Apple Cake with Cranberries

A gluten-free cranberry apple cake- with a sweet-tart kick.

No philosophy today. Instead, a cake. A beautiful gluten-free cake to bake for the holidays- or any day you feel like celebrating. So dust off your cake pan, Babycakes.

This is a moist and tender apple cake laced with a hint of cinnamon and studded with fresh tart berries. After seven eight nine years of baking various gluten-free incarnations of my tried and true Jewish apple cake recipe, this could be our favorite. Maybe it's the sweet-tart combo. The subtlety of flavors. In a food culture obsessed with kicking up recipes with more for the sake of more (white chocolate peanut butter bacon swirled maple mouse drizzled in dulche de leche coconut marshmallow and dusted with sugared lime zest and shaved dark chocolate, anyone?) the clean and classic flavor contrast of apples and cranberries is somehow new again. Even, refreshing. 

I don't need dessert to taste like candy. I like my cake to taste like cake. 

How about you?

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Gluten-Free Blueberry Crumb Cake Recipe

Blueberry crumb cake- gluten-free summer goodness.

Blueberries are in season so I thought I'd reprise a favorite recipe of mine. A tender blueberry crumb cake. Perfect for sharing with a friend.

And a glimpse back. Blogging is like a time machine. You get to thumb through not only recipes but bits of life and places you no longer inhabit. A year ago we were stuck in New Mexico, chained to Ojo Caliente by the unraveling real estate market, watching our nest egg crack and wither and blow in the dust to oblivion.  A year ago I wrote this post about coming to Santa Monica. ~Karina

Sometimes in life- when you least expect it- the stars are kind. Synchronicity smiles. And disparate pieces of your dreams bump up against one another and nestle snug into place. I'm referring, of course, to my dream of California. Summer by the Pacific, walking the beach, shopping the Farmers' Market, reuniting with my sons. Cooking. Writing. Haunting book stores and coffee shops.

I've been trying to get there for two years.

No, the house hasn't sold yet. But Plan B is under way. We found the elusive summer rental. Just when I thought it wasn't going to happen. A sublet in Santa Monica. In the nick of time. A lovely, light filled creative space. With a sweet kitchen. So I am back to making lists, mapping our drive south to Flagstaff, AZ, turning west to aim for the coast. I am lying in the dark alert, at 3 AM, pondering not the mysteries of the collective unconscious, not the properties of desire and effect, quantum attraction and Zen detachment, but favorite flavors of chocolate chip cookies. I am imagining herbed sandwich wraps (recipe soon!). Bags of salted popcorn. iTunes playlists. And this, a new blueberry cake recipe I felt inspired to bake. With a cinnamon crumb topping.

I think it's perfect to pack for a two-day road trip, don't you? Or even a two minute trip, scooting across the back yard barefoot to visit your best friend and neighbor. She'll make the coffee. Or iced chai. While you unrap the cake you get to eat, too.

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Gluten-free Peach Cake

A vegan peach cake perfect for a summer picnic.

Lazy summer days are sweet and sticky jewels studded with fresh cut fruit and juicy cakes. Farmers' markets buzz with color and scents. And peaches are the star. Get them while you can, Gentle Reader. Inhale their ripe velvet voluptuousness. Because all too soon they will be gone, and the stony, flavorless winter impostors picked well before ripening, thrown into crates and imported from far off orchards flirting with the southern hemisphere sun will be posing at your market as peaches. But they are not. And they know it.

They don't even try to pretend.

So grab your baskets and get thee to a local farmers' market. There is peach cake and peach crisp, and peach ice cream to be savored.

Some of you may recognize the basic recipe here. It's one I've posted and tweaked. It's not in my nature to follow directions or repeat a success without tweaking it, you see. I just can't do it. My brain chemistry switches to Bored Beyond Belief faster than you can mutter the words peach pancakes on a stick.

Let's just say I was a challenge in school. And in jobs (and okay, relationships) requiring a set routine or specific schedule. Rules and expectations writ in stone give me the itch to break free and play, What if? I just can't do the same thing over and over. I get too restless. I get punchy. And I'm also a big believer in change.

Change is good.

Change means I'm alive, growing and learning. Change means I'm curious, taking a risk, discovering something I didn't know before. Experimenting and sometimes failing or looking like an idiot often comes with the territory. Sure, I might end up feeling inept or totally stupid. Born too late. Or too soon. But will that keep me in my proper place and tame my wanton right-brained ways?

Not on your life, Babycakes.



