Scrummy Banana Pecan Loaf

Absolutely delish banana, pecan and golden syrup loaf.

Gluten and dairy free.  Totally delish.  Started at 8 am, baked at 8pm!  Life interrupted.  A lovely Sunday. How lovely if we could sit and have a cuppa and a slice together, eh?



 

I miss Melbourne cafes....warning ....whinge alert

Wah Wah Wah....

this weekend I went out for breakfast - my first in Perth this year and after my four days in Melbourne, where I was TOTALLY spoilt with absolutely divine and delicious gluten free toast at every café I went to for breakfast.  Let me tell you Melbourne cafes have it sussed.  BIG TIME.  They buy it from specialist bakeries, or bake it in-house and it is delicious.  Even beyond Melbourne.  In Lorne we went to the burger joint called 'Bottle of Milk". I ate burgers on gluten free buns, that were so good, the non gluten-free-ers choose them over the regular buns. Yep that's right.  I requested a burger in a bowl, because in my Western Australian experience...Grill'd, Jus Burgers, the buns are crap.  Totally disgusting - dry and crumbly, so I just get my burger hit without the bun.  But I didn't have to do that in Melbourne, so I indulged in more than one burger. Nom, nom, nom.  My mouth is watering at the thought of it now...and it's all the way across the other side of the country. ...so here I was at the John Street Café eagerly anticipating my eggs on gluten-free toast.  Soooo disappointing.  I suspect it was the Country Life supermarket loaf....very very dry-, inedible around the edges, like dried out bread for breadcrumbs......Melbourne cafes  were a distant memory.  It wasn't all bad - the eggs were perfect, but, 'this is why I just opt for no bread and go without, because it's too hard to get anything that doesn't totally depress you.  I feel like Melbourne cares...I haven't just decided to jump on some band wagon.  I am seriously, seriously, incredibly better health wise being gluten free - it is totes absolutely amazing how much better I feel.  Whereas I feel like Perth doesn't really care...it's like one of those people that roll their eyes and think...oh, here's another one of those faddish eaters, jumping on the wagon, making my life difficult.

I've never been diagnosed coeliac (because I'm not prepared to put myself back on gluten for 6 weeks and then have a test, when the outcome would be the same as I'm doing now and my body is thanking me everyday and I'm finally listening to it...lesson finally learned...susan you are such a slow learner), I have no qualms saying no to gluten as I just don't want to feel that sick and exhausted ever again. In saying that, there are times when I inadvertently have gluten and here is a the result of one of these situations...I look 7 months pregnant...it is hilarious.  It's my party trick....

I did warn you I was having  a whinge..... :)

gluten belly

 

 



The BEST Coffee and Walnut Cake

On Sunday I had a rare day with not much on, so I thought I'd bake a cake.  I went through a stage of baking a cake every weekend a while back, but that had gone by the wayside recently.  But I just felt like something super yummy to have with a morning coffee.  I was totally inspired by a new cookbook I bought recently - it is so mouth-watering, I just drool over the pages as I flick through.  I've declared to myself I will systematically bake every recipe in the book - a bit of a Julie/Julia Child thing.  No pressure Sooze..I mean I didn't set a time frame.  I think I might set a counter up and count down the number of recipes in the book...mmm I just need to figure out how to do that! 

 

I won't keep you in suspense any longer................

 

 

 

here's what it looked like from the top....

 

 

and side

 

 

 

 

It was to-die-for-delicious and got the biggest thumbs up from my girls. Totally gluten-free.

 

Thanks Julia Thomas from Cake Angels

 

 

Epic baking fail....aka lemon brick cake

You know that saying "When all else fails bake a cake"........well what happens when the cake fails? 

My Sunday baking was a Lemon Drizzle Cake - a gluten free version.  All mixed in a food processor, whacked in the tin and the oven - easy peasy. 

First sign of impending disaster was that the mixture curdled in the food processor.  Mmmmm I stood and looked and considered this...do I add more flour?  No I think I'll soldier on being my first attempt at the recipe.  Put it in the silicone loaf pan and slid it into the oven.  Watching it carefully as my oven is awful.  I really must get someone out to look at it.  It was browning up very quickly but sloppy as all get out.  The butter was bubbling all around it.  Was that the silicone baking tin?  (It's not a tin, but what else do you call them?)  I bought it recently as I needed a loaf pan of a certain size.  Don't know why, I don't like using silicone.  I went against my better judgement and got talked into it by the shop assistant and I needed one to make my gluten free bread and it was all they had.  (Still haven't made the bread!). Anyway I think I'll donate it and get myself a tin tin...

I tested the cake and the top half was sloppy and the bottom solid.  I thought "oh no' it's burning on the bottom.  But perservered until the top was the tested properly. So finally I pulled it out and drizzled the drizzle over it and left it to cool completely in the pan.

It didn't look too bad when I turned it out....

The top half was edible....so we nibbled away at that...real cake desperados that we are!

and played and sculpted it....

It looks like a barge or oil tanker, don't you think?  Although this one would sink without a trace.  The bottom half was just a solid slab - reminiscent of the concrete slab out extension is built upon.

