Wacky Cakes

I had to take cupcakes to Seth's class last week for his 6th birthday. This is a tricky task because there are so many allergies out there now. There are several kids in his class who are allergic to dairy, eggs, soy, nuts, etc. I wanted to try to take something that everybody could actually eat so that the allergy kids didn't feel left out. So I ran across this recipe for wacky cakes that used to be popular during the great depression when dairy and eggs were being rationed. They were actually pretty good, very moist. And you can make them any flavor you want with extract. I did lemon. The day I took the cupcakes was on April Fools Day, so I made the cupcakes especially wacky by making them look like veggies. I got this idea from a cute food website I follow, Our Best Bites.

Here is the Wacky Cake recipe for any other moms out there needing allergy safe treats for school, etc.

Allergy-Free Dessert Recipe: Kathy P's Wacky Cake

Recipe Information

Category: Cakes

Recipe Created By: Kathy Przywara

Ingredients

1 1/2 cup flour (see below for gluten-free options)

3 Tbsp cocoa powder (optional)

1 cup sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 Tbsp vinegar

5 Tbsp oil

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup water

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350F.

Combine dry ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix thoroughly.

Mix wet ingredients in a separate bowl and stir to combine.

Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix until you get a smooth batter. Do not beat.

Pour into greased and floured pan (8" square or 9" round) or 12 cupcakes. Bake in oven until tests done - about 35 minutes for cake, about 20 minutes for cupcakes.

Comments

Wacky Cake is a classic recipe from the Depression era because of the rationing of butter and eggs. The original recipe I saw mixed it right in the pan. You mix the dry ingredients, make 3 holes and pour the wet ingredients in. You can not screw this up. I even accidentally left out the oil one time and they were still OK - a bit dense, but OK. I've made it in several versions and even gluten-free.

The vinegar cannot be omitted, unless another acid ingredient (see below for orange or lemon alternative flavors) is substituted, since the acid is crucial to making this rise.

Substitutions

Vanilla: omit cocoa. Double amount of vanilla.

Spice: omit cocoa. Add 1 Tbsp pumpkin pie spice.

Orange: omit cocoa & vinegar. Substitute orange juice for the water.

Lemon: omit cocoa. Substitute lemon juice for vinegar. Some lemon extract can be added.

Gluten Free: Substitute 1 3/4 cups GF Flour Mix for wheat flour. Add 1 tsp xanthan gum. Works well with Kathy P's All Purpose Rice Flour Mix.

Others have used the following rice free sorghum blend:

1 cup sorghum flour

1/2 cup potato or cornstarch

1/4 cup tapioca starch

If you prefer using bean flours, you can also use:

3/4 cup sorghum flour

1/4 cup bean flour (garbanzo)

1/2 cup potato or cornstarch

1/4 cup tapioca starch

This recipe is free of:

Milk Peanut Egg Soy Tree nut Corn

Gluten Wheat Fish Shellfish Sesame

Other

Love Letter Scripture Video

I shared this video with the women at the Oasis Women's Outreach Event on Saturday and had several ladies ask to have a copy. So, I am posting it to my blog. It's really a beautifully organized series of scriptures that I think tell an incredible love story. I saw this at a church that I visited a couple months ago and they sent me the link to it on their video website. This was done by Kensington Church in Birmingham, MI. Here is the link to their site: Love Letter video

Caffeine Addictions and other Ways of Coping

Playing dress-up at the library
Visit with the Ross family in Columbus
Lilah at Cosi
Seth at Cosi
Isaac at Cosi
Hunter at Cosi
Hunter and Isaac asleep at the hotel
All the kids asleep where the landed at the hotel
Lilah and Nina (my mom)
Movie time
The traditional morning pillow fight with Papa
Valentine's cookies (best recipe ever, btw, thanks Sarah!)


