Comforting, Simple ... Pumpkin Pie Snack Cake

Dear readers ... Is it over? Are you still here, reading once in a while? Did 2013 end? Did it really end with my last post on another pumpkin recipe more than two months ago? I'm not sure I even have enough good recipes from 2013 to do my annual "top 10" list!

Was 2013 a good year for you? Oh, how I pray it was! If not, would you like to join me in a toast to 2014 with high hopes of a much, much better year?

I've started to type out a post or a recipe for you on several occasions, but I have to admit my heart wasn't much in it. My blog's biggest fan no longer here, and all I've been doing trying to juggle my work schedule around a first-time home school schedule and just LIFE these days ... it's been hard some days to do anything but *not* feed (again) my family grits and eggs, or eggs and toast, or cereal, or pancakes, or a casserole that lasts several days - so the times when I have made a meal or a treat worth sharing and then actually remembered to take a photo of it or write the recipe down have been limited.

My youngest sustained a traumatic injury the day after Thanksgiving and spent three days in the hospital, as well as a few hours in surgery. The weeks following were a blur of little to no sleep, going between shaking my fist at heaven and being so incredibly thankful that it wasn't worse, and just generally trying to keep my head above water. We are so thankful that she is okay. She will need a little more work done, but she is OKAY. She is healthy and happy. We are blessed.

But ... I'm SO TIRED of saying, "This too shall pass," secretly wondering in the moment if it really will, while at the same time feeling guilty because I know so many have it worse. So. Many. Have. It. Worse.

Enough.

It's too much.

I'm ready for unending moments of saying, "I don't want this to pass." Moments I want to sit in and savor. I know life doesn't work that way with those moments unending, but I wish it did. And I guess if I'm honest with myself, I realize it's up to me to acknowledge the little daily blessings that I can make into little moments worth savoring for a while, even if it's just a minute or two here and there.

(What do you do to help with your daily perspective on this? I'd love to hear.)

I'm hoping I will this year gain inspiration once again to list my blessings and to deliberately find beauty, whether it's in the form of pen or photo, or both. It's not something I need inspiration for, I guess. I just need to do it.

Baby steps.

I find beauty in my family. The small hands that draw sweet pictures and make messes and sneak snacks.

There is much to be thankful for. And I've needed simple lately to keep it in perspective.

This cake is simple. It's wonderfully easy and delicious enough for this entire huge pan to not last a full day. (I've made it more than once.) Yes, it's pumpkin and yes, it could be used as a holiday treat. But who cares? It's still cold outside and it's yummy. And would be equally yummy on a hot summer day. Maybe topped with ice cream.

It's not that "healthy" for your body, but it is comforting for your soul. It was born out of a need one morning to find "comfort food" out of ingredients I had on hand without working too hard for it. One of those experiments thrown together with nothing else but a thought that it might work. A little of this, a dash of that and a lot of expecting to open the oven door to a gooey disaster. It was anything but.

Easy Pumpkin Pie Snack Cake
(Printable recipe)

2 large eggs
15 oz. pureed pumpkin
14 oz. sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup pecans, chopped (if you have a stand mixer, let the mixer break them up for you - see below)
1 1/2 cups Pamela's Baking & Pancake Mix
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
Dash of allspice
Small pinch of cardamom

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease 9x13 baking pan.

Into small mixing bowl, sift together baking mix and spices. Set aside.

Into large mixing bowl, add eggs, pumpkin, condensed milk and brown sugar. If you are using a stand mixer, also add pecans if they are whole and use the paddle attachment to mix everything together at low speed and let the paddle break up the pecans. If you have pecans already chopped, leave them out for now.

Add dry ingredients to pumpkin mixture and mix well until all combined. If you haven't added your pecans yet, do it now.

Pour into baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes, or until cake springs back when lightly touched.

Cool in pan on wire rack. Enjoy warm or room temperature.

Date Pecan Bundt Cake with Orange Glaze

This cake is good. Really good. It only lasted a day in our house - a few bites here, a few bites there for dessert and snack and then a few slices toasted for breakfast the next morning (served with some eggs, of course). It was gone, and as I'm typing this and listening to election coverage at the same time, I'm in desperate need of another slice ...

