Gluten Free layered White Choc and Choc Mud Cake

Monika's birthday cake this year! What a decadent mess... I am almost loathe to post it with the exception of one thing. The white chocolate mud cake was a complete sucess. The chocolate one was too heavy (yeah I know, thats what a mud cake is suppose to be, right?) It was just too rich for my palate, and everybody elses in my family. It is rare we bother with sweets at all. However, birthdays and such are exceptions. The white choc cake was a keeper though, and here is its recipe:

Preheat oven to 160 C.

I used a silicon giant cup cake mould (I would use this for the top, as it is a lighter cake, if I cook it again.) Grease a pan if you are using metal and line with baking paper.

In a saucepan, put 600 grams good quality white chocolate, 400 grams of butter, 2 cups of milk (I used soy it was still good), and 1 1/2 cups of caster sugar, put it over a very low heat, and mix together until all the chocolate and butter have melted, and its become a shiny, silky smooth texture. It shouldn't take long. Set aside.

In a bowl beat 4 extra large eggs and 20 mls of Gluten Free vanilla. Making sure the chocolate mixture is cool, stir gently into the egg mix.

I find sifting gluten free flours pointless, as they as a rule are never lumpy. If you feel you must go ahead, use 200 grams of Self-Raising GF flour and 300 grams of plain flour. I always stir these together to make sure they are evenly distributed. Then add the white choc mix by half into the flour, mix through, then add the second half more slowly, folding it in. Pour into prepared cake pan. It will need at least 1 hour 20 minutes, but up to 1 hour 40 minutes. Using a metal skewer test if it runs clean you're set.

While cooling, melt another 400 grams of the white chocolate on a very low heat until completely melted, stir during whole phase. Stir in 200 grams of sour cream. When the cake is ready, run the ganache over the cake.

I adapted this recipe from www.exclusivelyfood.com.au into a larger recipe, and also made it gluten free, it worked a treat.

Updates

And so I should catch up on the health of my family, lots of it was on my other blog here.

Labyrinth is officially considered intellectually disabled by our lovely government. This means we are going to be getting a tiny bit extra money by fortnight now. This hardly covers our cost of living but it's better than nothing. Well, we could be worse off, but our rent is going up and so is our food bill with all the allergies in the family.

I have sjogren's syndrome. Raven has some wierd eye problem where he has extreme helio-sensitivity and even water makes him hurt. I can't imagine he has the same problem considering 95% of SS sufferers are female. He gets mistaken as a girl often enough, but he still has the unmistakable male parts. He also has some behavioural problems, and tells me constantly that he loves me and I am special. It's lovely but it ends up frying my brain. I've also had what started out seeming like classic glutening symptoms that didn't go away for nearly two weeks, now I've got a cough, sweats and a temp. It seems to have gone through the children too, like wildfire.

Dante has his depression. He's seeing the top guy in the state, he saw him once, was so concerned he went and booked him appointments for over a month. He also told me today he thinks about being female a lot. I don't know how to take this, as he is often told he is a very beautiful girl. He was once singled out by my brother at a gathering who asked me who is sitting by his daughter, he told me he thought Dante was the prettiest girl in the room. More often than not people who don't know him think he's female. He's just a vewy pweety boy, really!

Kai has his incontince. It is severe.

Raven, Dante and Monika have all got wierd allergies, such as Monika's carotene issues. Gluten of course for Raven. Dante is reed thin like Raven, but has height, he's on the 60th percentile. But he will, if he hugs it through puberty as he has since birth, be shorter than Monika who is 75-80%ile. She is wearing clothes that Raven is handing down immediately! She wears a size 5, she only turned 3 in late September. And her hair has lightened to Dante's shade of honey.

Andrew suffers from his headaches. We've finally accepted his depression is a seasonal thing, but he's depressed now because of his constant headache. I hope its impacted wisdoms so he will get the relief he needs sooner than later.

Oh yeah, I've got impacted wisdoms too, I'm on a three year waiting list for surgery as one of the roots has intwined with the nerve, and I'm looking at a good chance of a broken jaw during surgery or the following three months as it will leave just half a centimetre of jaw bone left when the damn thing is removed.

I also am on a waiting list to see a public hospital Rheumatologist. I had a blood work up to see if I was positive for Sjogren's and at the same time the GP ran some more tests. Result: I need to see a specialist, a lot of red flags were raised. She will not elaborate.

My broken arm last year was not a coincidence. I have calcium absorbsion issues, as well as iron ones.

I have depression. Anyone?

I've severely pissed off Lady Luck, haven't I?

Mixed News.

On Friday, we had our second appointment with the amazing Dr Donahue. While it looks like at this stage that it is only Raven and I are the only with Coeliac's Disease, Monika definately has a carotene allergy, and she has either a cow's milk intolerance or allergy. Dante has probably got Lactose Intolerance. Labyrinth is going to have extensive psychological and physiological testing for her various problems. Kai is all good. Any one of the others do have the potential of developing coeliac's disease (or it didn't show up in the bloods, apparently it doesn't often with children), but considering Dante can predict when he will get diahrea, it's due to milk usually, Monika's diahrea has really lost it's severity since severely removing dairy and carotene from her diet. The doctor believes this will disappear eventually. I do hope that none of the other's has got it, because they'll continue to cop damage until it's spottable/spotted. This can be tested for annually. We have some tests to run on Dante, some strategies to use with Kai (its not a medical issue), lots of testing for Labyrinth and to keep doing the same as we are dietry speaking and homeschooling.

