Vday Namaste Cake

Soooo in honor of Vday I made up the Namaste spice cake in a heart shape! LOL (Gabe took it to school for their party)


I made it in a 9in round pan and then in a 8x8 square dish. Then I trimmed down the round part so that the length of the circle matched the length of the square. Then I cut the circle in half and laid it next to the square. Frost and decorate and VOILA!

I then got to serve the trimmed pieces as a snack for company. They LOVED it and could NOT believe that it was free of everything!


You can see the two circle halves on the top sides of the diamond!





For frosting I made homemade frosting

5 cups homemade powdered sugar
2 ts CLEAR vanilla extract (this will have small amounts of corn) Must be clear to make a perfect white, but you can use homemade or regular to get it corn free, it will just tint it a little.
1/2 cup milk
2 sticks butter

This frosting is SUPER sugary and perfect for kids, so I just frosted the top and then did a little heard shape in colored sprinkles. (these have food dye and most likely corn as well, but you can decorate with anything!)

It tasted like a perfect spice cake. (hubby's favorite and he loved it) I wish I had thrown in some raisins and carrot peels to make it a carrot cake! LOL! It would be to die for with cream cheese frosting. (no cream cheese in the house) The texture was great too. A lot of you know that sometimes allergy free foods just have a funny texture from the different flours. Not in this mix!

The teacher and aides all enjoyed it and the kids liked it so much they ate the whole cake!!!!!!!

So all in all I have to say that I am really impressed with Namaste as an allergy free company. Great foods, wonderful customer service, good communication skills, tasty, easy treats, and because of them I knew that Gabe got to have the same as everyone else and that NOT ONE of those kids knew it was allergy free because it tasted funny. :) I'd rate them 10 out of 10.

So after these 2 reviews I hope you are all as excited as I am about the give away!!!!!!! I really think you guys will enjoy them!

Namaste Pasta

Made the Pasta Pisavera yesterday for lunch.

Really good! The boys ate the whole bag in 1 sitting!!!! (and the 2 year old has been known to survive off of 1 hot dog bug for the whole day so that says something!) I tried it and really enjoyed the taste of the spices. My mom wasn't too sure about trying a spice pack (she likes her food very plain) so she just had butter on hers and still loved it.

My favorite part..Quick and easy!!!!!!
Gabe's favorite part..The noodles were different colors!
Link's favorite part..YUMMY!

So here are some things that I have learned about Namaste today! They don't use ANY GMO foods!!!! WOW! That to me is so cool. Their Xantham gum is NOT corn derived! (xantham gum often is, but very few people are that sensitive to corn, but they take care of ALL corn in the mix!) They really listen to their fans! In a questions page I got they often have turned to their fans to help other fans. And the pasta was good, not just allergy free good, but good.

Here is a price comparison I got from the company




Their costs aren't too bad and what I have found to lower their prices is to buy in bulk off amazon :) If you buy 6 bags of an item at a time they are cheaper AND you normally get free shipping :) Hands down the cheapest way to buy.

All in all I really love this company and am so glad that they are my first giveaway!!! You guys will enjoy the giveaway bag!!!!!

Bread

So I've decided tob attempt altering a bread recipe! (for bread machine) The mixes you can buy are okay, but something is just lacking in texture. The boys don't mind it, but I'm on a quest! LOL!

I got the original recipe from here http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Light-Oat-Bread/Detail.aspx

This is my allergen free version!


1 1/4 cups water
2 tablespoons salted butter
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/3 cups white rice flour
2/3 cups tapioca flour
1 teaspoon guar gum
1/2 cup rolled oats
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast

Put liquids, in then dry, make a well in the middle and pour yeast in there. I used a 1.5lb light setting for mine. Med setting is better though.

It turned out tasting AMAZING! However I think my yeast was bad. It didn't rise. :( BOO! Super yummy though. I'll have to try it again to see if it was because of the yeast or the flour type. Texture was perfect though! Next time I will use the med setting there was a tiny amount of doughy center.

See the changes.

So we have had the list of allergens for almost 2 weeks now. The first week was a LOT of trial and error (remember how I told you not to make a no no list? This is why!) Finally in the past week I feel like I'm just starting to get a handle on it. BUT a couple of times Gabe got into something, like a chocolate I didn't know was within reach or something. Funny story. The other day hubby was home alone with Gabe and he went to grab something from downstairs. When he came back up (1 min tops) Gabe met him at the gate and said "daddy I got a treat, it has wheat, I'm gonna get a rash". Smart kid sure enough he did. He's really done well with staying away from most things. (I think the horrible hives and swelling of his arms and legs last time he had a lot of corn syrup did the trick.) Poor baby. But he is only 3 and sometimes the temptation is worth the rash to him.

Hey it's a learning curve for me and him right?