Category: Fun

GF Chocolate Cake from Aldi Mix

My son requested chocolate cake for his birthday so I trotted to one of my two favorite markets for the awesomely delicious gluten-free store brand cake mix we usually use (because one member of our family can’t have gluten, and three others probably shouldn’t) only to discover – gasp! – that it had apparently been discontinued. (So disappointed in you, HEB!)

I could have made it from scratch but – oops! – out of cocoa, so decided that I was officially in the mood to experiment. Yay! (Sarcasm.) I grabbed a box of Aldi’s Live G Free Chocolate baking mix (from my other favorite grocery store) which inconveniently had NO recipe for chocolate cake using the mix on either the box or the website. Seriously, Aldi?

Soooooo – I went to Aldi’s Facebook page where several ladies had posted recipes that sounded great but were still not quite what I was seeking. So I whipped out the baking corner of my brain and forced it into creative submission with the promise of chocolate. Because, like most estrogen-based life forms, I can force my brain into almost any (mostly) non-violent behavior with the promise of chocolate.

I threw together a variety of mystery ingredients and confidently slid my first attempt into the oven and sat down to type out the recipe so I would have it for the future. But as the Good Book does say, pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. Speaking of falls . . .

Time for Intermission

Let’s a take a minute to ponder famous falls. The dictionary defines “fall” as “moving from a higher to a lower level, typically rapidly and without control” – such as The Fall of the Roman Empire, Niagara Falls, Custer’s Fall, The Fall of the Third Reich, and some of the more dramatic falls of Evil Knievel. Anything, really, that could be considered an Ultimate Fall. Getting my drift here? Have you pondered enough? I certainly have.

Intermission Ends

The fallen cake tasted delicious, though, so I am freezing the remains for a future chocolate trifle (another family favorite) since fluffy oomph is not really a requirement for trifle – just cut up cake bits.

I tried again with the following combination of ingredients and titled the result:

Karen’s Chocolate Cake To Remedy Aldi’s and HEB’s Fails
(Am I calling out Aldi and HEB? Yes. Yes, I am.)

1 Aldi’s Live G Free Chocolate Baking Mix
3/4 cup Bob’s Red Mill 1-to-1 Gluten Free Flour (or any 1-to-1 GF flour)
1/2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt

3 eggs
1 cup milk
1 to 2 tsp almond extract (Optional, but adds a light fruity flavor.)
½ cup softened butter (Or, in my case, melted butter – because I hadn’t softened any ahead of time.)

3/4 mini semi-sweet chocolate chips (Because, hello? Have you met me? More chocolate is a GOOD thing!)

Preheat oven to 350. Using electric mixer on medium speed:

  1. Mix liquid ingredients until just slightly foamy.
  2. Add in dry ingredients.
  3. Add chips.
  4. Mix until everything is combined and batter tastes yummy.
  5. Pour into two 8″ round cake pans to make a low-profile layer cake, and bake for give-or-take 30 minutes (you could probably also make a 9×13).
  6. Against the advice of every nutritionist on the planet, give bowl and beaters to children to enjoy. Keep the spatula for yourself because you certainly don’t want to miss out on the batter.

I frosted the cake with gluten-free frosting and added a nice, thick coating of berry preserves on top of the frosting in between the layers, then decorated it as you see in the photo. The cake was low profile but quite good, if slightly dense (as some of us just are, so don’t judge . . .).

In the spirit of full disclosure, I must tell you that the first cake, presently known as The Ultimate Fall, actually tasted richer, moister, and more chocolate-y. When I figure out how to make it taste that way and remain among the unfallen, I’ll post the recipe here 🙂

Sweet, Sweet Mardi Gras

Tuesday was Mardi Gras. There are not a lot of places to celebrate in our area that don’t involve over-21 activities, expensive restaurants, or events that already occurred the previous weekend. But I have a daughter who likes to celebrate EVERYTHING with celebratory food so I looked online and found many lovely King Cake recipes requiring yeast.

Well. That’s not gonna happen. My bread-baking days are over. Maybe. I think. (At my age, I’ve learned to never say never.)

A web search for “easy king cake” netted a delightful recipe using canned cinnamon rolls. Ding! Ding! Ding! Folks, we have a winner! We made a quick trip to our local grocery store and came home with the required items, plus fruit (because something healthy seemed to be called for), breakfast sausage (Deal of the Week: Buy the sausage, get the cinnamon rolls free – what’s not to like?) and, of course, Mardi Gras ice cream. I kid you not. The carton says “Limited Edition, Mardi Gras” and is decorated with people who appear to be playing jazz. I have been quite successful on my diet lately, but I knew right then that Fat Tuesday would not be Dieter’s Paradise.

