Birthday Cakes

 The past week and a half has been a whirlwind, every February there is a span of 5ish days that always seems to be chaotic, the rest of the time I seem to be recovering from them.  Starting on the 10th is my birthday, this year it landed on a Friday and I had no clue what I wanted to do. At the beginning of the month my cousin Emily was trying to figure out a weekend to come down and visit, we decided my birthday weekend would be awesome and she would stay Saturday through Monday.  I finally decided on having a get together at a bar in Portland the night of my birthday to hang out with friends. With my birthday mostly planned out, my mind turned towards the 14th and 15th. Everyone knows the 14th is valentines day, the most disgustingly  expensive holiday to spend on a loved one. Jesse and I talked and both agreed not to do anything this year that involved spending  money for valentines day.  Now the 15th is my mothers birthday, and usually we try to do a family dinner on a day in between our birthdays to celebrate them together. My dad called me and discussed that my mother wanted a  Gluten free German chocolate cake for her birthday, later that day my mom called and when I let her know Emily would be in town she decided that on Sunday we should have a joint birthday party with the family.  At this point my days were pretty planned out and I needed to make gluten free cake, one for on Sunday for both of us and one just  for my mothers actual birthday.  In reality I made Three cakes, one for my birthday, one for Sunday and one for my mothers birthday. For my birthday and the Sunday party I decided to make Gluten Free Tres leches cakes. Working at the bakery over the summer Sharon would make several of these every week, topped with Pineapple and Mandarin Orange slices, let me tell you they were divine! A tres leches cake basically means three milks in Spanish, this is  because the sponge cake is soaked with a mixture of  cream, evaporated milk, and sweetened condensed milk.  Seeing as I was making  them for two different days I decided to bake all the cakes on Friday and freeze the ones for Sunday.

The first recipe was a success! Once these three rounds cooled I stacked them with wax paper in between them so they wouldn't stick and put them in a bag and into the freezer until Sunday.

After my cake cooled I cut it in half and placed one piece back in the baking dish (now cleaned) and poured the three milk mixture over it and let it soak in. Then came a  layer of sweetened whipping cream and the last piece of cake, more milk mixture and covered in whipping cream.

You can top this with pretty much any fruit you want and seeing as I didn't have any pineapple or mandarin oranges, I had to think of something else.... the only thing I had fresh was pomegranate seeds.

 It was delicious and I had a wonderful birthday :D

On Sunday morning I took the three cakes out of the freezer to thaw and in the afternoon I assembled the cake (this time I had pineapple and mandarin oranges to top it with, along with a few pomegranate seeds)

It turned out even better than the first!

For my mothers birthday I did indeed make her a Gluten Free German chocolate cake, but due to a busy day and car troubles I was rushed and didn't take any pictures as I made it... or an end result photo come to think of it. Anyway her cake turn out as well (although I thought the frosting was too runny) It was delicious and there were no left overs :) All in all we had wonderful birthday cakes to go with wonderful birthdays :)

Dutch babies a.k.a German pancake

 One of my favorite things to have for breakfast before going gluten free was dutch babies (some people know them as German pancakes) there egg-y and puffy and if done right the corners with have a salty crispness to them. Drench them in syrup, lemon and powered sugar or with butter and fresh fruit they are delicious.  I cannot tell you how excited I was to find a gluten free recipe for them a few months ago, but I can tell you I have made the a LOT sense them. (and of course I cannot find the website where I found the recipe, so until I do, you don't have a link)

Five simple ingredients:

 2 TBs butter

6 Eggs room temperature (leaving them out overnight works well)

1 1/4 cup milk

1 cup GF flour blend (Use whatever four blend you like as long as it contains flours only. I usually  mix Rice, tapioca, and millet.

1/4 tsp Salt

Directions:  Preheat over to 375degrees and place butter in your casserole dish and put it in the warming oven to let it melt and coat the pan.   Combine the eggs, milk, salt and flour and mix until there are no lumps. When over is at 375 pour your batter into the buttered pan and  bake for about 20 minutes.

It gets beautifully bubbly and golden.

cut into squares and top with your favorite topping and enjoy!

With lemon and powdered sugar :)

With homemade berry syrup and powdered sugar :)


I loved making the homemade berry syrup with the dutch babies were cooking.

I took a few handfuls of frozen berries (saved from the summers farmers market) and added a bit of sugar and a pinch of kosher salt and let it bubble and cook down until the dutch babies were done. Yummy!