Gluten Free Chocolate Ganache Cake

It will be my best friend's birthday on this coming Sunday so I made this gluten free chocolate ganache cake for him. It is a 2-layer chocolate cake covered and filled with chocolate ganache. The cake is based on a recipe from Ina Garten. I made several changes to adapt it to be gluten free and more moisture. Of course, the secret ingredient, brewed coffee, definitely makes this cake even more chocolaty!

There was a big flood caused by record rain here in Milwaukee last Thursday night. You can click the link to see some slide show of the flood. It flooded most of the main streets, highway, houses and created a big sinkhole in the middle of the road with a car falling in it. My basement got flooded as well and the cleaning and drying work are still on going. It is really tiresome to go through this again. Aw, well, forget about it and let's go eat some cakes instead!

Three Kids Birthday Treats!

Busy busy summer days! After hosting an out-of-town friend on last Thursday day night, I had to use my Friday night and Saturday to make 3 birthday treats for my 10-year-old nephew and twin 8-year-old nieces for their birthday party on this past Sunday. Their birthdays are just one day apart so I really had to work hard and almost no weekend! One of the twin girls wanted a cake so I made this circus tent cake. It was a pineapple cake with grape jelly filling and lemon frosting. It had roof and windows made of fruit roll-up candies and door and chimney made of chocolate bars! The cake was moisture and delicious!

The other half One of the twin girls just loves anything purple. So I made this palm size of chocolate chop cookie with a big two-tone purple vanilla frosting rose for her. The rose petals contain 2 shades of purple colors. In addition, she also wanted lemon sorbet so I made that too!

The boy wanted a big chocolate chip cookie cake as the one he saw in the bakery store. So I actually went to the bakery section in the grocery for some research. I ended of making the classic toll house chocolate chip cookies in 8-in round pan size. Of course, this one was made in my gluten free version. Lots of desserts for everybody in the kids birthday party and it was a success!

July 4th Celebration Desserts

It was a nice July 4th long weekend in USA. The weather was wonderful, sunny, hot but with breeze. Did lots of yard works, watched fireworks and parade. In addition, we had some friends and family coming to visit for several good meals. I made 2 desserts to celebrate the Independence Day weekend. The first one was a strawberry cranberry pie since it is the season for fresh strawberry. In order to make it gluten free, I had to make the pie crust from scratch. It is actually a shortbread kind of crust, which holds all the liquid from cooked strawberry and cranberry very well. I used the frozen cranberry to add some tangy to the sweetness of the strawberry. The topping was made of oatmeal, rice flour, butter and sugar. It turned out to be a great pie!

The 2nd dessert was a gluten free version of pineapple upside down cake. The base was the stored bought yellow cake mix. The topping was the caramelized pineapple with cherry. It was just OK since the cake was a little bit dry. I used to add instant pudding mix or sour cream to improve the taste and texture but decided not to this time. And what a mistake I made! Will not repeat that mistake again! Overall, it was a great weekend! And there were so many fireflies outside in the garden at night time to make it look like small fireworks in the yard! Hope that all my US friends had a great 4th of July weekend too!