Are you a kiwi skin on or skin off type of person? I was always a skin off, slice in half short ways, around the equator of the fuzzy brown fruit, and scoop out the electric-green kaleidoscope with a spoon type of person. It wasn’t until I got the chance to travel to Australia when I was 13 that I first encountered a faction of skin-on folks. What a world this is. The trip was with People to People Student Ambassador program, started by Eisenhower in hopes of promoting cultural exchange and friendship through sending teenagers in delegations abroad to learn and meet people and generally foster greater awareness of…
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Gluten Free Chocolate Raspberry Birthday Cake
In Harry Potter, Professor Lupin gives Harry, Hermione, and Ron chocolate after the first bizarre and harrowing encounter with dementors, and you’ve got to hand it to him, he knows how to cure a case of the willies. For any anti-chocolaters out there, apologies in advance for this post, but you’re probably not reading it anyway after seeing the gargantuan photo of an ALL CHOCOLATE cake, so, oh well. My sister and I have always loved chocolate. When we were little, we’d frequently have chocolate ice cream rings around our mouths, or would choose the flourless chocolate cake (often times the only gluten free dessert option but we’re not complaining),…
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Gluten Free Neapolitan Cupcakes
Anyone else remember getting giant tubs of cheap Neapolitan ice cream at the grocery store as a kid? Some were definitely better than others, and half the time I’m pretty sure I just scooped through the chocolate layer, leaving the less exciting vanilla to the right. But it was glorious – simply having the choice of not one, not two, but THREE ice cream flavors in one bucket? Incredible. And a good strawberry ice cream can’t be beat – the ones with threads of real strawberries throughout, heightened by the heaps of pink dye that made this seem like the perfect summer treat. Bowls or cones, whatever you chose, were…
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Gluten Free Piña Colada Cupcakes
The best piña colada I’ve ever had was also the most difficult to get to. Difficult in a good way – just lots of legs of transportation involved. It was also the best because I got to enjoy it on a tiny beach alongside my younger, taller, sister, Kendra, the other half of Sisters Sans Gluten. We started taking “Sister Trips” every year after our first trip together for Kendra’s 21st birthday, when we both flew down to LA, stayed in our first solo AirBnB, and spent the weekend in Universal Studios (Harry Potter world), around farmers markets and old bookstores and dining halls in downtown LA, and generally being…
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Gluten Free Monster Cookies
These were, perhaps, the trickiest cookies I’ve made to date. I had a grand plan for creating some kind of “kitchen sink” gluten free cookie with pretzels and chips and chocolate chunks and, my favorite, chocolate/candy-covered sunflower seeds. I’d been planning to make these darn cookies for over a month, tinkering with the recipe idea on paper and waiting for ingredients to arrive, when I finally got the chance to make them this weekend. I optimistically tossed in all of the add-ins and, like most of my other cookie recipes, I chilled the dough in the fridge before baking. In the midst of an already-busy baking weekend, I missed my…
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Gluten Free Mexican Hot Chocolate Cupcakes
It’s officially winter in San Francisco again – or, as we call it, “summer.” We seem to exist in a perpetual state of fog, sudden breezes that make a wool coat sound like a great idea in July, and brief, spotty, but glorious moments of sun and blue sky. In the midst of everything else going on this year, it’s key to take a moment to appreciate those sun-soaked moments, and then to plan for your next cozy night in in August with heaps of blankets and a good Netflix show (Dark, and Dear White People are fantastic). For those cooler days, these gluten free Mexican Hot Chocolate cupcakes give…
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Gluten Free Oatmeal Cream Pies
In fifth grade, my teacher had a system of points you could accumulate for helping other students or cleaning up the classroom or doing generally nice things for the other 10 year olds packed into the first-floor learning space. At first, she would give you small pieces of paper that noted that you had “done a good dee” or something like that, but then, she leveled up the playing field and gave away Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies (this was only a year before the celiac diagnosis). Now, if you’ve never had the pleasure of biting into the unbelievably softy, slightly chewy, deeply sweet and molasses-y thin sandwich cookies that…
