Gluten Free Sweet Potato Bundt Cake

Gluten Free Sweet Potato Bundt Cake

Okay, I admit it. I love Fall.

Despite the fact that it means that the warmth of sum­mer is fad­ing quickly, and snow is just around the cor­ner, I take great joy over the crisp­ness of the air, the beau­ti­fully col­ored leaves, the Pump­kin Spice Latte.

And I love it that I get to turn the oven back on and bake! We don’t have air con­di­tion­ing here in the forested moun­tains. While we don’t need it most of the time, it makes it a bit too warm to turn the oven on through­out most of the summer.

My favorite dessert to bake these days is my Sweet Potato Bundt Cake. Oh, and it’s Gluten Free! But, it is so moist and deli­cious, you can’t tell that it is! My motto is that if you have to eat gluten free, you need to enjoy it. Not exactly a catchy phrase, but it works, I sup­pose. I don’t want any of our gluten free fam­ily mem­bers to feel deprived.

cake2

Here’s the recipe for you:

Spray a bundt pan very thor­oughly with a cook­ing spray (like Pam or what­ever you use). Put rice flour in the crevices to pre­vent it from stick­ing on the way out.

Pre­heat oven to 350°F.

If using a Bosch mixer, mix with your cookie whisks:

1 cup soft­ened but­ter
2 cups maple syrup
2 cups mashed sweet pota­toes
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

Then add:
3 cups  freshly ground brown rice flour {I imag­ine you can use the store bought kind if that’s what you have on hand. Haven’t tried it, but in a pinch I would.}
¼ cup tapi­oca flour
2 tsp bak­ing pow­der
1 tsp cin­na­mon
½ tsp bak­ing soda
¼ tsp salt

Pour bat­ter into a 10 inch, greased and floured bundt pan. Bake at 350°F for about 1 hour 20 min­utes, then invert on a serv­ing plate. Serve with freshly whipped cream.

This is an amaz­ingly moist and deli­cious cake. You’ll won­der where it’s been all your life. You’re welcome.

By the way, that pic­ture there at the top? We took that in Eng­land at Stour­head Gar­dens. It was pretty near to where we lived. Remem­ber that part in the 2005 ver­sion of Pride & Prej­u­dice where Mr. Darcy pro­posed to Lizzie in the rain? It hap­pened there. Here’s a lit­tle link I found that shows a lit­tle bit more about it. I haven’t spent any time on the web­site other than this one page, so I can’t vouch for any­thing else that you might find there. And you know how they say that the cam­era can’t quite cap­ture the beauty of a place. Yeah, that too. Amaz­ingly. Truly a part of God’s Mas­ter­piece of Creation!

I’ve linked up at Grow­ing Home , Cor­ner­stone Con­fes­sions & Sim­ply Help­ing Him

The British Are Coming!

The British Are Coming!

Oh, wait. They’re Irish.

Close enough!

Our friends from Eng­land, who actu­ally hail from Ire­land (stay with me here), are arriv­ing tomor­row for a quick and fab­u­lous hol­i­day. And they are bring­ing their chil­dren! My kids haven’t seen them since we lived in Eng­land 9 years ago. Well, except for the two who came and vis­ited us a few years ago. We are over the moon and mak­ing final preps for their visit. I can’t wait to see my dear friend, Angela. I look for­ward to the rein­tro­duc­tion of Pey­ton and “lit­tle Daniel” who is a year older and twice as big as her. {Side note: when we lived in Eng­land, Daniel was the youngest of their fam­ily. Pey­ton called him “Lit­tle Daniel” even though he wasn’t. She was 4. And they were best friends.} I’m sure that we will all have a  snicker or two about those memories.

and there was great joy design

 

Okay, so this verse is taken {way} out of con­text. But this is how I feel.

So, I have been rac­ing around get­ting things caught up and ready for the British Inva­sion. With a smile on my face and a song in my heart.

Next week, I hope to write about my Haz­ardous Jour­ney, which is not to be con­fused with my Husband’s Haz­ardous Jour­ney.

grizzlyAnd hope­fully, I will be drink­ing my favorite tea while I do so.

Have a fab­u­lous weekend!!

Many Lord’s bless­ings be on you and your family.

 

Maybe I’m Not The Only One With Dust Bunnies

Maybe I’m Not The Only One With Dust Bunnies

Remem­ber when I wrote about dust bun­nies and my fan­tasy of hav­ing a blog ded­i­cated to home décor? I’m still work­ing on my issues.

But, I came across two blog posts from The Nester which dis­cusses this very topic. Do you know The Nester? She has one of those great blogs that shows won­der­ful dec­o­rat­ing ideas, but stresses that “It doesn’t have to be per­fect to be beau­ti­ful.” I love her. She speaks my language.

Any­way, I thought I would share the links here so that you can read some of her sim­ple ideas to help your house look even better.

