God I’ve missed this

We’ve had a long standing and closely guarded tradition in our family of serving a special cake to celebrate birthdays.  My paternal grandmother passed down a recipe for something called Fairy Cake.  It’s unlike anything I’ve seen before.  Although my mom equates it to a “blitzed torte” by which i have no idea what she means, I still think she’s not seen anything like it either and she is a much more experienced cook than I.  When I moved out of the house my mom bought me my very own “Fairy Cake Pans”, basically two round cake pans, but in our house there was little else we would ever use them for.

It’s a fairly persnickety cake to make and requires a special, never disclosed trick, in order to achieve success.  So even if you were able to obtain the recipe by stealing it out of our cold dead hands, you still might not be able to make it. You can see how much we cherish this cake in our family.

Alas when I was diagnosed with Celiac disease, this cake was pushed to the side because we did not yet know enough about how to modify the recipe to be GF.  Years have gone by and I’ve resigned myself to having something else to celebrate birthdays with, all the while longing for some Fairy Cake.

Well with my birthday approaching, my mom lovingly started experimenting so I could have Fairy Cake this year on my special day.  She came up to watch Mazie for us this weekend for our first overnight away and surprised me with one of her experiments.

I know you’ve never seen Fairy Cake before, but it looks just like this.  It’s basically a thin layer of egg-y cake with a meringue on top, sprinkled with coconut and baked.  Two layers like this sandwich a thick whip cream layer.  Just heavenly!

Success!

Just how I remembered it.  Thanks Mum!

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Fresh baked bread doesn’t last long in our house

Although feeling rotten again (seems like I’ve been sick for a month and a half) Mazie and I made bread on Friday.  It’s one of our favorite activities together.  Well cookie making tops the list, but I can’t make cookies multiple times a week.  They don’t last long around our house either, which would be a big problem for my ass.

Friday morning:

Saturday morning:

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Gluten free cookie experimentation (I guess that’s what I’ll call it)

Well as you may have seen from my tweets Valentines Day was celebrated in dribs and drabs here due to a kid with the flu and a mummy with one of the worst migraines she’s had in years.  Anyway, we spent yesterday afternoon attempting to make some lip shaped butter cookies, which would eventually be dipped in chocolate.  Cute huh? Like a black and white cookie where one lip is chocolate-y and the other is plain.  Well things didn’t turn out like that. I’m getting much better at my GF baking, but it’s still really frustrating. Things just don’t work the same and it’s like learning a whole new set of chemistry rules.  Anyway, there were some learnings and lovely moments.  Here’s the recap. I modified a recipe from the Barefoot Contessa, switching out the regular flour with the Whole Foods All Purpose Flour blend I’ve come to like.  The first batch were rolled, cut, and placed onto a silpat baking sheet.  Then straight into the oven. As you can see, not such a great result.  They spread out too much, getting thin on the edges and browning too quickly.  Also, almost unrecognizable as lips. So next time around, I rolled, cut, and placed them on parchment paper on the cookie sheet.  Then I put them in the fridge to set up for a bit.  Like a charm. These turned out much better.  They didn’t loose their shape that much and consequently cooked more evenly. The next set were rolled, cut, and placed right on the cookie sheet (no parchment).  These too were placed in the fridge before cooked in the oven, but alas with the same poor results as the first batch. See same thing, spreading out and browning too much on the edges. So here is the big learning for this and other cookie cutter cookies.  Roll, cut, place on parchment on a cookies sheet.  Refrigerate for a bit before putting in the oven and allow to cool a bit on the sheet before you take them off and put them onto the cooling rack. Ok so onto the Chocolate dipping saga.  It was a total disaster and I’ve done this before so I don’t know what the hell I did wrong.  First I tried the microwave. The chocolate broke.  Then I tried the double boiler.  The chocolate broke.  Then I tried the mircowave again. The chocolate broke.  As you can see the cookies never got dipped in chocolate. After this very frustrating baking event, I had to give myself a little mummy time out in the bedroom. After a minute or so Mazie came in and said, “It’s ok Mummy. It’s ok”.  Then she gave me a big hug and said, “It’s ok Mummy it happens some times.”  She was totally right.  It is ok and it does happen sometimes.  I think sometimes I want everything to come out like the picture — baking, crafts, our living room, etc– but sometimes the picture isn’t the best way.  These were the best cookies we’ve made yet, because I learned a lot.  Not only about my GF baking, but that might child might be one of the smartest people around and my best friend.

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Yes, we threw a recession themed party for our two year old.

So as you know, Mazie’s birthday party was this past weekend.   Each year (yes I know, all two years now) Robbie and I try to come up with something timely as a theme.  This year it was a recession.  Nothing says fun like a recession themed two year old party, but believe me it was fun and effective.  Last year it was a campaign theme of sorts where her invite was a Mazie for President in 2008 campaign poster and her campaign slogan was Make Cupcakes not War, a nod to Johnny Cupcakes, and great inspiration for a cupcake themed birthday party.  We’re going to try to do something timely like this until she demands a Hannah Montana themed party or something like that.

