You need a little sweetness in your life

Isn’t this a beauty?  Even with New Years resolutions and goals to finally lose those 15 lbs you do need a little sweet now and then, right?  Especially when you got something healthy and gluten-free going.

Dr. Tae Yun Kim is not into having people deprive themselves, or never touch anything sweet ever again.  She knows that is not realistic for 99.999% of the population.  So Dr. Tae Yun Kim set out to create a cake that’s so delicious, yet at the same time very healthy for you.

We talked about the health benefits of Seabuckthorn in my last post.  Once again, 1/4 cup of the flour was included into the batter.  The basic batter comes from my dear friend Shirley and you can see the recipe right here.

Usually, I double the recipe because, well, because there are plenty of eaters around that if I only made one batch it would disintegrate the minute it comes out of the oven, and I do need time to set up and take pictures.  So…..

Dr. Tae Yun Kim also likes to use the bounty of the land, and especially the healthy gifts mother nature provided.  So not only did blueberries get to jump into the batter, (a good 2 cups of fresh ones) but also about a cup of Madrone berries that had been soaked in Vodka for a couple of months.  Madrone berries have been used by Native Americans for centuries, to make use against stomach cramps and pains and to help with skin irritations of all sorts.  They provide vitamins and minerals in the winter when not much else in the cold, snowy woods is available.

To make this cake, double the recipe mentioned above, but instead of all gluten-free basic flour, use half almond flour and half the basic gluten free flour.  For the sugar we always use the raw organic turbinado sugar, and that is why the cake comes out a little darker.  Dr. Tae Yun Kim raises her own chickens, so no worries about the quality of the eggs.

The berries were folded in at the very end, very carefully to not smash them.  If you don’t have any Madrone berries you can add some dried cranberries that you can soak in brandy or vodka or a couple of hours.

The result?  Deeeeee-licious!  Give it a try and see if you agree!

 

 

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The Birthday cake!

Yesterday I showed you my Birthday Dinner.  You may have wondered, “But what about the cake!”

Well, of course.  There was cake.  Wanna see?

Dr. Tae Yun Kim, when she grew up, never had any birthday cakes.  In fact, her parents were so ashamed to have a girl as their firstborn child, that they never even celebrated her birthday – until she was 50 years old!

To Dr. Tae Yun Kim a birthday cake is not about indulging in sweets for the sake of it, but it is a symbol of all the sweetness in life for the coming year!  So of course we want a good cake!

Now, since we are all focused on healthy foods, we try to make healthy birthday cakes as well.  Especially diabetes friendly ones, since some Jung Suwon warriors have diabetes.  Did you know that there is no such thing as a “Diabetes Diet?”  One doctor pointed out that what diabetics should eat is what everyone should eat – it’s simply a healthy and balanced diet!

Now, how can you have a healthy cake?  Isn’t that a contradiction right there?  Not necessarily.  There are a few requirements of course to make it healthy.  For this blog, it has to be gluten free.  It also needs to be low in carbs and reasonable in fat content.

My go-to cake, ever since I went gluten free 4 years ago, has been “Shirley cake.”  You can find this genious recipe here, right on Shirley’s Blog “Gluten free easily.” It’s pure genious because no matter what I have ever added to this cake recipe, it always, and I mean always, has come out perfect!

It’s of course gluten free, so that’s covered. But what about carbohydrate content?  On first look I was worried.  I mean, after all, it’s a pound cake.  But after I found this nifty little tool on the internet, a recipe calculator, I found out that one slice only has 12 grams of carbohydrates per slice, and only 134 calories.  (Now to be honest, who can ever stick to that serving size….. that wouldn’t be me….)  Also, I have very successfully substituted half of the gluten free flour with almond flour, and that would lower the carb load considerably.

Still, you get the point.  So, yes, Shirley cake is practically a health food!  🙂

Since Dr. Tae Yun Kim‘s birthday was February 2nd, and since she was out of town for this, we’ll celebrate upon her return, and guess what cake I’ll be making!

 

 

 

 

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Thanksgiving, or Harvest Festival cake

Yesterday, September 30th, was Chu Seok this year, the Korean Harvest Festival.  This is a very important celebration in Korea, and since I have been training under Dr. Tae Yun Kim for many years, I have come to love this festival.  It is all about giving thanks for the new crops, new harvest, and it’s about gratitude to family and friends, and of course, sharing fresh foods of all kinds is vital.  Think of it as a Korean Thanksgiving.

Dr. Tae Yun Kim explained to us that according to tradition, you must cook freshly harvested rice, make rice cakes, and serve fresh fruits of all sorts, grapes, pears, apples and Korean dates head that list.  Also fresh pumpkin and pumpkin soup, sweet potatoes, new potatoes, and corn are very typical.