One of her ideas that I par­tic­u­larly loved was the idea that you can take your screens off your win­dows. Okay, I should know this one already. When we lived in Eng­land, we had no screens. I adored not hav­ing screens. Every­thing looked so clear and beau­ti­ful look­ing out. You didn’t have to look through that dark screen to the out­side. It just adds so much more light. But for some rea­son, I never brought the idea back home to the US. Where we live, we don’t really have bugs. Oh, except dur­ing moth sea­son. Hmmm. I’ll have to rethink that one. Think “The Birds” only in minia­ture. Scary. Not that I have actu­ally ever seen “The Birds,” but I can imag­ine. Any­way, if you don’t have a moth sea­son like we do, it might work for you. It’s glorious.

nester windowsthe nester

The first blog post is Three Weird Rea­sons My House Looks Decent Online. I couldn’t help but won­der if she was talk­ing to me. Like she knows I exist. Yeah, prob­a­bly not.

The sec­ond one is actu­ally my favorite of the two: 3 Ways My House Looks Worse In Real Life. Maybe she just makes me feel bet­ter about where I’m at.

nester messythe nester

Oh, and did you see the idea about the fire­place? It points out one impor­tant thing to me: I am a rule fol­lower. Who knew you could take the glass out of the gas fire­place? Seri­ously? I would never have con­sid­ered doing that! But I have always hated that glass. I scowl at it often. It just takes away so much from the effect of the fire­place. I have dreamed of mak­ing that fire­place pretty when not in use. Which is about 6 weeks in the sum­mer, on good years. Assum­ing win­ter ended early and starts late. Yes, I exag­ger­ate. But not by much. I thought I was stretch­ing things when I took all the brass accents and painted them black. I am not a fan of brass. But I love black accents. It made a huge dif­fer­ence. After the fact, we won­dered if we used the right paint, was it going to melt and get paint all over the floor…So far, 6 years later, it is still black and no paint on the floor. I guess we did okay.

So, in addi­tion to learn­ing some great ideas for improv­ing the way my home looks, I also learned that I need to think out­side of the box more.

Which is the cat­a­lyst for another post com­ing soon. I went to Good­will and found some­thing cool. And I am try­ing to think out­side of the box about it. More details to fol­low soon!

My Stint with Comfort Services

My Stint with Comfort Services

My hus­band and I help a tiny bit with our state’s home­school­ing con­fer­ence. We used to be on the con­fer­ence com­mit­tee, but when Mike took over as the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, we stepped down from our Vol­un­teer Chair­per­sons posi­tion. It just seemed like the right thing to do.

This year, the Black For­est Fire hap­pened the same week as the con­fer­ence. The sweet woman who runs the Com­fort Ser­vices posi­tion had to evac­u­ate her home because of the fire. So, since I had noth­ing offi­cial to do, I offered to step in and help out.

I ought to men­tion that a dar­ling 14 year old home­school­ing girl was already on the mis­sion, and was shin­ing ever so brightly in the role. But, it was decided that per­haps I might be of some help.

What impressed me about this par­tic­u­lar posi­tion on our con­fer­ence com­mit­tee is that it is all bonus stuff. It is the fluff, the extra spe­cial things that are intended to make peo­ple feel wel­come and spe­cial. It’s all about hospitality.

Com­fort Ser­vices is respon­si­ble for the Speak­ers’ Lounge, the Ven­dors’ Lounge, the Infant Care room, and the Com­mit­tee Lounge. Each of these rooms has a focus of pro­vid­ing a sort of haven away from the crowds, the noise, the hus­tle and bus­tle of the conference.

So much thought and con­sid­er­a­tion goes into the decor of each room. We have lamps so that our guests {speak­ers, ven­dors, and nurs­ing mamas} don’t have to rest under the harsh flu­o­res­cent light­ing that is every­where else in the con­fer­ence hall. We have real fur­ni­ture, to include soft chairs, rock­ing chairs, and tables that have style.

And we even include cots with blan­kets in the speaker and ven­dor lounges, in small dimly lit rooms off of the main lounges. Con­fer­ences can really take a toll on a per­son, so we like to pro­vide a place where they can rest comfortably.

So, why am I telling you all of this? I’m sure other con­fer­ences do the exact same thing. Surely the ideas didn’t orig­i­nate in Colorado.

I’m men­tion­ing it because it really struck me that these lit­tle things really mat­ter when you are try­ing to con­vey love and care to peo­ple. The money that we spend on these lit­tle niceties could be saved in our pock­ets for some other lofty use. But, then we’d all be labor­ing under flu­o­res­cent light­ing with­out a place to be revived and encour­aged. When peo­ple come to work with our orga­ni­za­tion, we want them to know we appre­ci­ate them, care for them, and will go that extra mile to com­mu­ni­cate this to them.

The same thing goes on in our homes, I would guess. We may not set up cots in a lit­tle dark room {that sounds a bit creepy in this con­text}, but we try to make them com­fort­able, cared for, with their needs met.

I don’t know about you, but when some­one goes out of their way to show that I am appre­ci­ated and loved, even in a very small way, I get all mushy inside and just glow with appre­ci­a­tion. Don’t you?

