Back in the Saddle

...well, unless my latest baking endeavor doesn't turn out ;)

My family came to visit Friday night to celebrate my birthday, my mom's birthday, and my parents' anniversary and me and Jer's 1st anniversary...

My sister gave me THIS for my birthday:

AWESOME!!! I LOVE to bake and cook, so it's fun to have a book chock-full of new projects...more importantly, new projects that I can eat!!! Here's a link so you can check it out: Carol Fenster's 1000 Gluten-Free Recipes!!

I have had a great time perusing this exciting book, finding lots of great-sounding recipes I would love to try out. The really cool thing about this book is that Carol, the author, has come up with a base for most baking recipes in her book...Carol's Sorghum Blend. The blend is made up of sorghum flour, tapioca flour, and potato starch. I made a big batch of this blend and am keeping it in the freezer...she says it's fine to keep it in the freezer, as long as you bring the mix to room temperature before using. Her blend appears to be really versatile...so I just jumped out on a limb and made a big quantity of it, hoping for the best! :)
Sunday morning I made some delicious buttermilk pancakes for the hubby and me (the first recipe I tried out in the new book!). He said that if I didn't tell anyone they were gluten free, they wouldn't know they were anything different...he really did like them! It was a great first experience with a new cookbook, I was pumped! It's great to at least know of one recipe I can use...and potentially use it with overnight guests for breakfast, too! These pancakes used Carol's Sorghum Blend as a base...and it was great!
Well, tonight I decided to conduct my second "experiment" from that book...Buttermilk Coffee Crumb Cake...only mine should be plural, because I a making mini coffee cakes in muffin tins! My plan is (if they turn out!) to bring them with me tomorrow when I go to the Extreme Home Makeover Reveal Day where I will most likely be hanging out for the entire day in the freezing cold hungry and with little-to-no access to food I can eat! I heard they are bringing food in for us Easter Seals employees, but I bet it will be things like sandwich meat (which is questionable...sometimes contains gluten) and bread (well, that's a no-brainer!)...so I am going to bring my little coffee cakes, some bananas, apples, yogurt, and gluten-free cheese puffs! I should be set...we'll see!

Ok, here's some pictures of the fun process....
crumb topping...(in my new Longaberger small tip and mix bowl! I LOVE this bowl!!)

muffins in their little papers, waiting for the topping...

MMMM!

They are in the oven right now...I hope they turn out well and taste as awesome as they smell!! They could be a fun little birthday-morning breakfast for me! We'll see! (I am 26 years old tomorrow...wild!)