I wanted to present Dr. Kim with something that included a good amount of the traditional foods, and yet also have meaning for Jung Suwon warriors.  I didn’t just want to make a good tasting cake, although I knew it must be that too, but I wanted to go beyond that.

So I started out with a double recipe of Shirley cake, uhm make that, “Perfect Pound Cake“, just click on it and it’ll get you to the recipe.  (we call it Shirley cake in honor of its creator and because we make it so much.)

The batter is perfect.  You can make it just as it states in the recipe, or you can put “stuff” in it.  Which I like to do a lot.  My first “alteration” was to add some cinnamon.

So, I was peeling and chopping a couple handfuls of boiled chestnuts – about a 3/4 cup total, and peeling and chopping baked Korean style sweet potatoes – also around 3/4 cups total, chopping up walnuts – half a cup, and one and a half chopped fresh white peaches (humongous ones.) I gently folded all these into the batter.

I was thinking, chestnuts are hidden away under a very prickly outside shell, if you just look at it, you wouldn’t know what a treasure is inside.  The same with walnuts – there is a tough covering on the outside, which turns nasty when ripe, and then there is a very hard shell – and then you get to the sweet and tasty nut – who would ever know that by just looking at them?

And again, sweet potatoes grow underground, and by just looking, you might never know what’s underneath – unless of course, as with all these things – you know what to look for.

And that is exactly how Dr. Kim helps people.  She knows what is deep inside them, no matter how they look, how they behave, and no matter what they think of themselves.  Like a farmer knows how to bring the best out of the ground, as crops, so Dr. Kim knows how to bring out the best in people.

Happy ChuSeok!

HE CAN DO, SHE CAN DO, WHY NOT ME!

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What you can learn from making Nutella cake

I was going to blog about the great, delicious crab-mushroom cakes I made the other day, but then this happened.  My good friend Shirley from Gluten free easily talked about her banana Kaluha coconut cake, complete with picture and everything.

Well, I felt this incredible pull tugging on me and sure enough before I knew it I was back in the kitchen.  I had to smile to myself. Dr. Tae Yun Kim always reminds us that we need to be flexible, and not just physically.  When your environment changes, when the situation changes,Dr. Tae Yun Kim says, we have to change according to the situation.

Dr. Dr. Tae Yun Kim illustrated this with a story: one of her students had planned a cruise to the Bahamas for a long time, and was all packed and ready and beyond excited.  However, the day she was about to travel to the port of departure, a hurricane was forming and there were already travel warnings going out.  Rather than cancel, she still went ahead, because she had already paid for the cruise and didn’t want to just cancel.  Within a day or two of the cruise, the hurricane manifested in all it’s nastiness, and not only did the travelers have to get off the ship in a hurry, they were also stuck for almost a week at a hurricane stricken island, with minimal food, water and worries about the storm.  Not an ideal vacation!

While granted, my situation wasn’t nearly that drastic, I still didn’t mind changing direction, and went ahead to make this delicious looking cake.  I mean, it was a good excuse to make that cake, right?

Fresh out of the oven…..

Here is the original recipe, go check it out!

I could already taste the cake, while I was mixing the ingredients together.  What aroma!  What smooth batter!  I did make a minor change  – I used double the amount, so I could bake it in my bundt pan, and I substituted – for the double recipe – 2 cups almond flour, and for the rest used Shirley’s gluten-free flour mix.

When I reached for the coconut, to add that to the batter, I couldn’t believe it.  None there!  Impossible!  I knew I had 3 bags!  Someone, who for the sake of peace in the household will remain unnamed, had thrown it out because “a mouse had gotten into each bag.”  Hmmmmm.

Once again I thought if a very fitting quote from Dr. Kim – don’t carve in your emotions – instead, let them flow away like water, and get rid of all negative feelings!

Ok, but what to put in the batter instead?  In checking out the pantry, I saw a nice jar of Nutella sitting there, and without much thought started to spoon in gobs of Nutella into the batter, which now looked a little too thin, and I added another 3/4 cup or so of almond flour.  and about one cup of Nutella total.

I put that into the bundt pan and baked this experiment at 350 for about 45 – 50 minutes.

The result was out of this world!  As in, so good it was unbelievable.

And this brought back to mind another gem ofv Dr. Tae Yun Kim’s sayings (quote from “The Silent Master”)

“Clinging to a good picture you have created possibly keeps you from expanding into an even greater good.  Clinging to a disagreeable picture keeps you there!  So, don’t hold on to either as though it is the final story.  You don’t hate, resent, fight, or quarrel with an undesirable situation, and you don’t overly love or cling to a desirable situation.  Detachment means you are always ready, open, and willing to experience change.  That is how you develop.”

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