You'll notice that the title says this is a bundt cake, but the pictures don't tell that truth. Something happened to my bundt pan and when I finally had the last-minute chance to make this cake, I didn't have time to get another one. I don't recommend you using your angel food cake tube pan for this recipe, but that's what I did. It was a huge mistake as I lost a bit of batter from the bottom of the pan as the batter started getting hot and rising. Thankfully I was able to clean it up from the bottom before the cake had a chance of falling and put some aluminum foil down for the rest of the drippings - and salvaged everything without that dreaded smoke taste!

Many thanks to Adina from Gluten Free Travelette for hosting our Gluten-Free Ratio Rally this month and giving us the challenge of bundt cakes. Be sure to check out her delicious cake as well as the cakes the other participants have baked up for you. They all look amazing and you don't want to miss them! 

If you aren't familiar with the rally, you can check out my rally page here, where I list the other rally posts and find out why we are so excited about the freedom we've discovered in our kitchens when we bake by weight and ratio.

Logo designed by Anile Prakash

I chose the flavors in this cake because I was craving a dessert my grandmother makes (I really need to give you that recipe one day - it's incredible!) and with the holidays coming up, wanted to add a festive twist to the flavor with the orange glaze. I used Ruhlman's ratio for pound cake, which is 1 part butter: 1 part sugar: 1 part egg: 1 part flour, but reduced the amount of butter by a fourth and was pleased to see it still came out delicious. It really has a perfect texture that I was very pleased with.

Date Pecan Bundt Cake with Orange Glaze

(Printable Recipe)

6 ounces butter (1 1/2 sticks), at room temperature

8 ounces (228 grams) sugar

1 teaspoon salt

8 ounces egg (4 large eggs plus 1 large yolk), at room temperature and whisked lightly together

1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

2.5 ounces (71 grams) tapioca starch

1 ounce (27 grams) almond flour

1 ounce (27 grams) sweet rice flour

1.5 ounces (42 grams) millet flour

2 ounces (54 grams) brown rice flour

1 1/2 teaspoons ground chia seed

1 cup chopped dates (chop them yourself for best results and don't use the already chopped stuff)

1/2 cup chopped pecans

Orange glaze:

1/4 cup refined sugar

3 tablespoons orange juice

Zest of an orange

1/4 cup powdered sugar

2 tablespoons orange juice

Preheat over to 325 degrees and butter a bundt pan.

Mix flours together with ground chia seed.

Beat butter with paddle attachment in stand mixer (or however you mix if you don't have a stand mixer) at medium speed for about a minute. 

Add the sugar and salt, then beat on medium-high until butter mixture becomes fluffy and lighter in color (about three minutes). Scrape bowl if necessary.

Have your eggs ready and lightly whisked together, then slowly add them to the butter mixture, continuing to beat until they are mixed in. Scrape bowl and mix a little more. Scrape again and mix in the vanilla.

Slowly add the flour with the mixer going at low speed. Scrape bowl and mix again just until everything is mixed together.

Pour batter into pan and bake at 325 for about 50 minutes to an hour. Cake is done when toothpick inserted into middle comes out clean. Let cake sit for 5-10 minutes, then turn onto plate and cool on wire rack to cool completely.

For glaze, heat refined sugar and zest with orange juice until bubbling and sugar is dissolved, then add powdered sugar and more orange juice. After cake has cooled, spoon over top and sides, letting sauce saturate the top of cake.

Enjoy!

Don't forget to stop by Adina's post and check out her cake as well as the other cakes this rally. Thank you again, Adina!

Apple Almond Cake | Heather | Discovering the Extraordinary

Blueberry Molasses Bundt Cake | Jenn | Jenn Cuisine

Gluten Free Mini Vanilla Chai Bundt Cakes | Mary Fran | Frannycakes

Pear & Cardamom Spiced Bundt Cake | Rebecca | Salts Kitchen

Spiced Sweet Potato Bundt Cake | Brooke | B & The Boy

Spiked Egg Nog Bundt Cake with Vanilla Bourbon Glaze | Charissa | Zest Bakery

Torta di Mele (Apple Cake) and A Family Farm in Tuscany (and giveaway!)