I usually go light on sugar, but my darling daughter is dieting with me and had strong, profound, and fairly articulate feelings that if we were already messing around with gluten-infested cinnamon-roll based King Cake, we might as well go all the way. She made a reasonable argument and she has high functioning autism, so we take all the good, clear communication we can get. I bought the ice cream because sometimes I’m just a squishy bunny like that.

It all went down much as expected. My hubster came home from work and we had King Cake for snack. I made a celebratory tamale chile bake for dinner, and we had a little more King Cake after dinner with our Mardi Gras ice cream. I consumed the ice cream in extreme moderation because dairy is not my friend, but I definitely consumed enough to form an opinion.

So, what – you are asking – does Mardi Gras ice cream taste like? WELL, if you took a cinnamon King Cake with cream cheese frosting, added something green, something purple, and sprinkles, AND you whipped it with frozen whipped cream, AND mixed in approximately 40 lbs. of undiluted, refined sugar, THEN you would have ONE (and only ONE) gallon of Mardi Gras ice cream. To say it is just a bit sweet is like saying Niagara Falls is just a bit wet. A spoonful would probably be enough to keep your average 3 year old up all night.

My children stay up later than I do; I’m not saying there’s a correlation, but the rest of the King Cake was inexplicably gone by the next morning. I don’t ask questions. The Mardi Gras ice cream languished in the freezer for a day or two before finally succumbing to whatever mysterious force made the King Cake disappear.

I have decided to give up Mardi Gras ice cream for Lent along with any other foods that are in any way reminiscent of cotton candy on steroids.

May God bless you during this season of Lent!

Selfie Time. Be Still My Heart –

WordPress wants my photo. Badly. Every time I log in, they ask. I like to assume it’s because I’m (pick one) gorgeous, charming, aged, not millennial, parent of millennials, rocking the baby boomer thing, incredibly popular, moderately hot, screamingly sexy, or possibly ___ (provide your own adjective).

As much as I would like to take it as a personal compliment, I suppose they nag all their new bloggers so I remain unmoved. I have been calmly searching my technological devices for a recent and decent photo to satisfy the obviously passionate need of my new blog site, and have discovered something weird.

Current photos of solo me are nonexistent.

I have a gazillion photos of my family, friends, events, and scenic views. I have saved memes (“I don’t always drink wine . . . But when I do, the day ends in the letter y.”), saved quotes (“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending” – C.S. Lewis), pictures of our pets (four of them – not four pictures, four pets; we’ll address that another time), and the occasional amazing photos of cakes and cupcakes my youngest daughter has decorated. I am in photos with others, but nothing croppable. Huh.

So I dug through my bathroom cabinet, found and applied my rarely used make-up in a manner my cosmetically gifted older daughter would find utterly appalling (I plan to wash my face before she sees me) and began to take selfies. Many of them, trying to get a good one, Because – wow.

I appear to have aged. What are the odds? I feel a perky and youthful 30 inside, but I promise you that the outside most certainly does not match the inside.

Of course, I am aware that I have white hair. No self-deception there. I once had a friend who whispered that her decidedly graying husband saw only blond when he looked in the mirror. Since I was originally an auburn-level ginger, I could not claim as blond the white strands that started appearing before 30 and created a snow-on-the-mountain effect by 40. Matter of fact, a friend once hauled me into an unlit traveling TARDIS (I kid you not) to shine a sonic screwdriver blacklight on my head. Does my hair, in fact, glow in the dark? Yes. Yes, it does – but I digress. Even though the white was premature, I have apparently grown into it now. And I am a bit surprised and slightly appalled to discover that my eyes and other parts of my face have become riddled with smile lines. Many smile lines, going all different directions. One might even say my face smiles no matter the expression, and not just around the mouth.

And now you know why I appear mildly shell-shocked in my photo. So this is me, in make-up (don’t expect to see that again), wearing reading glasses, taking a selfie. Now, look back to the first paragraph – did you pick an adjective? I most certainly did. After pondering my inside, my outside, and my photos, I have finally decided I’m a hot, rockin’-the-boomer-vibe babe. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.