Christmas Cooky Day Fail

Hello! Happy Christmas week, dear friends. Today was cooky day at the beach...omg, another disaster. It's my own fault, I had forgotten the ghastly gluten free snowflake sugar cookies from last year. "He who fails to remember the past is destined to repeat his errors.". Um, yeah, so not laughing.

It started out so well, a chilly grey day, a gale blowing. Perfect for baking. I am not crazy about cooking but I love to bake.

I decided this year I'd make my mother's Snowball cookies. In my mind I was thinking, Fast, easy, smallish recipe. Always come out great, last a long time.

I've been making this recipe since I was ten years old.

Here's where things went wrong. Due to current dietary fads the cookies needed to be gluten free,  lactose free, soy free. Possibly Paleo, Keto, and Vegan. Mediterranean! A challenge! I found lovely pecan bits and, most important, almond flour [gluten-free] , at Trader Joe's.

Instead of butter I used a vegan butter substitute spread, along the lines of margarine, but fancied up for the current food correct posse. [It has soy! But I was told it is okay. Well. Okay, then.]

Coconut sugar in the dough. Only 4 Tablespoons so it wasn't too important that coconut sugar is not sweet.

Mo and I sat and rolled up a couple dozen little bite sized balls.

We sat at the table, watching the flock of little sparrows devour the seed I give them, enjoying the big winter waves, the low dark clouds.

It didn't take long. Two big cooky sheets. Pop in the oven.

Uh oh. Now the thing is, baking is a form of chemistry. You have to measure, you cannot estimate, guess or sub. And the word GLUTEN must hark back to the word GLUE, because without wheat flour containing gluten, recipes that normally bake up holding shape and form slowly ooooooze into formless flat blobs. We watched in dismay.

I went ahead and did the two layers of powdered sugar. I used pure cane sugar, there is just no reasonable sub, once a year, for real confectioners sugar. Even on crumbly blobs.

Maybe I'll experiment with a cake baked in my Swedish Dala horse mold [red, below]? I'm imagining the batter flowing over the sides of the mold, like lava. The mold, from IKEA, has no instructions or volume info. LOL.

I hope the market has nice mini cannolis


love

lizzy

gone to the beach....

PS Mo is on the naughty list! He was briefly unsupervised and he went in the kitchen, got the trash cabinet door [bungeed shut] off its hinges! He couldn't get the trash bin out, so he reached in and got all the garbage, spread it ALL OVER the entire kitchen floor. Thankfully nothing harmful was there for him to eat! This is new, he is hungry because he's on a diet? or bored?

Cake ~ Love

"There are so many forms of love. Spending time with friends, telling stories. I enjoy showing my love by baking a cake for somebody ..."  Pia Klementieff


I love to bake, it's fun and easy, and fills my house with delightful scents. To me baking a cake is way of showing love---whether the recipient wants it or not, hahaha.

When I met my ex husband he was a young guy living in Manhattan. Every week he'd take the subway out to Flatbush Brooklyn to visit his mother. Every week she'd send him home with homemade chicken soup and a homemade cinnamon swirl pound cake. It was, I'm sure, her way of showing her love.

My friend is coming to visit tomorrow. When I have special guests I like to have a homemade cake or cookies to offer, with hot tea in the winter, lemonade in the summer. It's my way of welcoming, of showing my love; it fits my old-fashioned notions of hospitality.

My mom sent my dad to NYC with a pound cake wrapped in foil, for my birthday one year. 22? 23?He took me to Tiffany's and bought me a gold bangle bracelet with a tiny diamond on it. I wish I still had it. A cake---and a gift---my undemonstrative family's version of love.

This weekend I baked a cake for my friend who makes the long drive down from Upstate New York to spend the day with me. Here's another fun cake quote:
"My idea of baking is buying a ready make cake mix and throwing in an egg." Cilla Black [was she a famous Beatles groupie, or what?]

I was so in the mood for carrot cake! Mel and I had been talking about an old New England recipe for Campbell's Tomato Soup Cake. Mel said, eeew, but I said maybe good, like carrot cake?
The baking aisles are sparse these days; lots of gluten free, no carrot cake mix. At the third store I tried I found an old fashioned Betty Crocker pound cake mix. Perfect.

I do use mixes, they're easy and fun. I used olive oil for moistness, the above mentioned egg; poppy seeds; and I subbed orange-peach Grand Marnier  liqueur for the liquid. Ooooh it smelled amazing, heaven on a dark fog -drenched day. [the fog horn has been wailing all day again today.]

It baked up so high! Is that from the liqueur?

I sliced it and layered it with orange marmalade and a layer of cream cheese frosting.

A small amount of frosting was melted and put on top.

Teatime.

I love sweet flowered tea party dishes.

Violets, swoon.

Lavender rose buds, lily of the valley, pansies...

I don't actually use this china for guests, because modern people find it pretentious and it makes them feel uncomfortable or uneasy. It places too much importance on the act of eating and sharing. For real life I have plain grey blue mugs from Target. Go figure.

Will my friend partake? I doubt it, I think she is still on her ''Clean 3o" diet kick. She looks wonderful and has lost so much weight that I can't be disappointed by her rejection. I have apples [only Granny Smith!]; organic raw almonds, and hard boiled eggs, with cold green tea for her instead. The cake went in the freezer.

My kids should be home soon, from skiing. I made Swedish meatballs and salad---in case they're hungry. No cake.

love

lizzy

gone to the beach....

Clean 30 Eating HERE

Tomato Soup Cake  here

PS Paperwhites FAIL! I must take back my suggestion that we can just pick up a supermarket box of daff bulbs on sale! So disappointing, only two mingy little, though very sweet, flower bunches. This was week three, last Monday. Next year I'll order from Amazon instead, it's worth a few more dollars spent.