It's officially fall, and apples abound. Why don't you pull up a chair and join me with a cup of coffee or tea - or cider, perhaps? - and a slice of this authentic Italian torta di mele (apple cake), made gluten-free just for you (and me)?

We'll sink into contentment as we peruse the pages of an incredible, unique book. A cookbook that doesn't just give you recipes and a little story here and there but actually transports you to another place and another time at Fattoria Poggio Alloro - a family farm in Tuscany - season by season, month by month.

Sarah Fioroni, the chef, cooking instructor and sommelier who brings us this feast of a book for the eyes, mouth and mind, won't disappoint you with this treasure she shares. Stay tuned to the end of this post to find out how you can win a copy of "A Family Farm in Tuscany: Recipes and Stories from Fattoria Poggio Alloro"

Sarah Fioroni. Photo by Dario Fusar of Organic Gardening

I was delighted when my good friend and college roommate, Ginny from Cooking with Chopin, Living with Elmo, asked me if I'd like to participate in this world blogging book tour of "A Family Farm in Tuscany." Ginny's lovely and talented mother, Kathy Shearer of Shearer Publishing, is the publisher of this cookbook.

I knew it would be interesting from what Ginny had told me, but I must tell you I was honestly blown away by this book. I love cookbooks and own a great deal of them, but until now I haven't owned one quite like this. Not only are the pages filled with photos of the countryside ...

Photo by Oriano Stefan

... farm ...

Photo by Oriano Stefan

... restaurant, buildings, city ...

Photo by Oriano Stefan

... animals, food ...

Photo by Emiko Davies

... and more, but Sarah manages to bring the reader into her world. She fills the pages with her family's story beginning as sharecroppers on the farm to purchasing the farm and making it their life - an organic, self-sustaining farm, business, retreat and home. She shares a rich culture, history of the area and gives us a generous glimpse into life on the farm and in the restaurant every month of the year while at the same time sharing recipes she and her family prepare that month.

Sarah's father, Amico Fioroni. Photo by Maggie Shearer Smith

It's the ultimate cook-by-the-season book, using local foods. In fact, the main ingredients are nearly all produced on the farm - down to the honey and saffron. They even make their own pasta, olive oil and wine available for purchase.

Photo by Oriano Stefan

Speaking of honey, Sarah tells us a story of a children's class coming for a tour of the farm and a persistent little girl's questions about the bees. I'd love to type it all out here and let you enjoy the laugh I got, too (it reminds me of my own girls' questions), but as this post is already becoming quite long I'll have to let you enjoy the laugh with your own copy. (If you don't win it below, you can purchase it here.)

I'm not the only one in the family enjoying this book. My husband's great-grandparents came to the U.S. from Italy, so he has had several moments of relaxing through the pages with great interest himself. I've walked into the room on several occasions to find one or both of my daughters flipping through it, as well.

It's so much more than a cookbook. It's a journal. A memoir. Travel guide. Picture book. It's a lesson in history and culture of an area many of us dream of visiting one day.

And can we just talk about the food in this book for a minute? The. Food. *sigh*

Much of it is naturally gluten-free (hello, fennel salad ... be still, my heart!) but when it isn't as in this cake, or the pasta dishes, you can just switch out the flours or the type of pasta. This recipe is purely Sarah's with the exception of the gluten-free substitutes of flours and ground chia seed, which are entirely mine.

Torta di Mele (Apple Cake)
(Printable Recipe)

Makes one 8-inch cake, about 8 servings

3 eggs
1 cup (200 g) sugar
30 grams almond flour*
30 grams millet flour*
60 grams brown rice flour*
60 grams tapioca starch/flour*
1 1/4 teaspoons ground chia seed*
1/2 cup (120 ml) whole milk
2 1/2 tablespoons (40 ml) butter, melted
2 teaspoons (10 g) baking powder
1/2 teaspoon (3 ml) vanilla
3 medium apples, about 1 3/4 pounds (800 g), peeled, cored, and cut into wedges 1/8 inch (3 mm) thick
Powdered sugar as garnish
Vanilla ice cream (optional)
(*Sarah's original non-GF recipe calls for 1 1/2 cups or 180 g unbleached all-purpose flour rather than these flours and ground chia seed)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

Butter and flour an 8-inch (20 cm) springform pan, tapping the pan to remove excess flour; set aside. (Caneel's note: My springform pan is larger than this, so I used a regular 8-inch round and generously buttered it and lined the bottom with parchment paper.)

