May the Fourth Be With You! The Mug Cake Awakens

I’ve been looking for a way to get more of that “baker” in the tagline into my blog. So I remembered that I like mug cakes. Honestly, I planned for this to be my second or third mug cake post, and I would have something more explanatory already up, but work happened and I have started a diet that has stolen a few billion of my brain cells attention. 

But the short of it is that I’m kind of reviewing other mug cake recipes for their ability to be converted to gluten free,  and probably inventing a few of my own.

I will occasionally do what I’m going to call “An Act of Desperation” and see if I can’t convert it to something that is ok with the diet I’m on. It’s called that because the diet I’m on mostly requires the fats to be replaced with bananas and beans, and the carbs to be replaced with. .. I’m not sure,  but most of the recipes I’ve seen pretend that eggs and banana in a pan equals a cake. I don’t agree.

So, the first review is for Star Wars Day! I’m reviewing this recipe. It’s supposed to be like that nifty portion bread from the Force Awakens.

The first thing I noticed was that Matcha powder is not easy to come by, and really expensive. I just happened to have a friend who had some, but if you’re just looking to try this one recipe it may not be worth it.

I don’t have a good Star Wars Mug, so Doctor Who will have to do.

First, I sprayed with vegetable oil, and added the dry ingredients.

Then I added the milk and vanilla and mixed it up. Then I realized that I forgot sugar, so I added it along with another 1/4 tsp of vanilla.

Popped it in the microwave and…

Hmm…

Well, it was cooked and it did taste ok. The big deal is that it doesn’t look like a cake. For reference this is the least risen of the mug cakes I’ve done before:

Others have had better luck. There’s a bunch of videos of other people doing this recipe. One big deal might be the type of flour (I’ve been using Krusteaze gluten free all purpose). The recipe calls for cake flour, so this may do better as a non-gluten free cake or with a higher protein gluten free flour. And there’s that whole forgot the sugar thing.

Hopefully yours will turn out better.

April Fool’s Day

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Diary of a Daylight Savings Time Mom

DST day 1 6:30 am er… 7:30 am
The Child pats me on the shoulder. “Mommy, it’s morning.”
I look over and see the time. I realize that if this was a weekday, we’d already be an hour late.
But I feel pretty good, so we get up.

DST Day 2
Morning is at between 6:20 and 6:30 at our house, and I get to be the alarm clock once it’s obvious the twelve alarms on clocks and cell phones aren’t going to work. The Child has snuck into our bed in the night, so I try to wake her. First, I coo nice things. Then I shake her gently. Then I give up and give her five more minutes.
Then we all have to get up. The Child eventually gets up and wobbles into her room. Keep in mind that getting a Kindergartener up for school is like convincing a bag full of lackadaisical squirrels to go put on socks and shoes on the best days. Doing it an hour earlier…
It was about ten minutes later that we realized she’d spent all of that time counting something of little consequence. I think it was beads on a necklace or something. Whatever. There was yelling.

DST Day 3
The Child slept on the couch in the living room for some reason. Probably because she was running away from the morning and thought it would take longer to find her down there. I wake up to all of the ten or so alarms I have set (they start at about 5:45, and continue in fifteen minute intervals until about 6:15, when they turn into five minute intervals) and decide that all of them are stupid and I’m sleeping at least a snooze button longer.
My husband tells me where the child is sleeping, so I go downstairs, wake her up and head to the bathroom to do my morning ablutions. I hear my husband using the shock and awe technique of waking a sleeping five-year old, because she didn’t think I was serious about this morning thing. She then claims to need help getting dressed, so I rush out, and help her to change clothes.
I realize as we’re putting on jackets and backpacks that I forgot to brush my teeth, so I run and do that. The Child tries to leave without shoes. I officially give up for the day.

DST Day 4
Ibuprofen is the word of the day. I wake up with a headache the size of a flyover state.
The Child at least seems to have gotten up and gotten dressed by herself. It’s St. Patrick’s day so she’s excited to dress in green, which is the best thing about the holiday short of whiskey.
I remember there will be whiskey and can summon the motivation to get on with the day.
Husband takes care of the Child, and I stumble through my morning routine.

DST Day 5
Wake up feeling like I haven’t slept despite having fallen asleep on the couch at around 8:30. Groggily realize that that was only 7:30 a mere 6 days ago, and where did the time go?
What is time?
Have short panic attack as I realize that time is a mere construct made by humans and has no real bearing on the world.
Another alarm goes off and the imaginary construct is ratcheting down on my sleepy time.
I have to get up and make non-imaginary coffee, and make sure my non-imaginary kid goes to what I’m fairly certain is real school.

DST Day 6

*Muffled sobbing*

WHY CAN’T THIS WEEK JUST END?

At least tomorrow I can sleep.

DST Day 7
6:30 AM
The Child pats me on the shoulder.
“Mommy, it’s morning. ”
Noooooo!

Parakeet Love

My daughter’s parakeet is named Shine. We bought Shine with her savings and Christmas money about two months ago.
We had a good week of a sweet, fun little bird who looked like she was happy to see us and wanted to come out and play. I was telling people it was like having a tiny dog who barks at you when you come home to show you all the neat tricks it learned while you were gone.
Next week, no cute, happy bird.
In fact, Shine became a bit of a dick.
She bites with increasing strength and intensity, she doesn’t like to come outside. The only thing that seems like an imporovement is that she wants to play in my hair. That’s only ok if I want to take a shower immediately afterward. Birds don’t have spincters, so I’m about guaranteed to have poop in my hair.
Despite all of this, we’re hooked on the birdy. We recently bought it a bird playground, and we’ve been throwing around ideas of what songs we want to try and get it to sing. It’s making a lot of noises that sound like it’s trying to talk, and it seems to appreciate music. Rap is Shine’s favorite so far.
We’re operating under the assumption that the sweet bird will return, or will evolve into something else that’s friendly. Several websites and a friend of ours have suggested that Parakeets take a while to be convinced that you’re not going to eat them. And since their name from Australia (Buderigar/budgie) is a butchering of the native name for them that means “good to eat,” I guess that’s a valid concern.
In the end , we love the bird, even though it doesn’t like us much.

If you want to see videos and pictures of our little Shine follow my instagram account.

Oh how I love my tablet

I know that title looks like some kind of brag from five years ago, but really… how awesome is the tablet?