Better Batter - and really good banana bread

When I was at that natural foods store in Reading, MA -- I saw a new box that was not familiar to me - Better Batter. A pre-mixed gluten free flour containing rice and brown rice flours, tapioca starch, potato starch, potato flour, xanthan gum, and pectin. I was going to try to mix my own gf pre-made mix - but I don't really bake all that much. I had a big bag of Tom Sawyer GF Mix that lasted me about 2 years.... Plus, I've gotta say - i was drawn to this packaging. You don't see much clean, fresh packaging in the gluten free world - and this drives me crazy. 

So props to better batter for both a cute box -and an even cuter website -- speaking of which, definitely check it out - they have tons of really great looking recipes.

Anyway - I had only dug into the 2lb bag I bought one other time to make some beef stew - so last night, I had some very rotten bananas so I decided to make some banana bread. I used Mark Bittman's recipe from "How to Cook Everything" (no surprise here, I only use this book as of late - and it never fails!)

Anyway -- I used 2.5 cups of the Better Batter, and also used 1/2 cup of just brown rice flour - and OH MAN -- by far, the best tasting banana bread I have ever made. I've had a string of bad luck with baking as of late, and this was delicious! Even matt went back for seconds and thirds - which definitely means it was great - and NO weird gluten free taste at all.

Celia Cakes

YUM -- How good do those look???

Matt and I went to CeliaCakes and met with Vita to do a tasting for our wedding cake/cupcakes. Prior to our meeting we chose 4 different flavors of cupcakes to try and we went with the following:

In case you can't read that, its:

1. Vanilla cake, strawberry filling, vanilla buttercream icing

2. Vanilla cake, raspberry filling, lemon buttercream icing

3. Chocolate cake, mocha buttercream icing

4. Chocolate cake, almond buttercream icing

Numbers 1 and 3 were the winners -- YUUUUM. We're hopefully going to be having those two flavors at our wedding as a mini cake, cupcakes, and mini-mini cakes. I have an elaborate idea in my head of a dessert table with cakes & treats all spread out - not just one neat & orderly cake.... If you've been on Martha Stewart  Weddings lately,  you'll notice this is the trend right now, and I like it. I also plan on filling apothecary jars with my favorite sweet of all time -- Vanilla Meringues from Trader Joes. It will be a sugary delight.

My macro lens was behaving strangely this day - so all the close-ups I tried to do weren't working out -- but here is one one three of the cupcakes halved. The vanilla with strawberry filling was so good & moist. I didn't love the raspberry filling, which is weird because I usually go for that over strawberry. 

As for frosting --  We both decided the favorites were the vanilla and the mocha, especially the mocha! I liked the lemon frosting, Matt didn't, and neither of us liked the almond - I wanted to try it anyway -- it's such a distinct flavor. I always think I'm going to like it, and I never do. 

I was sure to test just the cake alone without frosting to make sure the cake didn't have that weird gluten free taste - and it didn't - not at all. It was fluffy, light and quite tasty. We liked both the vanilla & chocolate which is why we're going ot have both!

I'm pretty picky about frosting - I HATE frosting on cakes you buy in supermarkets - YUCK - I would only eat the cake -- PRE-CELIAC OF COURSE.  But I did always like the real frosting you would make at home with a pound of confectionary sugar & some milk/water. This frosting tastes more real - a hint of grit which is fine with me - not super super smooth. I thought it was divine.

I ate all of my halves -- Matt was nice enough to only eat 1/4 of his half so that we could take home leftovers to my sister, but he was very happy. We weren't going to do a cake at all (we're not doing a cake cutting ceremony or anything like that) but wanted to check out CeliaCakes and were pleasantly surprised! Definitely highly recommended if you're looking for a cake or cupcakes.