So this is how the theme started off with our two dollar bill, featuring Mazie’s adorable picture.  Note the subtleties in both of the “seals” on the bill: One being a gluten free birthday reminder and the other a bit of white where we’re replaced the white house with the red house, which is of course the color of our house and looks just like this little icon.  PS I know Saturday is spelled wrong, we missed it because we were busy congratulating ourselves on the great job we did in creating this invite and coming up with this theme.

Below has to be the most adorable picture of Mazie pre-party in her party prep mode.  She’s wearing a cute birthday hat my brother in-law and his family sent to us and wearing her apron (made by a friend of mine) so she can help out with all of the pre-party prep, including cake frosting.

Cakes in progress.

The finished product. Not so bad if I do say so myself. On top are these lovely little German, wooden candle holders that are from a larger set given to my as a child from my paternal grandmother.  They are each little soldiers or members of a band.  These two were a perfect match for the green icing used to continue the green and pink money theme we had going.

Now for the crafting icing on the cake: The Goodie Bags.  I’m very proud of this idea, which I’ve called the Baby Bail Out Bag — again as a nod to all things timely in this economy.

Thank goodness my mother in-law was in town to help because these would not have turned out so well and I would have been up late into the night sewing away, resulting into a cranky mummy the next day. She lovingly stitched up the bags, even adding a decorative stitch at the top.  She was so smart in her process as well.  She folded/ironed over the top edge on the entire length of yardage and stitched it down before she cut out each individual bag, making the process much easier and faster than my approach which would have been to cut and sew each one individually.  This way she had a couple of nice long sewing seams and then only had to stitch up the edges of the bags once they were cut from the longer yardage.  Note: the fabric was from my stash and was formerly curtains in our living room.  Yahoo I get recycling points on this one too.

Robbie then drew $ signs on them with Sharpie and we stuffed them with this great play money I found (one big set for ~$20, which we divided up) and some chocolate coins that I carefully researched to make sure they were not ones laced with Melamine from a scare earlier this year.

To sum it up, this party was a huge success.  We have such a wonderful group of friends and family who make events like this truly enjoyable.  The kids were great — no major meltdowns, confrontations, etc.  We had just the right amount of food.  Mazie recieved lovely little treats from her friends — books we didn’t have before, great art supplies, or thoughfully made handmade gifts and wrapping which are all truly appreciated in this house.  So thanks to all those that came.  Hope this post inspires those who might be throwing parties soon.  PS. To a few guest I forgot to give you a bag in the nuttiness and and to one quest we found a bag of cash on the step the next morning.  Feel free to let me know and you can claim your prize next time we meet.

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Happy Gluten-free New Year

I had one of the most wonderful experiences over the NYE holiday. As a Celiac I often have to seek out alternatives to many treats about which others don’t think twice. I’ve found good substitutes for most — a wonderful sandwich bread that I make, some killer bagels and hamburg rolls from Against the Grain, and a beer that at least satisfies the graving on a hot summer day. One other indulgence however had alluded me until this summer — fried fish. Oh yes yes, I know I could have made it myself, but being a beach kid growing up you want to dose yourself once or twice each summer with the request trip to the seafood shack to binge on fried shrimp and fish and chips. To my delight my mom found that our local fish market, Chatham Fish and Lobster ,in my home town started offering gluten free fried fish and soon to follow many other GF options such as sandwiches and sweets.

So this NYE holiday we head to the Cape to celebrate and decided to indulge in some GF fried fish goodness. As I checked out I started up a conversation with the folks that worked there. It was a delightful conversation, they were very knowledgeable, interested in new products, and seemed truly dedicated to providing a great service for folks like me. As a special treat they sent me home with some free samples. Now other Celiac’s please don’t go in expecting free samples. Chatham Fish and Lobster closes on New years day until the summer season starts up again so they were clearing inventory and I just happened to be the lucky recipient.

However, it was such a lovely surprise to walk away with some treats some of which I was familiar and others I was not. I’ll let you know my verdict after I’ve taste tested.

If you’re ever in Chatham check out Chatham Fish and Lobster.  You’ll love the fried fish whether your a Celiac or not.  It’s delish!

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Does chicken really need to have it’s ingredients listed?

So, I’ve been very conscious of what type of food goes into my body for years now. I have Celiac disease, a genetic autoimmune condition, which causes sensitivity to gluten (a protein in certain grains such as wheat, rye, etc). This makes you obsessive about reading food labels. You call the companies of products you like to ascertain whether this food you have to have has any gluten derived ingredients.

Last Thanksgiving I became aware that some omnipotent ingredients such as wheat and soy can be found in foods that you never thought they’d be in — Our Thanksgiving turkey proved to be a challenge. We had to find one that wasn’t basted, soaked, preserved, etc in any broths that contained wheat. We settled for soy…in our turkey!

But today I read an article in the Washington Post that brought the unexpected food additive issue into even greater light for me: Battle Over ‘Natural’ Food Designation. Now I knew that this word was tossed around willy nilly but I guess I never really realized how much. Who knew that high-fructose corn syrup can be in a product and it still be called natural. Additionally, this is the one that really got me was the discussion amongst the poultry industry about what types of additives can be in chicken for it to be called all natural. The thing about this that struck me was that I never really thought to look at the package of chicken breast for a list of ingredients other than say…chicken.

This debate over what can be called natural will be an interesting one to follow.

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