Gluten Free Cake Flags

We saw this idea for Cake Flags around Halloween last year and adapted it to Gluten Free Cooking. I sent these cup cakes off to school for Grandparents Day last week. I know we are not the only Gluten Free family at school and thought it would be nice and clear for all our guests on the day that these cup cakes were made Gluten Free.

You could adapt this idea to Nut and Egg Free too.

We just printed out the signs, cut out the shapes and stuck them to tooth picks. The tooth picks are handy for stopping the glad wrap squashing the icing on the top of the cup cakes too.

Gluten Free Cupcakes

Parents at School were asked to bake something for Grandparents Day last week, for afternoon tea that is shared with the children. As one of my girls is Coeliac and Gluten Free I sent along these cup cakes.

I used the Basco Gluten Free Packet Mix but made cup cakes instead of one large cake. I think cup cakes are easier for school to serve and have less chance of cross contamination as they don't need to be sliced.

This is such an easy packet mix to follow and they keep beautifully if made the night before. Gluten Free cakes seem to keep fresh longer than traditional cakes. Just another positive for being Gluten Free.

Follow the instructions on the box and remove the cup cakes out of the oven after about 10 to 15 minutes or when they spring to the touch.

School Holidays Sewing - Making Cushions

My girls have cushions on their chairs at school and they wanted to personalise them. We got this fabric and the insert from Ikea and purchased some matching felt to applique the letters on.

I love the colour with the roses in the backgroud. They are from my 87 year old Grandmas garden.

We machine sewed around each letter before adding the zip and sewing up the side seams of the cushion.

                     Here is a close up of the stitching on Miss 12's cushion.

           I think the girls did an amazing job, with a little help from Mummy!

Winter Veggie Soup

This is the simplest soup to make and so good for you. All of the vegetable ingredients, except one onion, are fresh out of my winter veggie patch. Cooking with organic veggies that are only a few minutes old can't be beaten for flavour and making the most of all those nutrients.

Here I have Kale, Celery, a small Zucchini and Silver beet. All high in vitamins and iron.

Add the Chopped onion to a saucepan and brown off with a small amount of Olive Oil (about a tablespoon).

Then add the chopped celery and zucchini and continue to stir for approximately 5 minutes.

Then add 4 cups of room temperature water and two teaspoons of stock powder to the saucepan, or stock powder to taste.

Cook for about 10 minutes or until the Celery is soft. Then add chopped Kale and Silver beet just before turning off your soup, the heat in the liquid will cook the leaves quickly. This stops the leafy green veggies from over cooking and losing their beautiful colour and vitamins.

Then you can eat this soup as it is, nice and chunky, or blend it in a food processor, or blender, for a smoother thick soup.

Winter Themed Birthday Parties

Both of my daughters have recently had their birthdays and they both wanted to take their friends Ice Skating so we decided on a winter theme for both parties.

We made an Igloo Cake for Miss 12 and a Snowman for Miss 10. They both were made from two basic Basco Gluten Free Cake Mixs and cut or baked in a bowl to suit the shapes. The icing included is obviously already Gluten Free and the Marshmallows we used from Pascals are now Gluten Free.They didn't seem to have any packets with just white so we had lots of pink ones left over for lolly bags!

Miss 12's Igloo

Icing the shape after cooking the cake in a ceramic bowl.

This is Miss 10's Snowman. Her big sister made the scarf from scraps of wool.

These are the items we used to cut out the Snowman shape.I baked the cake the day before and then just cut around the shape with a sharp knife before applying the icing.

A few weeks earlier we made the invitations by cutting out white card into shapes and then we drew the design, we found on Google Images, in glue and sprinkled them with glitter to look like snow flakes.

Fruit on Display

I have talked before about using simple greenery instead of flowers. I think fruit in a bowl makes just as good a statement. It is an inexpensive way to make a house feel warm, inviting and lived in. You can coordinate you fruit to match your decore, it is inexpensive to purchase but best of all you can eat it too.

I often use limes, and green pears or apples because I love green. Other ideas are lemons, red apples, artichokes and various nuts in their shell look great too.

Gluten Free Dried Pasta

Before being Gluten Free my girls would eat allot of pasta. Mainly because, as a parent, I found it easy to add healthy ingredients into the Bolognaise Sauce that went with it. Also they liked pasta and it was easy to make and serve over two sittings.

When we had to go on a wheat free, Gluten Free, diet dried pasta was one of the first products I had to find to replicate what we had already been eating. I tried several brands and found mostly they were very stodgy or would fall apart whilst being cooked.

This brand is now our favorite. It is called BUONTEMPO, BUON APPETITO, RICE SPIRALS. $3.14 at my local Coles Supermarket for a 500gm bag. It is made in Australia and is 88% Rice and 12% Maize (Corn). This brand also offers Penne but I find that the Penne is too easy to over cook, where it will fall apart and not hold it's shape.

If you are cooking two different pastas for your family you will need to start cooking the regular gluten pasta approximately 4 to 5 minutes before the Gluten Free Dried pasta as the Gluten Free pasta cooks quicker. Also drain the Gluten Free pasta first before adding back to your pot to cook out the moisture and add olive oil. If you drain the regular pasta first you may contaminate the Gluten Free batch next. Unless of course you have two separate strainers or particularly like washing up!

I find this brand and variety so good that you may find, like our house, that eventually you will all just end up eating one type of pasta together. Gluten Free Foods are however more expensive than regular brands even for a cheap product like pasta. So if you are watching the budget or have allot of people to feed just keep them separate.

The Bolognaise sauce of course is the same as it is Gluten Free if made the traditional way. I will blog my version of Bolognaise Sauce another day. Also use caution if you use powdered Parmesan Cheese as some brands have flour (wheat) added to the cheese to stop it clumping together. Traditional Parmesan Cheese, you grate yourself, is Gluten Free.