Gluten Free/Paleo Chocolate Cake & Cloth Diapers

Sweet little babies in their cloth diapers--- nothing cuter, well until that is they poop.  Like the green/yellow runny exploding kind of poop.  Which is exactly what happened after these cute pictures were taken.  I'm keeping it real to say that the photographs were pitch perfect in the vision I wanted to create for this post, but yeah life happens and we all poop including babies.  And babies have messy poop, the kind that make you hold them at arms length as you walk back from the garden and back into the house to clean nicely spray off with the hose all the poop that came out of the tiny baby.

And anyways, back to the story.... I love my babes in cloth diapers... fluffy soft little butts are the best!  In the case of these lovely warm orange merino wool longies, I made them out of gently felted sweaters I got at the thrift.  And in-fact I have 5 more yummy sweaters to sew up soon!

Longies are super simple to make too, in a nutshell cut the sleeves off of the arms of a sweater using the finished ends of the sleeves as the bottom of the pants and sew an elastic casing at the top--- thread elastic through and sew shut.  I'll show you'll guys "how" someday soon... they are quite easy and I'm sure you can figure them out!

So now onto the cake!

I enjoy all kinds of baking and cooking and Paleo/gluten free are recipes I love exploring and experimenting with.

This cake is DIVINE!!! Super easy to make too!

This cake makes 1 cake (9 inches round) with four layers or a few 12inch long single cakes (as pictured above). 

Cake:

Ingredients:

2 cups pure cane sugar 

1 cup coconut flour

3/4 cups of almond flour

3/4 cups of pure unsweetened Dutch cocoa powder

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons of baking soda

1 teaspoon sea salt

2 organic eggs

1 cup whole milk 

1/2 cup vegetable oil (we use organic olive oil with no problems)

2 teaspoons almond extract 

1 cup boiling water

Frosting:

3/4 cups of butter (room temp) 

1 1/2 cups unsweetened pure Dutch cocoa 

5 cups confectioners sugar 

2/3 cup milk 

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

a handful of dark chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees 

In one mixing bowl mix all dry ingredients of the cake recipe portion, then slowly add eggs, oil, almond extract and whole milk, lastly adding the boiling water. Mix until wonderfully smooth with a few cellulite lumps and bumps!

Once mixed, pour into two 9 inch cake pans or three 12 inch cake pans, pouring small amounts at a time, evenly in each preferred pan.

Bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. once cooled split the two 9 inch cakes in half making for thin cakes. Or if you'd made the larger cakes, leave them to cool.

Mix the frosting by mixing butter cocoa and sugar, slowly adding in the milk, the vanilla extract and chips. 

Once the cakes are cooled spread frosting either onto or if you've created layered cakes, in-between also. 

Done!  This cake is heavenly with afternoon espresso -- or hell, at breakfast! 

I'm not going to lie, we ate this cake in one setting and we skipped dinner. It was that good. 

Simple Burritos & A Bridge

These are burritos are a family favorite and make the greatest "I have no idea what to make for dinner, we have no food and the kids are hungry!" type suppers. Plus and this is a HUGE PLUS is that this meal fed our family of seven for under $7!! 

Ingredients: 
1 package of corn tortillas (pack of 12) 
2 cans of mixed beans (black and kidney) 
1 small package of shredded cheese or a small block of cheese grated
1 bunch of cilantro
1 bunch of green onions
1 yellow onion 
1 jar of salsa
1 tablespoon  of butter

In a nutshell, I take the package of tortillas out and arrange them on the counter.  Next I assemble them adding cheese and beans, a dollop of salsa and a handful of condiments (the onions and cilantro) and roll em' up.  Warm up a cast iron skillet with a dab of butter and arrange burritos nicely and fry until golden brown. So so good.  

Alternatively FOR YOU GLUTEN FREE OR GRAIN FREE EATERS you can wrap these burrito with rainbow chard leaves.  They make smaller burritos but the leaves still fry up tenderly yet crispy enough for a small bite! 
This is a big supper staple around here!

Before I cooked up these burritos the other night, we were unpacking our bags from a recent camping trip to MN, and the Upper Peninsula of MI. 

It was so lovely and as you would imagine the boys loved getting messy and extra dirty---above and beyond the normal farm dirt!

Here are some pictures of the Mackinac Bridge... it was so big and beautiful.  Finally made it to the last great lake we've never seen (lake Heron).

and holding up our small campsite are these two tents!  When you have a large family two tents aren't even enough! 

We are excited to be home though---showers!  I am eagerly getting back to the soulful work of growing things.  It is fall, but this year I'm trying a new "all year round' growing.  Starting with the micro greens.  I'm waiting for the trays to arrive and I am anxious to get my hands back in the dirt!