Chocolate may be able to stand on its own two legs just fine without any flavorings, but you’ve got to hand it to the Olmec, Aztecs, and Mayans for unlocking not only the fact that chocolate is, well, great, but producing the first fermented chocolate drinks and adding in complimentary notes like cinnamon, nutmeg, and chili. According to the good ol’ wikipedia, the Olmec were the first to turn the strangely-fruity cocoa beans (surrounded by a white fleshy pulp – which actually tastes great) into alcoholic drinks (good idea, Olmec) as early as 1750 BCE (a hell of a long time ago) around present-day Veracruz, Mexico. From that pivotal moment…
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Gluten Free Strawberry Lemonade Tiered Cake
Summers are for lemonade and sunblock and big, cloudless skies that seem to expose more of the world than in any other season. If you’re still stuck inside (or if you also live in San Francisco or various areas up in the PNW) then those big skies might still be a little out of reach, depending on your windows. But lemonade and sunblock are totally in-season, and anything that involves the two sounds like a plan for a great sun-soaked day. One positive adjustment that many folks seem to be making during shelter in place is a newfound love of parks. Now, it’s arguable whether your neighborhood 2×2 block green…
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Gluten Free Cinnamon Roll Cupcakes
A cinnamon roll is like a warm, buttery, sugary, comforting hug. For your mouth. Honestly, what a flavor combo: brown sugar, butter, cinnamon – just a bowl of that alone can instantaneously turn off all of the stress of another work-from-home-during-a-pandemic morning and transport you to a cozy, blanketed couch next to a roaring fire with a few dozen kittens napping peacefully at your side. The down side is the prep time and baking time for cinnamon rolls – when you’re already late to the 5th zoom call in a row, baking a cozy breakfast is the last thing on your to-do list. So, these gluten free cinnamon roll cupcakes…
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Gluten Free Pistachio Raspberry Rose Cupcakes
As we continue shelter in place ordinances, I’ve been reminiscing about travel from last year, or even from the first two months of 2020. While it’s actually been quite fun to re-discover our own neighborhood and take time to just enjoy San Francisco and its many (way more than I thought) local parks, there’s something nebulous and intangibly lovely about international travel that, once you’ve tasted it, remains as an ache or a longing at the back of your head and your heart. If you’re fortunate enough to have had the chance to travel, even just a bit, beyond your national borders, may you treasure those memories and experiences forever.…
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Gluten Free German Chocolate Cupcakes
I distinctly remember scooping giant spoonfuls of Betty Crocker German Chocolate Frosting out of the plastic tub it comes in, and eating it gleefully when I was maybe eight or nine. Prying off the red plastic top to find perfectly-solidified caramel custard, pecan and coconut goop was like finding buried treasure. How I got my hands on the tub of frosting in the first place is the real question – either very impressive childhood sneaking into the kitchen and up into the baking cupboards, or maybe we all just indulged after making a cake or cupcakes or something more reasonable. Overall, this penchant for German Chocolate topping aligns with what…
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Gluten Free Earl Grey Lavender Cupcakes
When I was about eight or nine years old, my grandma gathered all three of us granddaughters, my cousin Sean, my little (at the time, now she towers over me) sister, and me, into the family room of her Ashland hills house and pointed through the fragile glass doors of a carefully-treasured case to the three sets of china that she had waiting for us. One for each granddaughter, differently-colored for differently-personalitied girls. Green and gold with straight-edged patterns, pale blue and silver in little floral loops, and blush-pink, full of little roses. That one was destined for Kendra, whose middle name is Rose, and who was about 4 years…
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Gluten Free Birthday Cake Funfetti Cupcakes
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…
