I'm Learning...

This weekend was our annual Memorial Day/Hubby's Birthday BBQ. We had a great time with good friends and last minute visit from my wonderful sister.

I didn't take a single picture of any of it! ARG! I never think about taking pictures at the time and then, when it's all over, I'm mad that I don't have any pictures. Maybe next year....

This year I had to figure out what to make for my littlest. So, in addition to the usual birthday cake for my husband (PW's Strawberry Shortcake Cake - you must have this cake!), I made gluten-free, egg-free chocolate sour cream cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting. They were so good. They were almost gone by the end of the party.

If you haven't discovered her books already, you must look for The Cake Mix Doctor's books. I have been using them for years - much faster than baking from scratch and I usually get good results which can be difficult baking at high altitude. The Cake Mix Doctor recently published a gluten-free book. I bought a GF chocolate cake mix (pricey!), doctored it up according her recipe, and replaced the eggs with an applesauce/water/oil/baking powder mixture. They worked beautifully and no one knew they were GFEF (gluten-free, egg-free) unless I told them.

On top of that, I had to make my famous cheesy potato dish. There are those who would be really mad at me if my potatoes weren't at a summer BBQ. The problem is that the dish uses cream of chicken soup which has - you guessed it - gluten. So I made my own gluten-free cream of chicken soup to use instead. And I left off the breadcrumb topping all together. Again, everything worked really well and the potatoes were gone in a flash!

I'm beginning to feel much better about my ability to adapt to this new diet for the little one (and the rest of us, I guess). Today's challenge? Gluten-free, egg-free chocolate chip cookies....and I might even try making date syrup to use as the sweetener instead of sugar. Wish me luck!

Oh and remind me to TAKE PICTURES!!