Gluten-Free Birthday Cake and Biscotti

I recently had a birthday, and I was lucky enough to have two of my favorite things for the occasion: a gluten-free chocolate cake, and some gluten-free biscotti (chocolate orange macadamia nut). Both were homemade, and fulfilled my "gift" requests this year. I am at that point where I have no idea what to ask for when it comes to Birthdays, Father's Day, Christmas, etc., so one surefire hit with me is homemade treats.

NOTE: I now have a nice Apple Cinnamon Gluten-Free Biscotti recipe online, for anyone in the mood for baking some homemade gluten-free biscotti (Italian twice-baked biscuits).

My wife baked a chocolate-mint Bundt cake, adapting the chocolate Bundt cake from our book into a French-mint cake of sorts, using fresh Peppermint from our yard. The results were quite nice, and the subtle mint flavor throughout the cake was definitely a hit with me. The cake had a nice texture and plenty of moistness, plus that winning combination of flavors. Yum!

Then came the gluten-free biscotti (also dairy-free), courtesy of my daughter. She just follows the recipe from our desserts book (she actually created the recipe) for these, and produced one of my all time favorite snacks. I requested these specifically, since I absolutely love them and quite honestly am too lazy to bake them myself much of the time. Being biscotti (a twice-baked cookie), they do take a bit longer to make, but the results are worth it! They last a long time, and I have been munching on these crispy crunchy treats for a while now and enjoying every bit of them. Too bad there isn't a biscotti-making-machine, or I could have asked for that for my birthday and had these all the time :)

Now it is time to figure out what to do for the Fourth of July. At this time, the forecast is calling for rain and heat, so I'm not sure a picnic is going to happen this year. If it does rain (which we desperately need), perhaps it'll just be a relaxing day with some rented movies - or, maybe watching the new RATATOUILLE movie somewhere (it looks rather entertaining).

I wanted to cover some Celiac Science type things I have encountered during reading medical studies and other publications lately. I also how to write about various Gluten-Free nutrition concerns - especially conditions that seem to correlate closely with Celiac Disease -- things like iron-deficiency anemia.

But, first things first - July 4th makes for a good excuse to relax and do nothing for a day. Sounds good to me!