We have had a busy couple of weeks. I feel like I am mostly just hanging on for the ride of life while I desperately try to keep up with the school routine, the house, the kids, Josh's schedule, and the list goes on and on. Unfortunately, I don't always keep up super successfully or with a "happy heart" (aka: a good attitude) as I put it for the kids. As most of our close friends know, we have had my cousin and her little guy living with us for the past couple of months. We love the time with family. Hunter is a two-year old firecracker of joy, fun, and cuteness. He is also a potty trainer. While this is a necessary stage of life for all humans, it is an unpleasant one for the adults. He's doing a pretty good job at the potty training, but it still makes life a bit more chaotic and stressful for the time being. Seth and Lilah have also discovered a new stage of life. It should be titled the "I just realized my ability to purposely annoy everyone around me and cause constant conflict with my siblings" stage. I feel like this is the worst issue to deal with because it just creates constant, deafening, and nerve-grating noise. There is ALWAYS a child screeching like a teradactyl while another one laughs insidiously. What do you do with that? Seriously, I'm asking. Because I have no idea and my nerves can't take it anymore. Isaac has come into a new stage of adorable sneakiness. He has gotten very sweet and lovable. I adore the cuddles. He has also developed a sugar addiction that I seem incapable of getting under control. If there is a sweet in the house, he knows where it is and is sophisticated enough to build a contraption large enough to climb within reaching length. I seriously cannot even go to the bathroom without returning to find the child sitting on a counter, cheeks stuffed full, and chocolaty drool dribbling down his chin. While I worry about this habit predisposing him to diabetes, I have to admit that he looks awfully cute in his sin of gluttony. I apparently need to get a lock box for anything of the sugar variety. Josh has had a really crazy schedule lately and he assures me it will not be getting better. Awesome. I think it might be better if he lied to me about that. I don't know, haven't decided. I discovered very early on in his medical career to set my expectations for him at an EXTREMELY low level. This way, I would never get disappointed. And when he arrives home at 8pm after a 16 hour work day it will feel like a blessing rather than an entire day of being a single mom. Sometimes it works, mostly it doesn't.

A few weeks ago we got a fantastically wonderful visit from my brother, Ben, and his family. My parents came up for the visit as well and treated us all to a waterpark hotel nearby. The kids had so much fun with the cousins and Josh and I loved getting some time with Ben and Sarah. We had a Superbowl party for Side By Side and have enjoyed lots of other fun activities over the past couple months. We had winter break for the kids' school last week so I took advantage of the time off to visit family and friends. (By 'Visist", I mean dump my kids off at my mom's house and take off to hang out with one of my BFs from high school.) The kids love time with nina and papa and I love time with other adults. Then my mom and I took the kids to a hotel for the night to swim and visit the Cosi Science Museum in Columbus. We also got to visit with some great Cbus friends, which we all loved. It was a busy and exhausting week, but fun. And the kids had a blast. This week we've been attempting to get back into our normal routine again. I have discovered that I am physically incapable of doing this without copious amounts of coffee. I took the kids to the library for playgroup yesterday and the library nazi lady made me throw away my coffee. I was unable to take it to the "coffee cafe" because I had to chase three children around the kids area of the library. I explained this to the woman who did not seem to care. I can only assume that she has never been a caregiver to 4 children under the age of 5 before or she surely would have made an exception. But alas, she did not. So I threw away my full cup of steaming hot coffee from McDonalds and promptly developed a splitting headache. I had to take two Excedrin to make it better. I suppose if I cannot drink my caffeine naturally, I have to supplement it artificially. But I have to say that I think libraries should put mini coffee cafes in the children's areas for the sleep-deprived moms who really truly need it. Because, believe me, if I could have taken my coffee to the "coffee cafe" to sip it peacefully while I read my new Francine Rivers book, rather than try to keep eyes on my two feet tall Isaac and Hunter in rows and rows of 3 foot tall bookshelves, I would have. Anyways, today is Friday and I plan to have a movie night with my kids with lots of cuddles and popcorn. All of that should make up for the stressful past few weeks. At least, we will do that after the kids clean up their toys in the playroom. Which they should have done 3 hours ago. I told Seth and Lilah to accomplish that task during Isaac's naptime. They did not and when I checked on them, more toys were out and ALL of the furniture was tipped upside down and the room ransacked. Apparently, a sneaky leprechaun is to blame (according to them). It's too bad... that naughty leprechaun just bumped their bedtime up by one hour. And that is the naughty leprechaun's gift to me. =)

