celebration of 100 days not eating food

Because Leslie is intolerant of so many things, it has become our joke that she is allergic to food. Following her diet is hard, especially when you have a crazy work schedule and tempting food is always there. So when Leslie told me she had been strictly following her diet for hundred days, I felt there should be celebration! There was pork roast, salad, and roasted mashed sweet potatoes, all gfree and veganish(I say veganish, because I doubt pork is technically vegan, but no dairy products). And for dessert I made baby lemon cakes, adapted from Nigella Lawson's How to Be a Domestic Goddess because they are some of our favorite lemon cakes to be had. And the recipe lent itself, I think, quite easily to adapting to gfree, but also no dairy products. I replaced the dairy yogurt with coconut, eggs with applesauce, butter with coconut oil and the flour with my gfree mix. Nigella makes it with a powdered sugar &lemon juice icing, but I had been reading on several good people's blogs about the joy that is whipped coconut cream! I must try it!! As you can see from my picture, for whatever reason it did not whip to the same heights as traditional whipped cream, but it was delicious! I will have to experiment with this all again; most blogs told you to leave the cans in overnight and to put the bowl and whisk attachment in the freezer a good 3 hours before whipping. Uh huh. My bowl and whisk attachment were in the freezer maybe an hour, although my coconut milk in the can was in refrigerator overnight. Next time I will see if freezing the bowl for longer makes that much of a difference. I will also try to practice my food photography; on everybody else's blog all the food is soo pretty! Examples: I've linked this post to Slightly Indulgent Tuesday. :)



Baby Lemon Cakes

1/2 cup plain yogurt (I used coconut)
6 tablespoons coconut oil (Nigella used melted butter, and you measure coconut oil after you've melted it! how perfect was that?)
1/2 cup of applesauce
zest & juice of 1 lemon
1/2 cup of gfree flour mix (I used Bob's Red Mills)
1 tablespoon finely ground brown rice flour (Authentic foods)
1 tablespoon of potato starch
1 tablespoon of tapioca starch
2 tablespoons of coconut flour
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of xanthan gum
7 tablespoons of sugar


Preheat oven to 350 degreesF. Nigella calls for a baby bundt pan; I used a baby loaf pan. You could also do cupcakes! Whatever pan you use, prepare with liners or grease& flour.

Mix together in large bowl the yogurt, applesauce, zest of 1 lemon and then the juice of that lemon. Nigella uses this juice for her icing, but since i am planning on coconut cream, I just dumped it in the batter. (I am strangely impulsive that way, plus I figured the juice would react with the baking soda and help with lift since there are no eggs)

Whisk together the flours, starches, sugar, baking soda, & xanthan gum in a medium bowl. Melt the coconut oil; measure out 6 tablespoons and add to the yogurt mixture. Add the dry ingredients to the yogurt mixture and mix til just incorporated.

Portion out into your prepared pan and bake for 20-25 minutes. It took 25 for my little baby loaf pan, but the cupcakes only took 20. Basically, when they are lightly brown and your kitchen is redolent of lemon, they are done. They also spring back when touched. Makes 6 baby bundts/loaves or 9 cupcakes.