Combine the eggs and sugar in bowl of electric mixer. (Caneel's note: I used paddle attachment.) Beat at medium-high speed for 5 minutes, or until pale lemon in color and thickened. Gradually add the flour, milk, and butter, stopping to scrape down the sides of bowl after each addition. Beat at low speed until each ingredient is blended, then increase speed to medium high and beat for 3 minutes. Add the baking powder and vanilla and beat an additional 2 minutes to blend well.

Turn batter out into the prepared pan. Arrange the apple slices vertically, with the core side down, in concentric circles in the batter, beginning with the outside edge of the pan and continuing to the center. The arrangement of the apples should resemble a rose in full bloom. (Caneel's note: I'm sure I didn't do this decoration justice, at all, in my blundering attempts of this.)

Bake in preheated oven for about 50 minutes, or until a wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean and apples are lightly browned.

Remove from oven and cool for 10- minutes. Remove the sides of the springfom pan. To serve, cut the warm cake into slices, then scatter powdered sugar over each serving. Add a scoop of vanilla ice cream to each serving, if desired.

(Caneel's note: This cake is amazing. My entire family loved it, and we thought it was equally good warm and cooled off.)

If you can't wait until you get the book to find out more about Fattoria Poggio Alloro, you can visit their website here. I also understand the farm will also have their pastas, wine and olive oil available for purchase in the United States through this website, which will be live later this week. If you want to follow more of Sarah, you can see her book tour schedule and ask her questions on her Facebook page here.

Be sure to stop by Ginny's blog here to see what other bloggers all over the world have to say about "A Family Farm in Tuscany," and what recipe they chose to prepare from the book.

***Now for instructions on how you can win this amazing cookbook:

This giveaway is for one copy of  "A Family Farm in Tuscany: Recipes and Stories from Fattoria Poggio Alloro" and the entry period begins today, October 29, 2012 and will end on Monday, Nov. 5, 2012 at 12:00 p.m. (noon) CST. The winner will be picked through the Random Sequence Generator on Random.org.

*******THE GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED. CONGRATULATIONS TO CINDY FOR WINNING THE BOOK! I WILL CONTACT YOU TO LET YOU KNOW. THANKS TO ALL WHO PARTICIPATED!*********

You are eligible for up to seven entries in this giveaway. To enter:

1. Leave a comment on this post telling me your favorite food season (only one comment per person will be counted this way, and this counts as one entry).

Additional entries may be earned by leaving a comment EACH TIME you do one of the following (you get an entry for each one only if you leave a comment for each):

2. "Like" Mama Me Gluten Free on Facebook (if you already "like" the blog on Facebook, that also counts as an entry) and leave a comment here telling me you've done this.

3. Follow @MamaMeGF on Twitter (if you already follow, that counts as an entry), then leave a comment here telling me you've done this.

4. Share this giveaway on Facebook with a link to this post, and leave a comment here telling me you've done this.

5. Share this giveaway on Twitter: "I want to win A Family Farm in Tuscany @MamaMeGF! http://bit.ly/UXlrRC " and then leave a comment here telling me you've done this.

6. Subscribe to Mama Me Gluten Free RSS feed, then leave a comment here telling me you've done this. (If you already subscribe, then that counts too - just leave a comment letting me know!)

7. "Like" Sarah's page on Facebook and then leave a comment here telling me you've done this. 

You must leave a comment on this post for each of things if you want an entry for each one. Only one comment per item per person will be counted. In other words, if you comment more than one time saying you "like" Mama Me on facebook, only one of those comments will be counted, etc. On the other hand, if you only leave one comment saying you did all of these things, you will only get one entry rather than seven.
********Be sure to leave a contact email if you are posting anonymously or don't have a way to contact you listed in your profile!

Good luck! 

*In the interest of full disclosure, Shearer Publishing provided a copy of this book for my review. I was not compensated in any other way, and the opinions of this book and recipe are entirely my own. In addition, the book for the giveaway is provided by Shearer Publishing.