I've really been fantastic, with the sleep apnoea machine filling in a significant part of my health recovery puzzle. I have been feeling amazing, actually able to keep up with a pretty great aerobic routine and have lost a dress size. But on my birthday (I'm cursed I swear) I pulled a muscle in my back and haven't been able to excercise (or do much fun stuff) since. I've got bruising all over my back, and slowly getting rid of the knots. It was caused by from a crouch jumping straight up into the air to a straight position, then back. The problems arose when the Wii remote and Nunchuck were not far enough apart (and geez I'm only average height) and it tugged on my right side (been doing the high impact version on the Active (game?). It is also naughty of me as I've a curve in my spine and I shouldn't jump or do high impact. Huh, I have been handling it OK until then, I'd completed 6 days at that stage. I was doing other stuff too, this is just so frustrating! The one good thing this week it seems is Dr Donahue accepts that Raven and I are both Coeliac, while he can't 'officially' give the diagnosis he will give a letter to us to the effect that Raven must stay on a Gluten Free Diet. When Raven gets older he can make a decision to do a gluten challenge and see what happens. It's pretty obvious though, and it would suck for him, but it is his decision when he is old enough to do so. I was totally divided in wanting the full diagnosis and not wanting him to go through the biopsy.

That's all really, besides lots of recipes I'll be sharing in the next few days! Here's to a better health for all of us!
Cheers, Q.

Getting Somewhere.... FINALLY!!

My health is getting lots better since using the Sleep Apnoea machine, excercise and obviously off the gluten/mostly off dairy diet. I feel flexible, alive and energetic, YAY!
All of the children except Raven has been on a mini-gluten challenge followed up by a blood test for all of them, Raven as a bit of a control.
The bloods were taken on Monday, hopefully in time for the results to be ready for their next appointment with the pediatrician in three weeks. He is a great doc so far, it took some pushing to get this far, but finally we're there, and he's hearing us, nice feeling. But really it is expected just never seems to happen that way...

Labyrinth has a Sleep Apnoea test when Andrew has one middle of next month, if she has that it might explain her move swings and lack of attention span at times.

Monika is still sore and sick, the poor lass. Little improvements are big here, and she has been a little improved, strange since she's had more gluten than usual...

Other than that I'm going to make Cornbread for tea, which I'd better get on with right now!
Weight has been coming off, it is visible now... but still got quite a bit to go... too much really but I'm capable and determined now! Until next time Q.

Lots and a New Recipe - Greek Salad!

Greek Salad

Salad Ingredients:

1 bitterfree cucumber,chopped

125 grams fetta (we used sheeps), cubed

10 - 15 tiny roma tomatoes - chopped

1 Spanish Onion, roughly chopped

10 black olives,halved

Mix together in a large bowl.

Dressing Ingredients:

Balsamic Vinegar with Roasted Garlic

Raw garlic

Generous spoon of Basil Pesto

Equal sized spoon of chopped Chives

Mix well then carefully toss through salad.

Obviously this recipe is GF free, Cow product free, extremely easy, quick and worth it in yumminess. The above was served with Woollies brand (NOT Select) steak chips and steak. I emphasize the plain brand as it is oddly the case, the cheaper brands are often gluten-free while the more expensive brand includes wheat based mulitdextrin, excluding it from the GF diet.

Monika is definately still suffering from chronic and sometimes health threatening diahhrea. Keeping the food diary helps - it's shown up a probable Carotine sensitivity - not great - no carrot/pumpkin etc. To keep her borderline we have removed this from our diet - but still she's on gluten. Not until we get a biopsy done - who knows when... and all this time she's losing weight, sick all the time. It is a hair tearing moment.

Raven is still GF and he's changed into a healthy,growing little man. He just holds onto his leavings - but can do them on demand. This is usually us putting up guide posts - he must do chores, do his lessons, go toilet before he can play the game - Little Big Planet. It's working but how long will it be before he's happy to just go without prompting?

Dante's been sick on and off this week. All from party food I'd wager. A particular example that flies to mind is he ordered a milkshake at George's party on Wednesday night, he had diahhrea all day Thursday...

Kai's good. As always.

Labyrinth is emotionally a timebomb, always going off. She's over tired and grumpy, poor concentration, a real problem. So, she is off to have a sleep study in May, same night as Andrew - to test for sleep apnoea for both of them.