My Holy Linebacker

We normally go to a church called Zion Christian Church that is about a 30 minute drive. However, we sometimes struggle to get there on time because it is kind of far away and they start a little earlier. So there is another church that we have visited a couple of times that is closer to our house and starts later. The kids have accurately termed this our "running late church." It is where we have gone a couple times when we couldn't make it to our normal church on time. So we visited for only the second time yesterday. We got the kids dropped off in their classes and headed for the auditorium. Before we had even sat down, our "number" was flashing on the screen. I went back to the nursery to find a woman pacing in the hallway with Isaac in her arms. She kindly informed me that he was attacking the other two year olds and they had to remove him from class. She said every time one of the kids came near him, he would scream and hit them. We could try again next week. ... awesome... My kid just got kicked out of children's church, at a church we don't even attend. I know that Isaac was just mad because we left him alone and when Isaac gets mad, he attacks people who invade his space. So this could become a long-term problem. The children's security guy told Josh, "I have good news and bad news. The bad news is your kid is hitting other kids. The good news is that he's the toughest kid in class. I'm a recruiter for Michigan and if he keeps this up, I'll be looking at him in about 16 years." Josh laughed and at least felt proud that his son is a beast who could have a future in football. But we didn't dare tell the man that it was little consolation because we are Buckeyes. And one of the women in the children's church program even tried to help us by suggesting that we attend the earlier service because it's less busy and also that we not give our children spoonfuls of sugar before church. I smiled and acted as though that was all perfectly wonderful advice that I never would have thought of on my own... because I am in fact an idiot mom. And the only possible explanation for a misbehaving child is stress from crowds and sugar overdose. Needless to say, I think we'll be heading back to our normal church from now on because I wasn't really "feeling the Spirit" there after that whole incident. =) And now I know to be interceding for Isaac's future as a linebacker.

"You should really watch your kids..."

So I took the kids to playgroup at the library yesterday. Seth was at school, so it was just Lilah, Isaac, and Hunter. The library has a large kids play area in the basement floor. It's a tricky space because it's huge and the different play areas are all spread out in separate parts of the room and all the book shelves wind around and make it very difficult to keep a constant visual on 2 foot tall toddlers. The kids had been playing for a while and Isaac was "in a mood." All he wanted to do was go to the only places where I could not watch him well. There are stairs that go to the main floor and an elevator hidden in this little nook right next to the toddler play area. I had finally gotten Isaac and Hunter interested in the same game in the toddler area. I turned around to help Lilah with something on the computer. Shortly after that, I hear "Attention library patrons. There is a little boy about 2 years old, with brown hair and white shirt that says GAP on the front upstairs near the circulation desk." That was Isaac. So I ran upstairs to get him and two old ladies had him cornered at the back of the library because he wouldn't come to them. They said he wouldn't hold their hands to bring him back downstairs. I grabbed Isaac and one of the ladies was like, "You know, you really have to watch your kids when you're here. He could have run out the front door or gotten lost." I just looked at her and politely said, "Yes, I realize those things. I have three kids here and he just slipped away within seconds. Sorry." But what I was thinking was.... Really??!!! Really???!!! You don't think I KNOW what horrible things COULD have happened? You don't think my heart was in my throat as soon as I heard the announcement? Nope, I didn't think it was a big deal for him to come upstairs and have a look around. I sent him on the elevator myself and told him to have a good time. The fact that you couldn't even catch him should give you some kind of indication as to what kind two year old he is! Fortunately, the only place one of my kids has gotten away from me for a few seconds was in a library. But find me a mom of multiple children who has not had at least one child escape once and I will give you a hundred bucks because I think that would be a challenge. But thanks for the reminder that I need to watch my kids. I had forgotten! ....

So there is my rant for the day. For the record, my friend and I (who were both standing there with the kids) feel very certain that Isaac did in fact ride the elevator up. He's currently obsessed with elevators and buttons and I think he snuck into the nook while I was helping Lilah and just went for a ride. There is no way he could have gotten all the way across the playroom to the stairs without me seeing him. Anyways, to all the old ladies who already raised their children with perfection, thanks for the snarky reminders to watch our kids, I wouldn't have thought to do so otherwise.

Christmas Recap!

We had a great Christmas celebrating with my family this year. Josh's mom went to Tulsa to spend Christmas with his sister, so we headed to Ohio for the weekend. Two of my three brothers were there. We missed Ben and Sarah and the kids, but loved getting some time with Dan and Lauren and Dave. The recent excitement around our house has been that my cousin, Megan, and her little boy, Hunter, have moved in with us for a while. So we loved getting to spend Christmas with Megan and Hunter and including them in on our family traditions and chaos! Christmas with my family is always filled with amazing food, chaos, constant laughter, and pajamas. It is a Newman tradition to get jammie gifts on Christmas Eve and we pretty much don't take them off until the holiday is over. They are removed only for hot-tubbing, showers, and to be washed quickly so that they can be worn again immediately. Anybody not wearing pjs will probably be ridiculed. We rarely do traditional holiday food. The highlight of this Christmas was the steak and crab legs for dinner. yum! We also loved the hot wings and fresh, smoked salmon that my aunt brought to us from Alaska.