Angel Food Cake "Pudding" with Fresh Cherry Sauce

Okay, so I didn't really come up with a fantastic new angel food cake pudding. The title should read "FAILED" angel food cake ... but it reminded me more of a sticky toffee pudding consistency, or a yummy dense bread pudding, with the angel food cake flavor and a bit of the fluffy texture. Just a bit.

Logo designed by Anile Prakash

It's the Gluten-Free Ratio Rally again (many thanks to Caleigh of GlutenFreek for hosting us this month - see her host post where she gives links to the others here and below!). If you aren't familiar with the rally yet - or ratios (those magical numbers that give you ultimate freedom in the kitchen!) - you can check out my rally page here where I link to the first rally post written by Shauna of Gluten-Free Girl as well as provide links to all the other rally challenge posts I've written (and also include links for the three rallies I've now missed).

For this challenge, I used Ruhlman's angel food cake ratio of 3:3:1 (3 parts egg white: 3 parts sugar: 1 part flour).

Since I've missed the last two challenges due to summer travels and was home again (and away again by the time you read this!) for a little while, I thought I'd better get back into the swing of things and what better way than angel food cake, this month's challenge? Angel food cake is, after all, one of my favorite cakes. As a child, I was known to eat nearly an entire angel food cake myself on more than one occasion (and as an adult ...) - and I've made angel food cakes on more than one occasion as well.

So, the day before new travels I decided I better bake one up. And got distracted. And mixed all the sugar together with the flour. If you're going to make any mistake when making this cake, this may be the worst of all. You need some of that sugar by itself to work into those fluffy egg whites. I realized my mistake before it was too late and could have remedied the situation, but decided I not only didn't want to waste ingredients, I really didn't have the time to mess with getting more ingredients out anyway (and I'm not sure I had enough sugar left, either). I decided to take my chances and slowly add the sugar/flour mixture but sure enough, it rapidly fell as I knew it would. There was no point folding the rest of the mixture in at that point - it was already a soupy mess - so I just mixed it all in and hoped for the best.

After some of it dripped from the pan and burned in the bottom of the oven, it finally rose to the top of the pan and baked into a gorgeous angel food cake. I had high hopes ... until it had been cooling upside down (on my old pre-gluten-free-days Hornsby bottle saved on purpose to turn angel food cake pans upside down onto) and a peek showed that it had cracked into separate pieces and was shrinking away from the pan in a very odd manner.

No worries - we pulled chunks out of the pan and ate them to discover it still tasted like angel food cake. A very dense, sticky one. So I made up a sauce to dribble over chunks of it and it made a fantastic angel food cake pudding. I'll do this again the correct way in the near future and share a real angel food cake with you. In the meantime, enjoy the pudding!

Projected prep time: 20 minutes; Projected bake time: 35-40 minutes
(Printable Recipe)

Angel food cake pudding
12 ounces egg white (339 grams - this was 10 egg whites for me)
12 ounces pure refined cane sugar
2 1/2 ounces (70 grams) brown rice flour
1 ounce (28 grams) potato starch (not flour)
1/2 ounce (13 grams) tapioca starch
1/4 tsp. ground chia seed
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tsp. pure vanilla
1/2 tsp. pure almond extract

Fresh cherry sauce
1 1/2 cups fresh cherries, halved and pitted
1/2 cup pure organic cane sugar
1/3 cup water
1/4 tsp. pure almond extract

Cake pudding:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

(Note: this method of making the cake will not result in the high, fluffy angel food cake but will be the dense, sticky and slightly fluffy angel food cake pudding.)

Sift together sugar and flour.

Whisk egg whites together at medium speed for about a minute. Add salt, cream of tartar, vanilla and almond extracts then increase speed to medium-high.

Once mixture is very foamy, rising well and can hold a weak peak, begin slowly adding the sugar and flour mixture. When it's all been added, go ahead and mix it more if necessary. (You can't lose with this pudding method.)

Pour into 9-inch tube pan and bake (you may want to have a cookie sheet on the rack below your tube pan in case it drips!) for 35-40 minutes or until a nice light golden color on top and a cake tester or metal skewer comes out clean when inserted in center. The cake should have risen to the top of the pan and be deceptive in looking like a nice, fluffy cake.

Turn pan over on glass bottle and let cool about an hour. Serve in chunks warm plain or with desired sauce, such as the cherry sauce, on top.