The folks who run Com­fort Ser­vices sel­dom get a chance to rest. Seems like the cof­fee runs out, the sugar and creamer run out, the cups run out…all day long but never at the same time. The lit­tle snacks must be refreshed and swapped out con­tin­u­ally through­out the day to keep them fresh. It’s a busy job, but one that makes a great impact. My hope, and I am sure the hope of that vision­ary so many years ago, is that those who are blessed by the tiny ges­ture of hos­pi­tal­ity that we showed them will see it as Christ’s grace being extended to them in just a tiny way. I hope that they were refreshed and encour­aged. Not for any glory for our con­fer­ence com­mit­tee, but com­pletely for the glory of God.

As I checked on the var­i­ous rooms that were our respon­si­bil­ity last week­end, I loved walk­ing into the lit­tle infant care rooms. The room always had a cou­ple of moth­ers with their babies, car­ry­ing on con­ver­sa­tions as they met the needs of their babies. Oh, how pre­cious that sight was to me every time I went in. As we were min­is­ter­ing to them, they were min­is­ter­ing to their pre­cious chil­dren. Makes me smile to think about it.

I’m so glad dar­ling 14 year old home­school­ing girls have a lot of energy. And lots of friends. They made such a beau­ti­ful impact on so many lives that weekend.

Gluten Free Blueberry Muffins

Gluten Free Blueberry Muffins

I have been in a rut. When we have com­pany over for a week­end, I seem to so eas­ily slip into the scram­bled eggs, bacon, bagels break­fast rou­tine. It’s quick, easy, but so aver­age. I’m always look­ing for fresh ideas. One thing that has slowed me down a bit is the fact that I have a cou­ple of gluten free chil­dren. So, the eggs and bacon sans the bagel gig works well for that.

Well, I was shop­ping with the girls the other day in the local Barnes & Nobel. Okay, we were there for the blended cof­fee (or non-coffee as the case may be) drinks, but we took a quick gander.

And I found this book.

gf cookbook

The pic­tures alone were worth the cost of the book. They inspired me so much.

So I made the blue­berry muffins last night. Oh joy. Faith told me that they get her vote. This morn­ing she con­fessed that she was on her 9th muf­fin. When I sug­gested that she had had more than enough, she cor­rected her­self down to two. Oh, wait. Three.

It’s hard to keep count.

One thing I have noticed with the suc­cess­ful gluten free recipes is that they all use a flour blend. And nor­mally for things like muffins and cook­ies and cakes it includes sorghum.

And such is the case with this book. They have a mas­ter flour mix recipe at the front of the book which is used in all the bread-type recipes that I saw as I perused through the book. I made a quadru­ple batch of the mix so I have it on hand next time. That will save time in milling the brown rice and sorghum. And, I was out of corn­starch, so I sub­sti­tuted potato starch. It’s obvi­ously quite forgiving.

The blends take a lit­tle bit of time to pre­pare, but they are so worth the effort. You can­not tell that these are gluten free muffins. No grainy taste. You know what I mean if you’ve eaten gluten free box mix muffins. Or even just plain old brown rice flour muffins. The tex­ture isn’t quite right. These are light and fluffy.

Okay, so I want to share the recipe, but my hus­band has advised that I ought not do that. Copy­right laws and all. I really hope you run out to get this book. And, no, they aren’t pay­ing me a dime to tell you this. They don’t know I exist. Even if they did, they still wouldn’t pay me a dime, I’m quite sure.

I learned a few things from this recipe.

One thing I learned is that you should coat the blue­ber­ries lightly with flour before adding them to the bat­ter. The flour coat­ing pre­vents the fruit from sink­ing to the bot­tom of the muffins. OK, am I the only one in the world who didn’t know this?? I had no clue about that, but I will attest to the fact that this is true! It is such a cool trick. Right up there with pulling rab­bits out of hats.

And, it says, like all recipes say that you are to par­tially fill any unused cups with water to pre­vent your muf­fin tins from warp­ing in the oven. So, I knew you were sup­posed to fill the empty cups with water, but I had no idea why. I’ve often skipped that step. This is prob­a­bly why I have warped tins. Don’t be like me.

I didn’t fol­low the recipe exactly. I reread the recipe later and found var­i­ous ways that I did my own thing. And they still turned out great. If I can make these yummy delights turn out well, YOU can do this and become the star baker of your street. Just don’t let Faith know when you’ve made some, or she just might show up on your doorstep for break­fast. Save one (or nine) for her.

But, if you check out this link (just click on the word “link” back there), you will find it on amazon.com. And, it has a “look inside” fea­ture. You will find a ton of great info, includ­ing her arti­san gluten free flour blend (on page 16)! And, keep scrolling for more recipes, includ­ing cin­na­mon rolls (but not the blue­berry muffins, although you do get to see the fan­tas­tic pho­tog­ra­phy which cap­tures the muffins).

Any­way, I wanted to share this gem of a cook­book that I found this week. Do you have a favorite cook­book that you’d be will­ing to tell me about? It doesn’t have to be gluten free. Leave me a note in the com­ments! I love cook­books, and I’m always look­ing for a new one, even if it is just checked out from the library.

cookbook shelf

I would love to share a muf­fin with you, but, well, they are nearly all gone… that Faith.

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