To Bless A Homemaker Christmas Giveaway!!!

To Bless A Homemaker Christmas Giveaway!!!

gvDon’t you just love your home­mak­ing hat? It brings me such joy to serve my fam­ily while I’m serv­ing din­ner and desserts and love. Hav­ing good tools in the kitchen is so impor­tant as we tackle these tasks every­day. So, with that in mind, who’s ready to win a KitchenAid mixer? It’s so easy.  Sev­eral blog­gers and small busi­ness own­ers got together to make this give­away possible.

kitchenaidYou have so many ways to enter, boost­ing your chances of win­ning. And while you are at it, lik­ing Face­book pages and sub­scrib­ing to blogs and such, be sure to take a moment to see what these ladies have on their sites, on their blogs, and maybe even say hello. I know they would appre­ci­ate it! And I sure do believe you will be abun­dantly blessed to be intro­duced to some new blogs and busi­nesses! Such a won­der­ful group of ladies.

The give­away runs this week, from Dec 9th-Dec 13th. If you win, you can keep it for your­self, or gift it to some­one you love. May the Lord bless you this Christ­mas sea­son. And may you find joy in your homemaking!

a Raf­fle­copter give­away

 

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

Gluten Free Bread {that actually tastes good}

Gluten Free Bread {that actually tastes good}

Appar­ently a rumor has been swirling around about me. And my bread. The word on the street is that peo­ple like it.

I know my fam­ily does. They actu­ally pre­fer it to reg­u­lar bread. I make it and they eat all the loaves up within min­utes. Well, maybe not that fast for all of it. I bake in bulk. The first loaf is gone before it has had a chance to cool. The oth­ers might last a cou­ple of days beyond that.

And I’m just as bad as the rest of them.

Which is why I don’t bake bread  nearly often enough, and my gluten free girls are left to cope with the store bought card­board that passes as gluten free bread. I’m not the least bit tempted by that stuff.

But, today I decided we needed some real bread. It isn’t too warm out­side, so every­thing seemed per­fect. {We have no air con­di­tion­ing, so this is an impor­tant fac­tor in August.} What excuse did I have?

Other than the fact that I was pack­ing for a camp­ing trip. And needed to make a meal for Sun­day. And we have com­pany com­ing to our house the day after we get home.

But that tends to be my nor­mal life. It’s how I roll.

And, I thought that while I was at it, I’d share the recipe with you. It’s not my own. I took a gluten free bak­ing class, and the woman who teaches it tweaked and tweaked until she came up with this star of a recipe. She should take a bow. She gives the recipe out freely to all who ask. I love her.

So here it is for you:

Gluten Free Bread

*Note: I mill my own rice flour, which makes it extra fresh and soft. I haven’t tried it with store bought rice flour, but if that’s all you have, it’s worth a shot!

Pre­heat oven to 375 degrees

Grind 3 cups brown rice
In large mixer, use your cookie pad­dles and add:

2 cups warm almond milk (or water)
1/2 cup maple syrup, honey, or agave (I use the maple syrup)
1 stick of soft but­ter (or 3/4 c light olive oil)
**Note: Here, I just put all the above ingre­di­ents in a saucepan, melt the but­ter, and warm the rest. Not to hot though, as that would kill the yeast.
3 eggs, room tem­per­a­ture
ground flaxseeds (I just fill up my seed/coffee grinder, mill what­ever it holds, and add that amount. This is an extra, optional ingre­di­ent, so you can add as much/little as you like.)
1 1/2 tsp salt
3 1/4 c freshly ground rice flour
1/4 c tapi­oca flour
1/2 c raw mil­let (optional, only if you like crunch, which we love)
5 tsp SAF instant yeast
1 Tbsp Xan­than Gum
a squirt or so of lemon juice (to keep the bread fresh longer)

Mix all ingre­di­ents in mixer for about 4 min­utes. Spoon into (2) 8″ well oiled loaf pans and smooth the top of the dough. Let rise for about an hour. When plac­ing bread in oven, reduce tem­per­a­ture to 350* for 45 min­utes. Use a read ther­mome­ter to test the inter­nal tem­per­a­ture, which should read at least 190*F. {I don’t actu­ally do this step, but that’s how you can tell if it is done if you are unsure.}

Optional: Add 1/4 cup Potato Starch in the place of the tapi­oca starch.
Throw in a well ripened banana if one is sit­ting on your counter.
If you add 1 cup of pureed pump­kin, add 1/2 c addi­tional rice flour.

That’s it! It’s pretty easy.

I store my bread on the counter in a plas­tic bag. No need to refrig­er­ate it. And it stays moist and fresh. This is great slic­ing bread for sandwiches.

If you try it, let me know what you think. Also, feel free to ask me any ques­tions you have about it, although it’s pretty forgiving.

My girls gig­gled this morn­ing when they saw the fresh loaves of bread I baked after they went to bed last night. The first loaf is already gone.

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