Granola muffins - gluten-free

Today I'll share with you a recipe for gluten-free muffins that I found in a culinary book.

I found the taste extremely delicious and it's easy to make.

 

The recipe is for 12 muffins.

First preheat the oven - 350F (180C) and bake them 20-25 min. or until they become golden on the top.

 

1cup + 2tbsp brown rice (today I have replaced it with chick pea flour)

1 cup almond flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp xanthan gum (today I missed it)

2/3 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

2/3 buttermilk (if you don't have it you can make it - 250ml milk+1tbsp. lemon juice or white vinegar)

1/4 cup cocoanut oil

1tsp vanilla extract

11/4 cup granola

1/3 cup dried cranberries (today I replaced them with dries cherries)

 

And here is the result :)

 

 

 

Happy birthday,Krasi!

Today's cake is for Krasi's birthday. She is a lady that you have already known mainly her cakes in my posts. Here you can find her birthday cake from the last year.... It was like yesterday, OK, like some months ago but definitely not 12...Time really flies... 

 

The sweet surprise was made by her husband. As I understood Krasi didn't expect to find a birthday cake exactly for her in her son's daycare. Surprise!!!! Here it's the moment to explain why I involve the daycare :) Krasi's son and my daughter are going to one and the same daycare and when I went to pick up my daughter I left the sweet surprise there.

Do you like the colors? Honestly, I adore them. I like very much the warm colors like yellow, orange and red...And although her husband asked for a cake more orange-red color when I started coloring the fondant and I made this marble effect with yellow and orange I stopped. I fell in love with it! It's not for the first time but again I would like to apologize for my photos. Definitely they can't  show you the real nuances....

From the sign I am sure you can guess what is Krasi's hobby :)

 

Happy birthday, Krasi! I wish you happiness and a lot of professional achievements!

 

P.S. The cake is raw, made out of ground hazelnuts, figs, apricots, cranberries and blueberries. For the fat I used cocoanut oil.

Cake in pink

This cake in pink is for our neighbor. She is a mother of 3 cute boys. And today she has a birthday. Happy birthday, Maimouna! I wish you an amazing party with the family and your close friends.

 

The cake was ordered by her husband who wanted to surprise her. It was a secret in which was involved also her very close girl-friend with whom we discussed the cake and the filling. Maimouna likes very much lemon and chocolate cakes. That's why this cake is a mixture of both flavors. I made my fluffy vanilla cream and I spread it between the layers. All other decorations are made out of fondant.

I hope that Maimouna liked her surprise :) 

 

 

 

 

 

My girl is 6!!!!

 

My little girl Sophia is already 6 years old!!!! I still can't believe it....Although we have been talking about that day for a long, long time discussing the presents and the cake, I still can't believe that Sophia is already six years old.

My daughter was born in summer time and that's why we always celebrated her birthdays at the nearby park inviting a lot of friends and families. The park is enormous, there was plenty of space for the kids to play, run, jump...do whatever they want. It was always a nice occasion to meet our friends. But this year it was different. Our "old" enough daughter decided that the time to celebrate only with girls and classmates came :)We decided to respect her wish and we invited only her friends and we made almost "only girls' party" :) 

And here it's the moment to mention that the theme of our 6th birthday was....."Frozen". Are you surprised? Probably,no....as you noticed the girls at that age adore the Disney movie "Frozen". One of her present was Elsa's dress. Imagine how happy was Sophia when she opened the gift.

 

Dear Sophia, we love you!!!! We wish you always to be happy and be a princess in the real life!

 

This year I decided not to make anything special....just a cake and that's it. But look at what happened....Everything started with the cookies "snowflakes".

 

 

 

 

Each cookie is decorated differently. Then I decided that Sophia would be extremely happy if I made cookies with "Frozen" images. I ordered some edible images and here it's the final result....

 

 

These cookies are gluten-free.

Then I decided that I have to stop with the cookies. Another idea came in my mind - most people like cupcakes. Immediately I decided to make dozen of them and I had already chosen how to decorate them. I found "Frozen" rings some weeks ago and I thought that this would be very nice surprise for all girls. Now they would have a small gift and precious memory from Sophia's birthday :) And because there was a choice for the rings (plastic snowflakes, crowns and rings with images of all the movie characters), of course I made some with the images for the girls' party and some with the snowflakes and crowns for her friends from the daycare. Although Sophia left the daycare last year she still adores to play with her little friends.
 

 

 

These muffins are with blueberries and blue butter cream on the top. The ring is made out of plastic.

 

The other muffins for the daycare are banana ones.

 

 

And the last ones are chocolate muffins with chocolate chips. They were for Sophia's friends from the park where they play every single night and for their parents. Unfortunately the weather on that day wasn't very nice, far away from the real summer - windy and rainy. That's why we couldn't surprise a lot of our friends....Never mind...next year... :) Now only photos...

 

 

 

 

Some of the snowflakes on the top of some of the muffins are edible - they were for the boys and the muffins with the plastic rings were for the girls and their mothers :)

After so many preparations for this year's birthday I started with the cake. "Frozen", of course :)

It was made out of vanilla layers with colorful bits (Sophia's choice) and between them I arranged mini éclairs with vanilla cream. Among the éclairs I spread fluffy homemade chocolate cream...The toys were plastic bought from far, far away and strictly kept for this special moment :)

Let's start only with Elsa...

 

 

 

 

 And now I added the other characters....

 

 

And the final arrangement -  everything that I have prepared for my precious Sophia....

 

 

These blue packages in Elsa's cup are Mr. Freeze - everything in blue.

 

We love you, dear Sophia!!!!

Hello Kitty cake

This cake is for Rali's 4th birthday.

Happy birthday, dear girl! I wish you an incredible birthday party, a lot of friends and amazing gifts!

Right now while  I am posting the photos I remember something funny. My kids have a lot of toys Hello Kitty but for a long time they haven't played with them. There are some other movie characters that have occupied their minds and attention :) But when they understood that I would make Hello Kitty cake the interest was so high that immediately they started looking for the cat  - toys, books, stickers....They turned upside down the whole room. I am absolutely sure this interest will disappear at the moment when I'll give the cake to Rali's mother. Let see...

 

The cake is made out of vanilla and chocolate layers attached with my irresistibly delicious cream of mascarpone and strawberries. Enjoy it!

And now I'll share with you two pictures that Rali's parents sent to me. Look at the girl! She is so happy :)

 

  And now a photo with Rali's friends and parents.

 

Happy birthday, Rali!