A Very Gabba Halloween

Forgive me in advance as there will be several posts this evening. I have tried many new things this past week and just haven't had a chance to blog about them.

For Halloween, I decided to finally try the Betty Crocker Gluten-Free Vanilla Cake mix. I decided to go ahead and do cupcakes and decorate them with the colors from Yo Gabba Gabba. The cupcakes themselves contained red, pink, yellow, blue, and red, and I iced them with vanilla frosting that I dyed orange.

I opened the box and started mixing ingredients before I realized that I needed two teaspoons of vanilla extract, which naturally I didn't have. Thankfully my next door neighbor was home and had some vanilla she let me use. Thanks Shelly!!!!

The mix was very self explanatory and easy. The cupcakes were amazing! I definitely found the mix I will be using for Bella's birthday next month. Although, I think  I'm going to go with chocolate frosting or something other than vanilla. Vanilla on vanilla was just too much.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner

Baking -- Disaster or Success?

One of my very best friends also has Celiacs Disease. I invited her over to help me tackle the art of gluten free baking. I found this wonderful recipe for Pumpkin Cupcakes with Maple Cream Cheese Icing on Gluten Free Goddess. Anyone who knows me is aware of my major pumpkin obsession. So, I decided these cupcakes were the best option for my first gluten free baking session.

Our first task was to locate the mountain of ingredients required to bake the cupcakes. First, we headed to Whole Foods.  It was so overwhelming. I couldn't locate a few of the ingredients and began to panic when I had no idea where else I could find them. My friend and I ran into a woman at the store who also had Celiacs. We talked to her for a while and she was extremely helpful. She suggested using Pamela's baking mix for the various flours, tapioca starch, and xantham gum. I wish I had gotten this woman's name. Not only did she save me a ridiculous amount of money, she also saved me time searching for ingredients I had never even heard of.

When we were done gathering supplies, we headed back to my house. Thankfully, Bells fell asleep in the car so it was a lot easier to cook without her getting angry she wasn't getting attention. The recipe for the cupcakes was very simple and easy to follow. We got those in the oven and then went on to make the icing. I got ahead of myself and didn't read the directions and just threw all the ingredients in together. Big mistake! Thankfully I had more of each ingredient so I could start over without too much fuss.

All in all, the process seemed fairly simple. I don't know how much gluten free baking I'll be doing -- everything is so insanely expensive. It seems easier to head to the gluten free bakery and just buy pre-made goodies. It was a fun experience, however, and the cupcakes turned out amazingly! If I didn't know before that they were gluten free, I never would have known the difference. Bells sure did love them!!!

They didn't look too pretty, but none of us seemed to mind.