Eating "In" with food intolerances - The Hungry Boy's Birthday Cake

The Hungry Boy turned thirteen yesterday and he wanted to have a celebration cake made out of his favourite flavours....chocolate and mango! Yesterday morning I set a few hours aside, donned my apron and rolled up my sleeves and got stuck into having a go at making a gluten free/dairy free cake good enough to eat for his birthday. Luckily we have introduced eggs  back in to our diets every now and again and so the prospects of it turning out OK (and not falling to pieces) were hanging in my favour.
I decided to use a Mary Berry's chocolate cake recipe and change it around to accommodate our food intolerances. You can find the original recipe here.

These are the cake ingredients that I used below. 

Sanity Space - In the kitchen????

 After having cooked for the family for well over twenty years I've become a little tired with preparing and making meals. The added complication of food intolerance has magnified that feeling to the point that  the kitchen is currently NOT my favourite place!

However, given a munchy attack....the space to experiment (with no one else around) and not being under any time pressure, I quite enjoy making some mess and throwing some things together. I don't particularly like following recipes though... I'm more of a "see a picture...like it... and figure out how I can make something look like that with what I have in my kitchen cupboards" type person. I have a gluten free, egg free, dairy free board on Pinterest that I like to pin recipes  on to that I use for some inspiration. https://www.pinterest.com/jadebie/gluten-free-egg-free-dairy-free/

Elderflower foraging - A summer Immune boost

 

 

As mentioned before, daughter number 2 likes to call me the "white witch", namely because I like to make lotions and potions and am often found to be concocting something weird and wonderful. One of the things I like to do around this time of year is go picking Elderflower. At the moment In England, it is out in full force ....but maybe in other parts of the world it is over and done with for the year or doesn't even grow where you live. For those of you how are unfamiliar with Elderflower, it is known as a fantastic immune booster and is good for summer colds  and respiratory complaints (If you want to learn more about elderflower you can follow the link here).

I like to make a batch or two of cordial to keep in the fridge and use it if any sniffles arise in our household.  It's especially good for Heni to keep the bugs at bay! In  the past I've used Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's recipe (Here) but last year I made an elder flower glycerite (here) instead because I didn't like the idea of the amount of sugar the recipes usually contains. This  year I looked around for another version to try out and found a raw Elderflower tutorial on line.