Fresh cherry sauce:

Stir cherries, sugar and water together in small saucepan and heat over high heat until bubbling, then reduce to medium-high and cook for five minutes, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to low and simmer for three minutes. Add almond extract, stir and continue to simmer for two more minutes. Let cool to nearly room temperature before serving. The sauce will thicken as it cools.

Enjoy!

Many thanks, again, to Caleigh for hosting us this month! Please check out her delicious angel food cake here, and see all the other amazing cakes the rally participants baked up for you this month! (I'll have the complete list here at a later time.)

I hope you're all having an amazing summer! When things settle down, I'll be back regularly and sharing my photos of beauty as well. Have a great week!

Lucky Leprechaun Surprise Chocolate Mint Mug Cake

You remember that mug cake I made the other day? Well, I can't seem to get them out of my mind. I've been making different flavors, and thought I'd better share this one with you before Saturday.

Mint-flavored chocolate cake with a hidden green creamy surprise inside - all in a lucky 7 minutes. (Had to add a couple of minutes in there to make the creamy goodness!) You'll want to try this any time of year, but it also serves as a nice green treat for St. Patrick's Day. (So does a salad and other veggie greens - be sure to get some of those in!)

If you are looking for other gluten-free St. Patrick's Day goodies, I do have an Irish "Spotted Dog" soda bread and these fantastic clover cookies from last year. I've had my eye on some of the other gluten-free soda breads in the food blog world, though, and they do look amazing. Some of them are even vegan, so I'll have to give them a try at some point!

I'm also thinking I may give Stephanie's dijon corned beef a try in the crockpot this year - she says it's not slimy and I believe her. You can't beat the ease of a crockpot meal!

Projected time, start to finish: 7 minutes
(Printable Recipe)

Cake:
1 large egg
4 Tbsp. Pamela's baking mix (not bread flour blend)
3 1/2 Tbsp. pure organic cane sugar
3 Tbsp. milk
2 1/2 Tbsp. extra virgin coconut oil (tip: warm to above room temp to make it liquid)
2 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. pure mint extract (I used mint in this case, not peppermint, but peppermint would probably work fine)

Cream filling:
2 Tbsp. cream cheese
3 tsp. powdered sugar
1 tsp. egg white (from egg in mug)
1 drop green food coloring

Grease inside of large microwaveable mug. Crack egg into mug first because you'll need 1 tsp. of the egg white for the cream filling.

In a separate small bowl, combine cream cheese, powdered sugar, egg white and green coloring until smooth. Set aside.

Add remaining cake ingredients to mug and mix with a fork until everything is incorporated very well.

Drop cream cheese mixture into middle of cake batter.

Microwave on high for 1 minute and 30 seconds.

Enjoy!

This morning the girls and I had some excitement about our birds - not one but TWO chipping sparrows were flitting about under the feeders and among the branches outside our dining room windows. We hadn't seen chipping sparrows (house sparrows are what usually visit us) since last year, and we don't see them very often when they are around. I guess spring brought them back for a while.

I hope you have found beauty in your day today.

Why I'm sharing this: http://mamameglutenfree.blogspot.com/2012/02/beauty-in-eye-of-beholder.html

Banana Mug Cake

Mug cake. The amazing desserts/snacks that you can mix in a mug, then "bake" in the same mug. All under 5 minutes, from start to ready. I'm in.

I recently saw Jessica's chocolate mug cake recipe on ATX Gluten-Free and had to try it (with a few very minor adjustments) after pinning it. It just kept calling my name. It was very, very good. Very. It was a quick fix for the girls as a special Friday after-school snack.

It wouldn't be wise to make mug cakes as often as I'm tempted to after trying that chocolate one, but I was intrigued and wondered what other flavors I could come up with? (I'll be playing around with them for a while.) My husband cares for chocolate the least of cake flavors, and he loves banana. I'm also on a bit of a warmed bananas kick these days. Why not? I played around with it and had success. Delicious, easy success. It was even fluffy.

While I felt one mug of cake was a little much for one person (I felt pretty full after eating one), my husband had no trouble eating his mug - and topped his with vanilla ice cream as well. He was a very happy man. I do suggest giving the mug several minutes to cool before diving in - the cake stays hot pretty much the whole time. Unless, of course, you top yours with ice cream.

