Insulating cake strips

On By CarynIn Life Hack, Tools

My youngest suggested making chocolate cake to celebrate the end of the school year… that is definitely worth cake. I pulled up a new recipe for gluten-free chocolate cake and in the tips they recommended “insulating cake strips”. I had to look it up. Apparently someone discovered that if you insulate the sides of the cake pan, you get a flatter top, rather than a dome. That is all well and good, and fancier than I usually do for cakes (my cakes look very homemade), but can I make them myself? Like right now? Yes, yes I can. Here are some great instructions on how to make these using aluminum foil and paper towels. Well, then, I will give them a try.

Cake pans with DIY insulating strips
After baking

They strips did seem to help reduce the cake dome. My cakes were still uneven. Not sure if my oven tray is out of level (it’s not, just checked) or if it is the curse of the chocolate cake (the last few I made were mostly inedible). Even with aligning the thick side with a thin side the finished cake was leaning. It look some camera angle magic to make it look sort of even. It tasted just fine! Hurray for edible!

Finished cake (more uneven than pictured, camera angles are magic)

Wet hen again

On By CarynIn chickens
Twilight soaked from the rain

The rain. The rain that just keeps coming. I know it is springtime in Texas, which means rainstorms, but this year feels different. It isn’t Harvey bad, we actually have seen the sun and blue sky, but the ground is so wet and has been soaking wet with little chance to dry out. The chicken’s run has been wet for so long it is growing algae. Twilight couldn’t care less, and wanders out into the downpour, coming back looking bedraggled. In the picture above she is not mad about being soaked, she is mad that I am chasing her around with a camera (and also, since I’m there, is there another round of grubs?) On the plus side, the drainage I dug continues to keep the area around the coop door dry, so their food is dry and they have some dry dirt for dust baths. Everything else in the runs, though, is damp and soggy.

What is that.

On By CarynIn Fungi

We have a weight set out on the back porch. I saw something bright underneath and bent down to look and was greeted by a mushroom. The fruiting body of a fungus was erupting from the fabric under the bench. I guess it really has been quite damp lately.

The underside of the bench press bench is growing mushrooms

Quadruplets

On By CarynIn Wildlife

We were eating lunch and saw some nine-banded armadillos foraging in the back woods during a cloudy afternoon. These are probably last year’s litter, as they seem to be full grown (the cats are 10 pounds, and they look about the same size).The two cats (Big Orange Tom and Sophie) prowling the area completely left them alone. Nine-banded armadillos are insectivores and these are digging for grubs and worms. I recorded for 5 minutes, within 6 feet at times. I’m not sure they even knew I was there. Sorry for the shaky footage, the mosquitoes were eating me alive. Totally worth it!

Nine banded armadillo quadruplets

Favorite family recipes

On By CarynIn Bread

My mother-in-law makes wonderful cinnamon rolls, which I haven’t been able to eat for 17 years. We have both tried the recipe with gluten-free flours, and tried gluten-free recipes, but it just isn’t the same. So next on my list of “things I want to bake” with heritage wheat (I am using Sunrise Flour Mill’s Heritage Bread Blend), was her overnight cinnamon rolls.

Cinnamon rolls prepped and ready for the fridge

I did use my dough hook and my stand mixer to prep the recipe, and I only made one pan of rolls instead of two, but otherwise followed the instructions! Rolling out dough with developed gluten takes a little more effort than gluten-free types, but it held well and made such lovely spirals of cinnamon. (Spirals and cinnamon are also two of my favorite things.)

Baked cinnamon rolls, in the process of getting browned butter frosting

The next morning I took off the foil and baked the cinnamon rolls. I even made the browned butter frosting! And they were good. So good that even my youngest ate them! With frosting! My GI tract also has had no complaints with this blend of wheat so far. As much as I love cinnamon rolls, and these were definitely the best I’ve had since going modern wheat free, it is the ability to make family recipes again that is even more meaningful.