For the cake you will need:3 cups of flour
2 cups of sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 cups hot water
3/4 cup oil (use what you want. I love organic extra virgin olive oil)
2 tbsp. vinegar
1Tbsp instant espresso
1 tbsp vanilla
Preheat oven to 350 and prepare your baking dish. For this I used 2 9 inch square pans.
To prepare spray with oil or coat with butter.
****tip time*** For a chocolate cake dust the pan with cocoa powder to help with sticking.
In a large bowl together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt.

In a glass measuring cup combine water, oil, vinegar, espresso and vanilla.

Add to the dry ingredients and mix. Lumps are ok. **tip time** Over mixing cake batter will make a tough cake.

Add cake batter to pans and pack for 35 mins. Check with a toothpick. If it comes out clean it's done. Let the cakes cool and then.........


The best chocolate frosting ever!!!!

You will need:
1 stick of unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/4 unsweetened cocoa powder
pinch of salt
1 1/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup sour cream
1 tsp. instant espresso
2 tsp. vanilla

Melt butter in a large saucepan.

While that is melting combine heavy cream, sour cream and espresso in a large measuring cup. Mix until smooth.

Mix in sugar, cocoa and salt. It's going to be thick!!!

Slowly add cream mixture to chocolate until smooth. Cook until the sugar has dissolved. Do not boil.

Remove from heat and add vanilla. Let icing cool. I like to put it in another bowl for that.

Ice your cake and enter chocolate bliss.

Click HERE to view the PDF and feel free to share it and print it.

Here are photos of the kids making them and then some of the finished cookie.

I do spend sometime out of the kitchen. I love everything handcrafted. I love working with my hands and watching something become something.

Recently I finished knitting a Drop Stitch Scarf. The yarn is Macaroni Wishes by Sugarbubbie. They are so fun to knit. I can knit this pattern while nursing and catching up on my shows at night. I'm a total multitasker.

Yesterday I perfected gluten free brownies. The are unbelievably good. Wow, maybe even better than my wheat flour brownies. I'm going to kick them off during the charity stocking at My Better Earth.

The kids really enjoyed them, so much so that the baby made photo taking a bit difficult.

Preheat oven to 350
Then get your ingredients:
4 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
4-5 ripe bananas(the riper your bananas the more moist your bread will be)
2 room temp eggs
1 cup coconut oil
1 cup honey

Now to get baking:
If you have a little helper like I do have them do the first step while you do all the others. Here my helper is whisking the flour, baking soda and salt together. Then she mashes up bananas.
While I:

Cream together the coconut oil and honey. Now before I go on let me talk about the state of your coconut oil. It will be either solid or liquid depending on how warm your house is. It doesn't matter, measure it the same, use it the same. Now if you notice in my photo the honey is also solid. It crystallized but it's still good. If your honey has crystallized you can just use it like that or place the jar in warm water and it will liquefy again.

Ok, now lets get back on track. After you have the coconut oil and honey creamed together add in the 2 room temp. eggs. Mix well. Then add in the bananas. Mix until combined.

Lastly, mix in the flour mixture SLOWLY.
You should then have something that looks like this.

Have someone taste test:

Place in your prepared baking aparatus. I'm using a 4 loaf baking stone from Pampered Chef.
Prepare by wiping some of the coconut oil in the dish. You can melt it a little for ease.

Then bake for about an hour for a regular loaf pan. I only needed to bake for 30 mins because of the smaller loaves. Keep checking for doneness to be sure. If you use a thermometer bake until temp reaches 190-195 degrees.



Enjoy!!!! Let me know how you like it!!!