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Sunday, September 21, 2008

Gluten and Camelid Fiber

Observe the tastiness...
Last night I made a gluten-free pumpkin spice cake using a recipe I found through a newly discovered blog, called the Gluten Free Blog of course! It might be my new favorite blog for a while!

Modifications I made to the recipe:
(1) Used Rob's Red Mill gluten free flour blend instead of the individual flour types listed
(2) Omitted the nuts, didn't want
(3) Substituted 1/2 cup of the plain sugar for brown sugar

It is most tasty served with ice cream or cream cheese. It would also be wonderful with a cream cheese buttercream frosting. mmmm...


The texture of the cake is wonderful. You'd never know it wasn't a "normal" cake. Mike Eberhart over at the Gluten Free Blog really knows his medium. Its much better than the gluten free zucchini bread that I made last week using the recipe on the back of the xanthan gum I purchased. Either I did something wrong or the recipe is poor, but the stuff did not rise. It sayed as flat as when I put it in the pan. It tastes ok, especially with liberal application of creme cheese, but the texture is flat and a little gummy. The cake on the other hand - fabulous! I think I'll have to buy a copy of Mike's book.

In other news, I've had a small milestone with my spinning activities, thanks to some nice mostly camelid fiber. This is "little bunny", the finest 2-ply yarn I've ever spun and I'm quite pleased with it. The fiber was prepared just right and so was quite willing to be spun fine. The result is 50g of ~16wpi yarn, making it fine or sport weight. It is a blend of llama, baby camel, silk, and flash. The name is simply based on the way the pile of yarn in the photo looks like a perky little bunny sitting on his haunches.

And so that we are not without flower photos in this post, here is Lc. Green Veil 'Dressy', currently in bloom with 2 flowers on each of 2 growths. Its a wonderful shade of green with a delightful contrast in the lip, don't you agree? I'm going to pollinate it with my Sc. June Bug 'Venice Sunshine'. Not that I really have any business making cattleyas, but you know, they really are easy to grow. I think they're about the easiest thing to grow from seed next to phals.

2 comments:

swamprad said...

Your catt is very nice. I enjoy the mid size catts that bloom several times a year and don't take up so much room. My Ginny Champion (heavy aurantiaca influence) is blooming now. Good luck on your pollination!

swamprad said...

Correction, Ginny Champion doesn't have aurantiaca in its heritage. It is (C. bicolor x luteola) x (S. coccinea x L. cinnabarina).