Projected time, start to finish: 5 minutes
(Printable Recipe)

4 tbsp. Pamela's baking and pancake mix (not bread mix) (or other GF baking mix w/baking powder)
4 tbsp. (packed) pure dark brown cane sugar
1 large egg
3 Tbsp. milk of your choice
2 Tbsp. mashed banana
1 Tbsp. organic extra virgin coconut oil (warmed past room temp to get liquid state)
1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Grease inside of large microwaveable mug and mix all ingredients very well with a fork. Microwave 1 minute and 30 seconds. (It will look like it it is overflowing but if you use a large mug it shouldn't. It will shrink back once cooling.) Let cool several minutes.

Enjoy!

My daughter also made another beautiful Bendaroosproject that I had to add to the photos because the colors went together so well. She made a lovely flower - and had no idea when making it that the colors were actually similar to a real banana flower.

I hope you are finding beauty in your day.

Why I'm sharing this: http://mamameglutenfree.blogspot.com/2012/02/beauty-in-eye-of-beholder.html

Chocolate Covered Cherry Cream Cheese Cupcakes

I love chocolate-covered cherries. Do you? They are one of my dad's favorite candies and I have many fond memories of him sharing one of the sweets with me out of the special box in his stocking on Christmas Day or at his place on the table on Valentine's Day.

As I was trying to think of what to share with you this year (I already shared my chocolate covered cherry cookies and love story last Valentine's Day, and my favorite rolled and cut cookies to make into hearts for Christmas and St. Patrick's Day), I thought back to this chocolate-cream cheese cupcakes recipe my dear friend and college roommate Ginny posted last month.

Those cupcakes! When I saw her post, I was instantly transported to a time in my younger years when a friend's mother made cupcakes, only miniature, nearly identical to these on special occasions. I would pop them whole into my mouth and never got sick of them. I have that recipe and have made it a time or two and it's very similar, but there are a few differences - namely it is from scratch and doesn't use an easy cake mix.

With everything going on these days and my oldest daughter's birthday a couple of weeks ago and needing cupcakes for her class, I thought I'd make these super-easy delights that Ginny shared. Even the boys in third grade wanted the recipe.

The other day as I was mulling over what to fix for you this Valentine's Day, it occurred to me I should combine chocolate covered cherries into these amazing and simple cupcakes. Win!

In case you're wondering, Cella's chocolate cherries are gluten-free. And they happened to be on sale last week in my grocery store.

The combination was fantastic, and everyone loved these cupcakes. I hope you do, too.

Projected prep time: 15 minutes: Projected bake time: 25-30 minutes
Makes 24 regular cupcakes
(Printable Recipe)

1 box or bag gluten-free chocolate cake mix (I used Pamela's chocolate cake mix which is 21 oz.)
Ingredients required to prepare chocolate cake mix according to original recipe directions on bag (eggs, oil or butter, water or other liquid, etc.)

Filling:
12 gluten-free chocolate-covered cherries (Cella's brand is gluten-free), chopped into small pieces
1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 8-oz package cream cheese
1 large egg
1/3 cup organic pure cane sugar
pinch of kosher salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line cupcake tins with baking cups. (If you are using a gas oven, top rack will be best on this recipe.)

Chop chocolate cherries, save as much of the liquid as possible.

Place in bowl, liquid filling and all. Add chocolate chips. Set aside.

Beat cream cheese together with sugar, egg and salt until creamy.

Fold the chocolate cherries and chocolate chips into the cream cheese mixture.

It will have a lovely light pink color that won't stay through the baking, but it's okay. Set aside.

Drop chocolate cake batter into baking cups about 2/3 full.

If you want to attempt hearts on top of the cupcakes, place two spoonfuls slightly apart to make a heart shape on top of the cake batter. This will spread some and not keep the nice shape as much, but it's fun to try. I tried other ways, including filling a heart-shaped cookie cutter on top of the batter, to no avail. This spoon method worked best. If you don't want to mess with it, just drop a whole tablespoon onto the top of each.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 25-30 minutes or until the center is completely cooked. Cool on wire racks.

I found that what wasn't eaten within a few hours kept best in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Enjoy!