I’ll tell you what, this was one of the most fun recipes I’ve gotten to develop and bake – there’s something about thousands of little tiny sticks of colored sugar that just exude child-like glee (even though we never really made funfetti cake consistently for birthdays when I was a kid). And who knows, with all of the days blending together being stuck inside 24/7 it might as well be my birthday, or yours! or your cat’s! or the dude’s who lives next door! Let’s just say to heck with it all and celebrate our birthdays whenever we want, thank you very much, while we’re all stuck in this amorphous…
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Gluten Free “Nutter Butter” Cookies
Peanut butter was a close side kick growing up. In second and third grade, I packed myself two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (on whole wheat seeded bread – pre-celiac days) for lunch every day, and then in fourth and fifth grade after I walked home from school I would scoop out more peanut butter and pair it with a kid-sized handful of chocolate chips for a high-protein snack that my parents probably didn’t approve of. It was just that good. All of this led to my dad mentioning one day that I would “make myself allergic” if I kept up my over-zealous peanut butter craze, and, two years after…
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Gluten Free Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Buttercream
Anyone else always scoop finger-fulls of cream cheese frosting off the top of the carrot cake whenever it graced the desserts table at a family gathering or school district potluck or birthday party? Nah? Well then skip half of this recipe. If you did, props to you, it’s the best frosting out there (maybe, there are lots of other great ones). Carrot cake was always one of those cakes that felt homey and fancy and old fashioned and comfortable, but was sometimes a bit too cakey or spiced or drab for my taste. Which is why this version may offend some, but I promise it’s technically carrot cake (there are…
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Gluten Free Butter Pecan Cupcakes
Anyone else have deep nostalgia for summer garage sales that start early in unfolding crisp July mornings when the sun is way ahead of everyone else sleeping in on a Sunday but as a nine year old, the most profitable day of the year is about to commence? Growing up in Eagle Point, Oregon, we had great garage sales – at least one big one a year, usually in July or August, on a weekend when the summer heat pulled neighbors from their air conditioned living rooms to shout hellos across the street or meander through the maze of tarps, folding tables, and drive ways covered in memory-soaked legos, stuffed…
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Gluten Free Dark Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes
Chocolate is one of those ingredients, things, flavors, indulgences, aphrodisiacs, that just melts you at the first bite. Maybe it’s a bit of a slower melt if you’re snapping into a 90% dark chocolate bar, but it’s still a melt. Speaking of dark chocolate, that exact nearly-100%-but-not-quite used to be my favorite chocolate – it’s like eating the most decadent slab of dirt. But really, it’s incredible. Don’t just take my word for it, go grab a bar when you’re able to leave the house and stand in line at the grocery store for 45 minutes (worth it). There’s definitely some crazy amazing dark chocolate specifically in Ecuador – ever…
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Gluten Free Toasted Coconut Cupcakes
It’s in weeks like these – stuck at home, always slightly on edge worrying about family members who we may not see for a few more months depending on shelter in place guidance – that the dreaminess of coconut can work some extra magic on our comfort-food-demanding diets. Now, I know coconut can be a divisive topic: texture-wise it’s one of the more controversial dessert ingredients, but you’ve gotta admit, creamy dreamy coconut frosting sounds like the tiny tropical note we need now (unless of course you actually live in a tropical location in which case you might be craving something totally temperate. If so, we’ve SO got you covered…
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Gluten Free Lemon Ricotta Cupcakes
A wise old wizard once said, “happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light,” and that classic Dumbledore quip seems especially pertinent now. These are uncertain, dark times, and it’s imperative that we all remember to turn on the light whenever we can. These gluten free lemon ricotta cupcakes were some of the most fun to make and photograph (and eat, of course) because they really are quite sunny, and in a regularly-gloomy city in a particularly gloomy time, they brought at least a bit of light into my dining room, and to the few friends who got special…
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Gluten Free Chocolate Coffee Cupcakes with Coffee Buttercream
For all of you who are staying close to home, for work, for safety, and for social distancing as is our collective responsibility, the days can sometimes stretch into forever as we look out onto quiet streets and wonder when life might inch back towards “normal.” I was feeling this intensely yesterday and really needed something sweet and indulgent to pick me up mid-week and mid-shelter-in-place-slump, so, of course, I turned to baking. Full disclosure – I don’t actually drink coffee (I never have, remarkably), but I LOVE coffee-flavored sweet things. Give me a pint of coffee ice cream or coffee panna cotta or a great coffee flan I had…
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Gluten Free Irish Soda Bread
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! In uncertain times, traditions (at least ones that still allow for responsible social distancing) are often my go-to to stay comforted. Chiefly among those various traditions is food: in all forms, from family, from holidays past or from more recent gatherings of roommates or coworkers or long-distance friends. Maybe now is even the time to create some new traditions that stabilize the uncertainty or ground us in delicious and memorable moments. One of the more holidays long-past traditions for my family is a big ol’ feast on St Paddy’s day, complete with hunks of corned beef, buttery cabbage, perfectly-roasted carrots, and even more buttery potatoes. For…
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Gluten Free Strawberry Rose Cream Tart with Pistachio Crust
Amongst the anxiousness and worry that abounds in every city across the globe this weekend, let us eat things that make us happy, and while we’re at it, spend time making creative baked goods that do the same (and then, eating those too). After making a tough call to not to do our first farmers market booth as Sisters Sans Gluten (live! out in the real world!) in an effort to keep those most vulnerable around us safe, I realized today is/was Pi Day, and that was definitely something worth celebrating. Next, I realized that if I were to exit our downtown San Francisco apartment and make my normally-easy trip…