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Strawberry Cobbler Cake

Dear Gluten-Free Goddess,

Not another strawberry recipe! Please. And a cake recipe at that? Pfffft. I've had it with all your so called strawberry deliciousness. Will you just get over it already? What do you think this is, strawberry season? I'm totally bored with the whole strawberry thing. Good Gracious Lord In Heaven. Where the bleep are the broccolini recipes? The watercress and sardine tarts? The marinated scapes, head cheese and tripe? Where's your squid ink linguini recipe? I can't find it anywhere.

And must I mention, boutique beans? You of all people- living in your precious New Mexico desert. Or have you moved to Hollyweird now? (that figures). I want boutique heirloom bean recipes. I need my daily fiber, if you get my drift.

What? None of the above?

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Gluten-Free Banana-Blueberry Muffin Cake

Kick up your gluten-free banana cake with blueberries.

My partner in culinary crime- the infamous and ever-up-for-baking husband Steve- informed me our bananas were mucho ripe. In fact, to be completely accurate, he poked his head into my cozy little studio the other day and declared, Our bananas are ripe. I should bake something.

I looked up from my iMac and murmured Hmmm, in assent. 

But what, exactly?

Ripe bananas were calling. Begging to be a part of some grander life affirming tastebud tingling scheme. But do readers really need another banana cake recipe? I pondered, slurping cold coffee with vanilla hemp milk. Which reminds me. I should share this.

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Sweet Potato Coffee Cake- and a love story

Winter in Northern New Mexico- my view.

It's been snowy, windy, cold- you name it. From all the tweets I've been reading over on Twitter lately, I'm not alone. Far from it. This has been one crazy snowy month. So what does a gluten-free goddess do when she gets stuck in the middle of the desert with no buckwheat flour, no sorghum, and no four-wheel drive? (Note to self- if you're going to live in rural Northern New Mexico, Darling, a cute and thrifty little Honda Fit won't cut it.)

Snowed in and hungry she does the only sensible thing.

She scans the pantry and pulls out a Whole Foods gluten-free cake mix and starts stirring things up. She starts imagining dirt bombs. And bakes up a coffee cake worthy of the winter holidays.

The love part of the story?

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Gluten-Free Pumpkin Bundt Cake

A warm and spicy pumpkin cake recipe for autumn.

Fall is my favorite season- for more reasons than I can count. Clear cool mornings that reinvigorate my affection for walking- not to mention- turning on the oven to bake. The freshened sense of new beginnings- yes, I know, I'm weird this way. Rather than the greening of spring, it's the winged migration of fall that kindles my creative spirit.

Fall feels like a fresh start, the smell of sharpened pencils, crisp white sheets of paper and a new box of crayons. Time to stack unread books by the bed, recycle old clothes, worn out paradigms and old ideas.

Time to get the broom and make a clean sweep of things.

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Quinoa Breakfast Cake Recipe

Tender and moist quinoa breakfast cake- really delicious.

There are some days [okay, I confess!] I eat a brownie for breakfast. And not just a brownie. A tender, dark chocolaty coconut and brown sugar laced delectable gluten-free blondie style brownie. A brownie to delight in. A brownie to savor. A brownie even gluten-eaters would covet. And I lick my fingers. Is it a nutritious choice? Um, probably not.

Except as food for the soul.

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Banana Snacking Cake with Almond Flour

Easy, simple gluten-free snacking cake.

This simple, straightforward banana cake is mighty tasty despite its humble unadorned appearance. If it came to a party it would be a wallflower. The shy one no one notices, lost in the shuffle and glitz of more charismatic confections. She may not ever be the center of attention or the one you call upon to impress your boss, but she's the one you turn to when you need something satisfying and real. Comforting.

And like lasting friendship that doesn't care about the superficial- if your shoes are out of style or your nails remain unmanicured- she is lovely sharing a mug of tea.

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Sour Cream Apple Cake

A moist and sweet gluten-free apple cake with sour cream.

Tis the season for flourless cakes, so I thought I might reprise one of my first gluten-free recipes, based on a traditional Jewish apple cake recipe I had used for years. Using nut meal instead of flour is a baking tradition in Eastern Europe and a favorite way to make a cake during the season of Passover. Almond meal makes this cake a dense, chewy and delicious dessert or a perfect snack with tea.

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Polenta Cake

Delicious, moist polenta cake.

I've been craving polenta cake. Don't ask me why. Okay, ask me. It was the lemon polenta cake in the movie Dinner with Friends. Such a cake! And I didn't have any lemons on hand. But I did have a few ripe bananas. So I thought, Why not make a banana polenta cake? How bad could it be?

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