Edible Experimentation Day - extra post

Slushy snow and ice today. Time to do some experimental baking.

Why experimental?

We have tons of food intolerances and allergies in our household, my 12 year old turns 13 next week and she wants to do something different. Our tried and true allergry free cocoa chocolate cake just isn't "enough" this year. So today we tried some allergy free extra vanilla cake . . .and we tried an experimental recipe.

How do I experiment carefully?

I go to an awesome gluten free website like gluten-free goddess, read over that recipe, look in our cupboards, think over our allergies, and proceed to make substitutions that work for our family.

For instance in the gluten-free goddess recipe for vanilla cupcakes, tapioca flour and eggs are in the recipe - both no-nos for my whole household. So, I just use my usual trusty Martinson gluten-free flour mixture (sorghum and bean flours combined in a particular way), and I soak a little bit of chia seed in water.

Isn't chia seed for chia pets?


No, it's actually edible, and when let to sit with water it makes a gelatin like substance that can be substituted for eggs in recipes. It helps recipes fluff up, and it does the osmosis work of an egg in a recipe too.

However, in today's experiment we tried using coconut milk instead of any other kind of milk and our cupcakes puffed way up, and then fell in the center. This would be bad except . . .

my daughter wants to make filled cupcakes anyway.

Next we are onto making chocolate filling without dairy, corn syrup, or eggs. Our solution that we hope will work: chocolate syrup (made without corn syrup), mixed with coconut creamer and . . .we haven't figured out yet, maybe cooked with guar gum (a thickener) or our flour (which is also pretty dense), or maybe we will make our cocoa frosting, and just frost the insides as well as the tops.

Have you tried any cooking experiments lately?