STRAWBERRIES AND CREAM MATCHA CHIFFON LAYER CAKE

strawberries and cream matcha chiffon layer cake

HAPPY SUMMER! 

There's nothing like fresh local strawberries in the summer!

I created this unique sky-high matcha cake recipe to celebrate my best friend's birthday as she's a matcha lover.  

I am entering this original recipe I developed for BCEgg (a non-profit organization that regulates BC's egg farms) because it uses a lot of eggs!  I chose a chiffon cake for this contest because quality eggs play a significant role in chiffon cakes.  I prefer chiffon to angel food cake because it uses the entire egg rather than just the whites and the crumb is tender and moist.   This recipe in particular uses 7 large free-range eggs.  There is no butter; instead vegetable oil is used to maintain a moist crumb.  I used avocado oil but any neutral vegetable oil will do.  Mechanical aeration of the egg whites helps to leaven the cake layers to achieve a light, fluffy sponge.  Ordinarily, a chiffon cake is baked in a tube pan but my recipe doesn't do this. 

VOTE FOR MY RECIPE BY CLICKING RIGHT HERE!

You have to be 18+ and living in BC, Canada to vote and you can vote once every day until the end of the contest on Sept 8, 2019.  There is no purchase necessary, but you have to fill out a form on THIS LINK and prove residency in BC. 

🦄UNICORN CUPCAKES

gf chocolate cupcakes with raspberry-blueberry-vanilla swirl buttercream

No worries people, no unicorns were harmed in the making of these cupcakes.

JAPANESE CHEESECAKE

Japanese Souffle Cheesecake 

VEGAN MATCHA CACAO CAKE

Organic Vegan Matcha and Cacao Cake

Dabbling in the Dark Arts:  vegan baking! ;)

Happy Lunar New Year!

Celebrate with cake!

Happy Chinese New Year! 

Gung Hay Fat Choy!   Sun Neen Fai Lok!

It's the year of the rooster...and today married Chinese people everywhere are handing out red envelopes to kids.  So the kids are raking in the money$$$

My kid's birthday party is today and she wanted a DQ ice cream cake, which means pretty much nothing for me to blog about.  So I made my go-to cake for all-around snackin' while the kids indulged in their oreo blizzard ice cream cake.  

This Coconut Chiffon Cake is made from coconut oil instead of veg oil or butter, which gives it a nice light coconut scent and flavour.  Because I'm gluten intolerant (hello Hashimoto's disease...you suck) I used my current fave gf flour mix that I picked up from Costco in the States.  Costco Canada doesn't carry it here in Vancouver which is a shame. 

I wish you Health, Wealth & Happiness this Lunar year and may your celebrations be filled with a good amount of cake too!

Gluten Free Coconut Chiffon Cake with berries

On Holding the Line with GF Condensed Milk Pound Cake and Raffi

GF Condensed Milk Pound Cake (see recipe below)

Matcha Chiffon Cake (gf)

Matcha Chiffon (GF)

I'm looking forward to seeing a few of my high school classmates today.  It's kind of neat to be able to see them so many years later and catch up.  I see some of my high school friends only once a year.  We make a bit of time to have coffee or tea and chat for hours about life events and all sorts of things.

Gluten Free Flour Blend

The following GF flour blend recipe is the one I have tripled and kept in an airtight container to be used in place of regular flour.  It has been truly amazing and I imagine you can adapt it, as I have seen numerous permutations on the net.  For cakes, you will find that using the Thai Rice Flour brands that I have pictured below are important for fine texture.  You will find the 3 Elephants Brand rice flours in Asian markets.  They are really cheap.  You can buy a whole bunch at once and  blend up your mix.  For the other starches, I believe brands are not as important. 

Matcha Coconut Mochi (GF)

Matcha Coconut Mochi.  An excellent Japanese sweet to serve with tea or coffee.

Summer's here and I have the kids full-time.   Aside from locking them out of the house once because they were fighting, I think I've been able to keep them busy enough to stay out of trouble.

Matcha Madeleines (GF)

Matcha Madeleines (gf).  Note the "hump"...a good thing 

Madeleines are one of the most beautiful little cakes I've ever seen and positively scream of lazy days on the patio.  Perfect for afternoon tea or coffee.

GLUTEN FREE BANANA CHIFFON CAKE

Gluten Free Banana Chiffon Cake

Right.  It's been a long time since my last post.  
No regrets though (sorry dear readers) as real life takes precedence over virtual life!

"Cloud 9" GF Flour Blend from Costco & Whole Psyllium Husks

Chocolate Quinoa Layer Cake with Chocolate SMB (GF)

Chocolate quinoa layer cake with Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Booya. I feel huge.  I've been eating nonstop since holidays began.  This Chocolate layer cake was a dessert I made for a NYE dinner party.

I doubled my usual cupcake recipe and baked the batter in 8 inch circular pans.  Then I ended up reserving one layer for the freezer as I thought 3 layers would be enough.  And it was.  I had just enough SMB to frost all the sides.  The layers were moist and I did not have to slice them though if you like lots of frosting I guess you could.  However, at that point you would also need way more buttercream.

I thought of melted chocolate decorations as I was too lazy to pipe buttercream around the cake.  I think they turned out quite well considering I had not made these before.  I made big evergreen trees and plastered them on the sides of the cake.  Then I topped the centre of the cake on top with a daisy and a bunch of swirls of chocolate. 





For the over the top Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream, I used THIS recipe and added 4 oz dark melted chocolate to the buttercream.
For the Chocolate Quinoa Layers, I used THIS recipe BUT ADDED 1/4 CUP MORE COOKED QUINOA TO EACH BATCH.  It has more quinoa than the original recipe; is baked in 8 inch layers (2) and I doubled the recipe and added 5-10 minutes to the baking time.  Make the recipe twice because only one batch will fit in your blender or processor anyway.  You will kill your Vitamix if you try to do a double batch (and it won't fit anyway).  Freeze one of the layers so that you'll have 3 layers in total from the double-batch (or make extra cupcakes with the batter after you make 3 layers).

GIRLIE BIRTHDAY PARTY CUPCAKES: On turning 6

My girl's 6 and here's the cupcakes I've made for her bday party!

CAKE WALK: CHOCOLATE QUINOA CUPCAKES WITH LAVENDER BUTTERCREAM (GF)

Chocolate Quinoa Cupcakes with Lavender Buttercream

Happy New Year!

Best wishes for Health, Happiness and Wealth in the New Year!