On Christmas Eve, we put candles in cupcakes and sang Happy Birthday to Jesus and talked about what Christmas is really all about. The kids had fun tracking Santa on norad before they went to bed and then everybody got up Christmas morning for gifts. Seth got some major additions to his Geotrax and Lilah got the American Girl bitty baby. She LOVES it! The big theme this year for the kids was Toy Story. Santa brought each kid a Toy Story character and they now have nearly a complete set so that they can all play with them together. Seth also got a remote controlled helicopter that he loves. The trick will be to see if he ever gets in pried out of his daddy's hands long enough to actually play with it! Josh has become kind of obsessed. The grown-up boys had so much fun playing with it that Dan and Dave finally went out and bought their own. Then they had three to compete with each other. The planes fly precariously and shoot missiles, so it felt like being in a miniature war zone the whole weekend. Each child got smacked in the face at least once by whirring helicopter wings. The other big theme for Christmas gifts was Glee. I'm not gonna lie. I love Glee. So Santa brought me 4 Glee cds and the new Glee Karaoke Revolution for Wii. I got to pretend I was Lea Michelle all weekend. (I'm sure nobody got sick of that). =)

The other special event on Christmas day was that Uncle Dan performed Isaac's baby dedication ceremony. While we have attended church ever since Isaac was born, we have not been really connected in a church and the churches we have gone to have been huge so we didn't really know anybody. Consequently, we never had Isaac dedicated to the Lord in one of the churches because it did not feel very intimate. My brother, Daniel, just finished his degree in theology from Regent University. So, we asked if he would do the honor of dedicating Isaac to God in front of our family on Christmas day. Josh's mom and sister skyped in to watch the dedication and we videotaped it for the rest of the family who could not be there. It was very special having Uncle Dan commit our son to the Lord and bestowing the mantle of responsibility on me and Josh to raise Isaac according to God's word and for His purposes. It was a special Christmas and we loved getting to celebrate the birth of our Savior with those that we love. Now on to the New Year!

Thanksgiving Thankfulness

I have been watching so many of my friends posting on their blogs all of the wonderful things they are thankful for. I am not consistent enough to blog every day to do that. So I will just do this one post to note all of the blessings that God has poured out on me. First of all, I am thankful for my heavenly Father who provided his son, Jesus Christ, as a sacrifice for my sins so that I could have a relationship with Him for all eternity. Second, I am thankful for my three beautiful children. They are hard work, but they are blessings in their own, indivdual and priceless ways. Third, I am thankful for God's peace that passes all understanding. As I am currently struggling with my third, early pregnancy miscarriage, I praise God that He provides peace and joy to us in times of pain. And I will praise my God for He is sovereign in all of His ways and I will trust Him. Fourth, I am thankful for my amazing husband. I was not feeling well this morning and Josh got up with the kids so that I could rest. I could hear Josh all the way downstairs, making waffles and singing songs to the kids at the top of his lungs. I laid in my bed and I thanked God that He gave me the wisdom to marry that man. I am overjoyed that my children have a father who adores them, delights in them, provides for them, plays with them, nurtures them, and leads them in a way gives them an earthly taste of their heavenly Father. Fifth, I am thankful for friends. It never ceases to amaze me how God provides the most amazing women into my life at every stage and place. I have a sisterhood of women that have collected from high school, to college, to Tulsa, to Columbus, and now Michigan. Each group has been priceless and touched my soul in too many ways to count. I am incredibly thankful for family. I have the best parents who continue to support me into adulthood and help me to be the wife and mother I need to be. My parents gave me the greatest gift in life by teaching me about Jesus Christ and then allowing me to make that faith my own. They taught me by example about a relationship with Christ, marriage, parenthood, and so much more. I am blessed with a wonderful mother-in-law who makes helping me with the kids a priority. She gave me the gift of her son so that I could have the incredible husband and my kids can have the incredible father that they do. And I am so thankful for my brothers and sisters-in-law. It is because of these precious relationships that I seek to provide my kids with a similar experience in our family. I am thankful that I get to be a stay at home mom. I am able to kiss every boo boo and be there for every silly song and joke. I get to volunteer in the kids' classrooms and experience every milestone. My kids will always know that when they have a rough day at school, they only have to make it to our door and I will be there will listening ears and a hug (and maybe a plate of chocolate chip cookies, but probably not because I'm no June Cleaver afterall.) There are so many other things for which I am thankful that I could not possibly name them all. I just touched on the big ones. And I know that they are the same "big ones" that most moms have, but I still felt the need to say them out loud. =) Happy Thanksgiving!