Recipe Box: Gluten-Free Apple Coffee Cake

I found a fantastic recipe for peach coffee cake with streusel topping over at the Gluten-Free Goddess.   I just wanted to give her full credit for the original recipe, to which I made several changes.  I adapted a few items to fit what I had in the cupboard, added additional spices to give it a more spice-cake flavor, and added buttermilk powder to really up the moistness of the cake.  

Dry Ingredients:
1 cup brown rice flour
1 cup light brown sugar
3/4 cup almond meal
1/2 cup tapioca starch
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2  teaspoon guar gum
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ginger
1/8 teaspoon clove
1/4 cup buttermilk powder

Wet Ingredients:
2 large eggs, beaten
1/4 cup butter, melted
2 teaspoons vanilla extract



 Other:
5-6 tablespoons milk as needed
1 can (min 12oz) apple pie filling

For the streusel topping:

1/3 cup light brown sugar
3 tablespoons brown rice flour
3 tablespoons mayonnaise (use full fat, no miracle whip)
2 tablespoons chopped pecans or pecan meal
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, 325 degrees for dark nonstick pan.  put a circle of parchment paper at the bottom of a round 9-inch cake pan.

Mix dry and wet ingredients in separate bowls.  Whisk dry ingredients well until completely combined; beat wet ingredients together until uniform.  Combine in one bowl.

Add milk one tablespoon at a time until batter is smooth (will vary depending on flour and humidity)

Pour the batter into the cake pan and smooth.  add a layer of apples from the pie filling.

Mix all the streusel ingredients together in a small bowl until the consistency of wet sand.   Sprinkle over the top of the cake.

Bake for 40-45 minutes until brown.  Check at 30 minutes; if already browning then cover with foil for last 10-15 minutes.  Toothpick should come out clean.  Cool to touch before serving.  Run a plastic knife between edge and pan before serving for easy removal. 

Al Franken gives anti-gay witness academic bitch-slap

Normally I avoid specific candidate endorsement or tear-down on this blog, but I just saw this video:

Al Franken Takes Down Anti-Gay Witness

Over at Talking Points Memo.  I actually wanted to shout "SHAZAAM!!  TAKE THAT ASSHAT!" at the end :-)  Does this mean that despite all the insanity, some members of our government still actually think for themselves?  Now I'm tempted to move to Minnesota just to vote for him. 

Eating disorders on the rise amongst young children

CNN Health reports that the average age for eating disorders is dropping, so that children as young as 7 are requiring treatment for anorexia and other disorders.

I was very pleasantly surprised to see a lot of references in here about how our fat-hysteria is impacting children negatively.  A mainstream news organization very rarely wakes up to the idea that body judgement might be doing serious harm.

Quote:

"Our culture serves up such a vast smorgasbord of body judgments, is it any wonder that so many kids are unhappy with the way they look?"


The news itself isn't positive; the epidemic increase in eating disorders in children is absolutely devastating and the human element of personal stories from kids and parents really drives home the feelings of helplessness and fear surrounding these disorders.  But the issue is treated with a very considerate touch and not as an excuse for hate. 

Finally...they're getting it. Well done CNN and Margaret Renkl.