Lunchbox Liz

Holidays bring out the fun in food. Two of my coworkers bake cupcakes for each other on their respective birthdays with each batch getting more elaborate. Another coworker shared with me a photo of her friend’s ghoulish apples that she made for Halloween. When I was a kid my favorite birthday cake was one my mom made out of chocolate cake cut in the shape of a bunny. You take two cake rounds and use one as the head and cut the other one like the stitching on a baseball creating two ears and a bowtie. The cake was then frosted with white icing and decorated with nose, mouth, eyes and whiskers.

Today’s Lunch
Chocolate Cake

(This cake is adapted from the back of Bob’s Red Mill All-Purpose Gluten Free Baking Flour. The flour contains garbanzo bean, tapioca, white sorghum, and fava bean flour and potato starch. I haven’t tried with substituting regular flour.)

1 1/2 cups Red Mill Gluten Free Baking Flour
1 cup Sucanat or Brown Sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp Baking soad
1 tsp Xanthan Gum (a thickener available at health food stores)
3/4 tsp Salt
1 tbsp Cinnamon
1/2 cup Milk (cow, soy, or rice)
1/3 cup Canola Oil
1 large Egg
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
3/4 cup warm brewed coffee or coffee substitute

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 11 by 7-inch baking dish and set aside. Mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. In a separate bowl mix wet ingredients. Add the wet ingredients to the dry in three parts and mix lightly until all the ingredients are blended together. Pur into pan and bake for 30-35 minutes. Enjoy!