So all was not lost completely... we managed to have some fun with it.  I'm wondering whether to try again, but not use the food processor and make it by steps, that is, cream the butter and sugar add an egg and then the rice flour etc etc. That way I can keep an eye on it, oh and use one of my trusted cake tins, not the new fangled silicone. 
so all is not lost when the cake fails too! 

Sunday Baking

I quite often bake a treat for us on a Sunday.  It feels as though it rounds off the weekend nicely.  A celebration of time spent at home and in my kitchen.  An acknowledgement to the week ahead and and extreme busy - ness for the week days.  Baking has been absent whilst I've been sick and also because of the gluten free diet.  I mean I ain't gonna bake something I can't eat, now am I?  Cakes and baking being an integral part of me! (Remember, this bake a cake post, So it's taken a while to get my head around gluten free alternatives.  I've armed myself with a couple of cookbooks and scoured the web and found heaps of recipes, so now I'm armed and equipped, ready for action! First cake.. A Victoria Sandwich Cake!

Here it is posing for its photo! A very photogenic and willing subject!
(The flowers were a lovely surprise from my stepmum, wishing me wellness as the whooping cough drags on.  Aren't they beautiful? so bright and cheery - the complete opposite of how I've been feeling...morose and sorry for myself.  C'mon Susie snap out of it!  Well the cake helped.)

  It was perfect. Such an easy recipe...one bowl. Mdae with brown rice flour.

Dusted with icing sugar

Sandwiched together with my home made plum jam.  Is your mouth watering?

Served up on my favourite cake plates, with a super generous DOLLOP of cream whipped with icing sugar. Sitting contentedly watching Sunday night TV.
Really it's all good isn't it?

Going Gluten Free

I've started the New Year on a gluten free diet - I started a week before Christmas.  I've had health issues for so long now I don't remember how it is to feel truly well and energised.  I have Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, an auto-immune disease.  It was diagnosed after the birth of my second daugther over 16 years ago and I've been on thyroxine ever since.  I have the slugg-iest metabolism around and I can't live without coffee.  Lately though it's as though I have sleeping sickness.  I have to nap at weekends and think I'll just put my feet up for 5 minutes and wake up 5 hours later.  I was so tired at work one day I put my head down and fell asleep.  I have a hoarse voice a lot and a slightly sore throat and swollen glands.  I have acute bursitis in my back, hips and legs.  I am sore to touch practically everywhere.  My legs burn walking up a flight of stairs, my arms ache hanging out washing, my back aches standing cooking in the kitchen, walking around a shopping centre is exhausting, I don't have the mental capacity to make a shopping list or plan a menu.  Things are dire.  I have been seeing a naturopath who has diagnosed extreme adrenal fatigue.  I have all the symptons of chronic fatigue.  I am desperate to get well.  I go to my GP who runs the blood tests and adjust my medication every 6-12 months and tells me I appear to be suffering or recovering from some low grade virus, but assures me the medication adjustment should help me out.  I would scream except I don't have the energy. 

So a few weeks ago in my desperation, I googled my (extremely common) condition and thought it was time to read up again and see what I can do to help myself or where to go for help.  I feel ANCIENT in my forties - how I am going to feel in my eighties, if I make it to them?

I stumbled across a blog of another sufferer, sarah wilson, and read this from Nora Gedgaudas

The primary issue at hand is IMMUNE function (specifically, a need for immune modulation).

Most if not nearly all cases of autoimmune thyroid are profoundly tied to gluten sensitivity and/or celiac disease (either as an initiating or complicating issue).  Avoiding ALL gluten and whatever cross-reactive compounds you have a sensitivity to should be 100%, immediate and permanent.  Nearly all available testing for gluten sensitivity currently is quite unreliable…so if you think you aren’t gluten sensitive you may want to seriously reconsider revisiting this though more in depth testing.  If it were me, I’d just assume an issue with gluten and avoid it like the plague.

Healing your gut is hugely important in this.  It will be impossible, btw, without generating healthy glutathione levels.

It was a light bulb moment...when you feel this crappy you will try anything, so I am.  So farThere is only one thing that has changed in the 3 weeks.  My oedema (swelling of the ankles) has reduced and family members have commented on my slimmer ankles!!  I still want coffee served intraveneously to function, but I am delighting in my slimmer ankles.

Here's a picture of a recent extreme case I had of oedema after a flight...

And here they are today....

'

This is the first I've read or heard of any connection between gluten and auto-immune disease!!!   Why?  In 16 years, not one person has ever suggested the connection or told me.  Not one medico/endocronologist, naturopath...not one!!  I've just felt pathetic and insane with my malaise and lethargy.  All of it is explained by a high level of stress in my life...working full time, divorce, financial stress, etc etc. I am seriously hoping it helps.  I know that it's not the only thing I need to do, but it is a start and it has given me the teeniest glimmer of hope for my future health. 

Í've debated long and hard whether to discuss health here on my blog.  I fear I will sound so whiny and miserable and pathetic, but I can't not mention this fact and spread the word.  If you read this and know anyone with auto-immune disease tell them.  They may already know, but they may not and it could be a vital tit-bit of information for them.

In my current exhausted state I've convinced myself that I'm useless at craft and don't know why I'm bothering.  The creative joy has left me.  That is the biggest sign of all that I am sick!  Perhaps writing about it will release my feelings and free me up to snap out of it and get back creating.