever!

Normally, I like scones, but would never rave about them. Sadly, my previous encounters were generally with the heavy coffeehouse variety that were OK slathered in whipped cream, but then again, I might eat cardboard if the toppings were good enough. Joelito wanted to try out a new recipe this morning so we mixed these up, and oh, my! They are flaky, tender, surprisingly light, and scrumptious without even a speck of whipped cream. I adapted the recipe from the breastfeeding.com cookbook, and the original version was submitted by TunaQueen. I'm going to include our version of it:

2 C flour
2-3 Tbsp sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3/4 C buttermilk
2 Tbsp apple sauce
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 C butter
1/2 pkg mini chocolate chips
2/3 C dried mixed berries

Preheat oven to 375. Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl. Mix wet ingredients (I just added the rest to the cup I measured the milk in). Crumble the butter into the dry ingredients (Joel prefers to grate it in with a large grater). Pour wet ingredients into the bowl and stir until JUST combined. Turn onto a floured surface and knead 10 times. Split dough in two and pat into circles. Cut each circle into 8 wedges. Brush lightly with milk and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 18 minutes until just turning golden. Remove and cool on rack.

They were fabulous!

My favorite new holiday recipes

First, a disclaimer. With our allergy issues, we do mostly from-scratch cooking. This is great, and it has helped me become a better cook, etc, etc. Whatever. At holiday time, I am a mom with three kids under five, and I take any shortcuts I can find. I like these enough not to bother to ever do a completely from scratch version.

In the refrigerated section with the croissant dough, they have cans of Recipe Creations dough, which is just the croissant stuff without being pre-cut. A can of croissant dough would work, but you'd just have to pinch it together where it has been pre-cut. Again, this is about shortcuts. Puff pastry would be far better, but is more expensive, and I am cheap.

You also need cream cheese, sugar, a few more toppings and your imagination. A pizza cutter and a pan for 24 mini-muffins are helpful, but you could make do with a knife and 2 12-count mini-muffin pans. Finally, a couple of ziploc sandwich bags are easier than a spoon. (Reference the previous comment regarding shortcuts).

Preheat the oven to 375. Whip the cream cheese and sugar until well-blended (I use about 1/3 cup of sugar--adjust to your own taste). Unroll the croissant dough and use a pizza cutter to cut it into 24 squares. Place 1 square into each muffin well (the points will spill out a little. That's OK). Now the fun part! The kids loved helping with these.

Mix any desired flavorings into the cream cheese mixture, then put it into a baggie. Cut the corner of the baggie and squirt it into each croissant square. Add your favorite topping and bake for 15 minutes. Remove each little pastry and place on a rack to cool so that they don't get soggy.

There are so many possibilities. We added a splash of Godiva cappuccino liqueur to the cream cheese and topped it with dark chocolate chips. Yummmmmmmm. This morning we just did a vanilla cream cheese with wild blueberries on top (Ariana's favorite) and the same vanilla mixture topped with a homemade pumpkin pie filling (Joel's favorite). I want to try some almond cream cheese mixture with a cherry topping, too. Or peaches or apricots with nutmeg or cinnamon in the cream cheese? Apples, of course. Maybe a chocolate cream cheese mixture with a caramel in each one would be good, too. You could also do a savory version with ham and provolone (maybe a hint of mustard?), or maybe a sausage with red peppers, onions and cheddar...

I think further experiments are definitely in order.

Better-than-peanut-butter cookies

Today has been a good day. It started off with lots of snuggles and a delightful thunderstorm. Ariana got very excited about schoolwork, and practiced writing and a little math. She and Joel both drew and colored, on paper this time (they much prefer to color themselves. Last night they were covered with multicolor "chicken pox"). They played on the computer for awhile. Elena was unusually fussy today, but has been happier this afternoon. Lunch was veggie quesadillas. Overall just a normal day. I did a couple of loads of dishes and one of diapers. Then Joel and I decided to do our version of peanut-butter cookies. Here's the recipe we used:

1 stick butter
1/2 C brown sugar (maybe a little more--Joel gets enthusiastic)
scant 1/2 C white sugar (to compensate for the aforementioned enthusiasm)
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp? vanilla (more enthusiasm)
Slightly over half a bag of white chocolate chips (ditto)
Approximately half a cup of crunchy Sunbutter. If you are unfamiliar with it, it is made from sunflower seeds in a peanut-free facility and is perfect for those with peanut allergies. We put a little over a half cup in, but Joel stuck a finger in and tasted it, then scooped out a generous spoonful for himself.
1 C rice flour
1/3 C tapioca flour
2 tsp? of baking powder (Joel was excited here because it was almost time to put everything in the oven)
Mix well, and bake at 350 for about 30 minutes. They were really crumbly at first because we didn't let them cool, but once cool they were perfect!

Tea and crumpets

Well, actually, we had tea and toasted muffins, but I'm sure it was as authentic as some of the "Mexican" food is here. The whole house smells like apples, cinnamon and nutmeg, brown sugar and vanilla...mmmmmmm. Ariana and Joel did the work while I directed, and the muffins are yummy. Here is the recipe we used:

1 1/2 C white rice flour
1/2 C tapioca flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 T baking powder
several shakes of cinnamon
a few shakes of nutmeg
about 1 C applesauce
3 T brown sugar
3 T melted butter
a large splash of vanilla (around 2 T???)
about 2/3 C milk
about 1/2 C of dried cranberries, blueberries and cherries

Stir dry ingredients together, then add wet ingredients. Spoon into well-greased muffin tins (should be full) and bake for about 25 minutes at 400. Serve with butter and brown sugar, and a lovely cup of hot tea with cream and sugar. The recipe made 6 large muffins, with a little batter left over that we fried up like pancakes but with a little extra butter. They were puffy and crispy and absolutely delicious. Real crumpets are made with yeast, but the pancakes looked similar to pictures of crumpets because of the extra baking powder. Ariana's favorite tea is Earl Grey, and the bergamot is really good with the spices and berries in the muffins. You can tell from the lack of precision in the measurements that Joel sometimes got very excited and dumped things in. :D