As for me, it's up and up! I've been using the Sleep Apnoea machine, sticking to the GF diet (15 months so far!) I've got motivation, energy, less headaches, pain minimum. I do excercise everyday. I think I've isolated another piece of my puzzle - Sjogren's Syndrome. I can't blame my wisdom teeth problems on it though, thats due to a small jaw size. Scary! Proven again by having my jaw measured for the sleep apnoea machine, I needed small. Lots happening - much to be happy for. 15 months ago I just didn't want to go on, and now the hope has grown tangibly. Tough they've put off me seeing a dental surgeon again for another month. ARGH!

So most of my frustration lies on the doorstep of a broken medical system. If we could but be looked after decently Monika wouldn't have to suffer so, and all the waiting for my teeth is an issue too. FIX it up Ruddites. NOW!

That's my small rant over, if you try the salad you will enjoy, Q.

I

A new community, plus the scary side of Silly Yaks.

This afternoon I just joined a wonderful ceoliac society online called CeoliacFaces, already I've had two lovely people welcome me! It came while I was trying to find a correlation between ceoliacs who have siblings with CD too. I was wondering just how many of my children will end up having it.
Then I came across the new community and started checking out the blogs, and I found this image:

It made me quite upset. These are not malnurished children from a third world country, these are undiagnoses ceoliac children from London! OK it was taken in 1923, you can find all the details from Sonia's Gluten Free blog here. It is so frustrating to get a real diagnosis, the below images are of my son, Raven. He's four, and he can wear his little 2 yo sister's clothes! This is taken while he was bloating - at this stage he was still on gluten. In this condition the hospital pedatricians told my husband and I that they couldn't do anything for him. Yes he'd tested positive to an anti-immune disease but he didn't seem bad enough to pursue it. Judge for yourselves:

Currently he's doing OK, he still bloats a little but not like this! He's gluten free! He has a little dairy now. He doesn't have accidents at least once a day, he isn't in pain every day. We took him to a new doctor who agrees that I'm as diagnosed as much as I need to be (it's up to me if I want to go on a gluten challenge and have the biopsy - I just can't imagine going through the agony I was going through a year ago...). But why should a little boy have to go through this daily because the doctors say he's not bad enough to warrent further investigations? So this new doctor got us a DNA test - Raven's got both markers to say he has the potential for CD. They are letting him back to the hospital but no way was I waiting to put him on a gluten free diet. This cycle of trying to get a diagnosis for Raven has been a year and a half so far. I remember (and not knowing at the time why) Raven would scream if I tried putting his knees up to his tummy as a baby to change a nappy, so to be kind I would change him on his side. I feel so guilty now and I get upset that they still have not given us any real diagnosis at the hospital.

We are now pursuing Monika's issues. That's the two year old. Before eating food she was way above average height and weight, now she's below. She doesn't seem to bloat like Raven but she's developed severe diahrea in the last month. The doctor was so close to saying GF diet, but she now after discovering she has lost nearly 2 kilos in a month that to be on the safe side she'd better give her antibiotics just in case it was missed in her stool sample (that was negative for giardia). We can put her off gluten in two weeks. I think I just want her off it altogether! We have now got access to a pharmacy test @ $30 which is a blood prick test which shows gluten intolerance, we are going to get that for each of our children! Thanks, Q.

The news seems to get better and better.

and worse and worse!

Raven has improved amazingly under the Gluten Free Diet. This of course is NOT enough to prove he has Coeliac's. He has to go and have a biopsy. As an adult I am content, I know what I'm "missing" out on and realise the benefits way outbalance eating something that's making me double over in pain and be unable to make it to the toilet most days (yup that's the reality of the thing). Unfortunately, being a child and later on a rebellious teen, Raven asks me even now "when is my tummy going to stop being gluten free?" Poor little man. So he needs the diagnostic "proof" that it is indeed what it is.
He cetainly doesn't miss out on his share of treats, but he does notice what he's eating is sometimes quite different from the other children.
Hey, I've noticed this since he was a baby, he was in pain while I changed his nappy (the bloated belly) and its re emerged memory is quite strong now he's had to go back into nappies for a short while (his accident's were daily and on furniture at times). But now he seems much better and he's making it every time now. There has been days when his belly is flat (that is amazing considering at times he looks like a pregnant toddler, and never without some form of bloat). He still seems blase about his occasional accidents.

And now for the worst news I've had to contemplate for myself yet. I have wisdom teeth problems. Both bottomies, actually. One's roots is scissoring and one is wrapt around the main nerve of the lower jaw bone. Not only that, if they were to simply cut them free, there would be approximately half a centimetre of jaw bone left in either side. This is a real problem, and I'm forced to see what the Dental Surgeons decide because I'm in the public system. If they class me as priority one I will have emergency status and be dealt with within three weeks, if they don't I'll be priority 2 and may have to wait a year. Headaches, swollen glands, fevers, sore throats (I put them down to my glasses and Coeliac's) is actually my wisdom's pinching my nerve, I have pain every day in my face. Hey, when this gets sorted (and the sleep apnea), may be I'll be almost human! It seems when I'm actually trying my hardest to get well my own body is screwing me up - again. The carefree nature I had as a younger woman/girl is come back to haunt me!

Anyway, that's all for now. At least Raven's getting better! Q,