"Is this Good For Me?"

You should know by now, nutrition is not my thing. Like, at all. I also don't really believe in 'meals' per se. I just want to eat whatever I'm in the mood for when I'm hungry. Cereal counts as a perfectly well balanced dinner to me. So does cake, for that matter. So last night I was on my own for dinner and was looking forward to it allll day. See, James is a meal person. Often times a meat & vegetable person. But I knew that in the fridge we had some delicious Red Lobster biscuits left over from when I somehow conned half my family into going there this weekend. And that's all I wanted for dinner. And it's all I ate for dinner. And it was heavenly. And started sentences with 'and' is totally not proper but I'm doing it. And I like it. 

Delicious, nutritious, well round meal. Yes?

Oh, and this little shark circles the table as I eat. Maybe if I acted like a grown up and ate at the kitchen table instead of the coffee table this wouldn't happen. Only problem with that? My kitchen table is really more of laundry limbo - where folded laundry goes to wait forever until I finally cave and put it away. So, coffee table dinners will continue. And I will continue guarding my food from the shark.

The shark.

Doesn't everyone have to eat with a spray bottle to help guard their food from the circling shark? No? Weird. 

Anyway, after that oh so nutritious dinner I decided to make a cake. I've gotten a ton of help recently from some coworkers at work and I'm pretty sure there's no better way to say 'thanks!' then food. Especially sweets. I've obviously been on a huge cinnamon kick and was seriously craving this Cinnamon Roll Cake. Several coworkers are gluten free so I decided to make a GF version. It was super easy, and while it didn't turn out tasting exactly the same as the original, it was pretty darn good. I was actually pleasantly surprised as I really had no idea what I was doing, I just decided to wing it.

Here's the adjustments I made. Original recipe here.

-Flour - I used 3 C King Arthur's AP GF Baking Mix

-Xanthan gum - I added 1.5 tsp xanthan gum

-Milk - I added a teeny bit of extra milk to help keep it moist

-Butter - I didn't add any extra butter, but next time I think I would - it doesn't have as much of that gooey, buttery cinnamon taste as the original. I would definitely add more to the topping & probably just make extra topping in general. 

All in all it turned out quite good - the texture is good, its not too crumbly at all and it definitely satisfies my cinnamon craving. While on his THIRD piece James asked "Is this good for me? I mean it's gluten free, right?" Answer: Sure, as long as you ignore the 2 C of butter & 2 C of sugar. He has some trouble understanding gluten free doesn't necessarily mean healthy - but hey, any excuse to eat more cake is fine by me :)

Gluten Free Cinnamon Roll Cake

Cinnamon Roll Cake

Okay, by now everyone should know my obsession with chocolate chip cookies. If not, you can read some about that here, here and here! Also I should probably confess that when I made cookies last week I also may have eaten 2 cookies for breakfast almost every morning. I mean, there's milk for calcium & eggs for protein in there so that's a pretty well rounded meal, right?

Anyway, aside from loving anything chocolate chip, I also have a deep love for anything containing large quantities of cinnamon, sugar & butter. These EASY cinnamon sugar biscuits I posted about here are a great way to get a quick fix, but sometimes I need something a bit more... serious than that. When those cravings hit its time for this bad boy. The Cinnamon Roll Cake... or the Cinnabon cake as we've started calling it. 

Ingredients:

-3C flour

-1/2tsp salt

-1 C sugar

-4tsp baking powder

-1 1/2 C milk

-2 eggs

-2tsp vanilla

-1/2 C butter (melted)

Cinnamon Topping

-1 C butter (softened)

-1 C brown sugar

-2 Tbs flour

-1 Tbs cinnamon

Glaze

-2 C powdered sugar

-5 Tbs milk

-1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350. Mix flour, salt, sugar, baking powder, milk, eggs & vanilla together but don't over mix. Stir in melted butter. Pour into greased 9 x 13 pan. 

Mix topping ingredients together and drop evenly over cake batter. Swirl into batter with a butter knife.

Bake at 350 for 28-32 minutes. The cinnamon topping will turn dark brown and bubbly. 

Top with glaze while still warm - and eat while still warm! 

This cake is best served warm, but does reheat well. If I'm taking it somewhere I just pop it in the oven when I get there for a few minutes to warm it back up so when baking its better to do it on the slightly underdone side. Plus its gooey that way which makes it oh so good ;)