If you head over to The Baking Beauties Facebook page now, you can enter to win one of the first copies of “The Everything Guide to Living Gluten-Free“, written by yours truly. The book will be shipped to the winner once it becomes available!

CLICK HERE to enter, and good luck!

The contest is open to US & Canadian residents only (sorry, shipping prices get crazy after that), and runs until Feb 11th at 11:59 pm CST.

If you’re not feeling lucky, you can still pre-order your own copy for a really great price right now. Amazon.com has the book available for pre-order for 45% off, only $9.79 right now. The price won’t stay that low, once the book is released, the price usually goes up!

The post Win a copy of my new book! appeared first on The Baking Beauties. © 2012 - The Baking Beauties

For the whole month of April, Tess has been posting recipes by various bloggers and today, April 19th, is my turn! You can head on over there to read Tess’ post, and while you are there, be sure to enter to win a 7 qt KitchenAid stand mixer. It’s a beaut!

Here is a  complete list of the bloggers that are being featured during the 30 Days of Gluten-Free Baking with KitchenAid.

• Becky Ross from The Freedom Chef
• Hallie Klecker from Daily Bites
• Carol Fenster from Carol Fenster Cooks
• Kelly Courson from Celiac Chicks
• Elizabeth Kaplan from The Pure Pantry
• Valentina Kenny from Cooking On The Weekends
• Sarah M Boudreau-Romano from The Allergist Mom
• Lexie Croft from Lexie’s Kitchen
• Alisa Fleming from Alisa Cooks (Go Dairy Free)
• Ricki Heller from Diet, Dessert and Dogs
• Colette Martin from Learning To Eat Allergy Free
• Lisa Cantkier from Gluten Free Find
• Cybele Pascal from Cybele Pascal - The Allergy-Friendly Cook
• Beth Hillson from Gluten-Free Makeovers
• Karen Morgan from BlackBird Bakery
• Alta Mantsch from Tasty Eats At Home
• Maggie Savage from She Let Then Eat Cake
• Amie Valpone from The Healthy Apple
• Patrice Pollack from A Health Foodie
• Jeanine Friesen from The Baking Beauties (that’s me!)
• Carla Spacher from Gluten Free Recipe Box 
• Carrie Forbes from Ginger Lemon Girl
• Heather from Gluten Free Cat
• Kim Lutz from Welcoming Kitchen
• Amy Green from Simply Sugar and Gluten Free
• Linda Etherton from Gluten Free Homemaker
• Lisa Natcharian from Allergy Free Vintage Cookery
• Jennifer Ward from Be Free Bakers
• Megan Lust from The Gluten Free Vegan
• Kalinda Piper from Wheat Free Meat Free
• Jennifer Cafferty from Gluten Free Life with Jen
• Silvana Nardone from Silvana’s Kitchen

As you can see, there are already a lot of great gluten and dairy free recipes posted. Be sure to hop over to Healthy Blender Recipes find all the great baking recipes, and be sure to enter to win that gorgeous stand mixer as well.

Check “Healthy Blender Recipes” for full rules & guidelines.

The post April – a Month of Gluten-free Baking with KitchenAid appeared first on The Baking Beauties. © 2012 - The Baking Beauties

Today I would like to introduce you to some of my online foodie friends. There is Cindy from Hun, What’s for Dinner?, Cathy from The Hungry Hollow, Heather from Buttery Bites Caramels, and Marisa from Tasty Delights. These ladies only make up about half of us cooking-crazed ladies that span from coast to coast in the Great White North.

Let me start at the beginning.

A year ago, I had never “met” any of these ladies before (I still haven’t in person. Yet). Last April I decided to enter a cream cheese cooking contest, and as fate would have it, they would all enter too. One thing none of us expected when entering this contest (hey, we were all going for the $20k), was that we would all become friends. We just clicked. Our styles were similar, and after watching so many of them work in their kitchens, week after week, it’s like we all knew each other and were old friends. The contest came, and went. A few of the ladies won the cash prizes (even yours truly who got a $500 gift card), but all of us gained friends.

Even though the cooking contest was over, we all still felt a need to keep in touch. Many of us had blogs at the time of entering the cream cheese contest, and others are just beginning food blogs. We decided to join forces as Canadian food bloggers, and Canadian Cookies was born. We’ve been keeping in touch, bouncing ideas off each other, and encouraging each other ever since.

Today, I have the pleasure of introducing some of the Canadian Cookies as we kick off with a March Madness Giveaway! Some of the other Canadian Cookies have too much on their plates right now, but I know they will join in the next time we have a giveaway.

Here’s where you will find the giveaways for the next week:

March 20, 2012 ~Hun, What’s for Dinner: Cindy, located in Barrie, ON, is a stay at home Mom to 2 wonderful children. Her love lies with cooking and baking, which allow her to relax and break into her creative side. Oh, and did I mention that her husband is a chef? Many times I’ve heard Cindy say that she expected her husband to make her amazing, restaurant quality meals after they got married. Just a note: apparently a chef doesn’t necessarily like to take their work home with them.

March 21, 2012 ~ The Hungry Hollow: Cathy, well, what can I say about Cathy. This woman is amazing! Cathy lives on 12 acres, where she and her family raise their own chickens & ducks, as well as growing enough veggies for her to sell at the Farmer’s Market in summer. She has many award winning recipes, and she and her BFF were on an episode of Food Network Canada’s Dinner Party Wars, where they won! As if Cathy’s not busy enough, this self-sufficient woman is also in the process of stocking an online store where she will sell her amazing hand-sewn aprons. All that AND a sense of humor!

March 22, 2012 ~ Buttery Bite Caramels: Heather is from northern Alberta. She is a fun-loving woman that wears many hats. She is the owner of Buttery Bite Caramels, which are smooth, sweet caramels that are made with old fashioned ingredients, like cream, butter & vanilla bean. In addition, she has a small fabric store on her yard as well as a farm with llamas, rabbits, chickens, a cute little buffalo named Bill, a few donkeys, and now goats and geese (I know I missed a few animals).

March 23, 2012 ~ Tasty Delights: Marisa, who is from Toronto, ON, is new to blogging. She is an avid baker and has been cooking since the age of 10. Her food combinations tend towards healthy choices that would reduce fats and sugars. She is the proud mother of 3 and has taught all of her children how to cook and bake. She is a personal trainer and has been teaching fitness classes for 20 years. Marisa has won won prizes for some of  her baking recipes, including at the Canadian Baking and Sweets Show.

Be sure to hop over there and enter their giveaways this week. They are not gluten-free blogs, but I know you can find some tasty, naturally gluten-free dishes on those blogs as well.

As well, you can join The Canadian Cookies on Facebook! We have just started a new page there, where we want you to join us! Have a cooking or baking question? Want to share one of your favorite recipes or even a strange food find? We’d LOVE to hear about it and have you join us (and, you can get more entries for the giveaway by “liking” our Facebook page).

Now, onto MY giveaway!! I’m so excited! I thought long & hard about what to give away. Should I do a cookbook? Baking supplies? Kitchen gadgets? After a lot of thought, I went a slightly different route today. I decided that with spring being RIGHT around the corner (tomorrow, as a matter of fact), I would give away TWO books that deal with gardening. Urban gardening, container gardening, small space, organic gardening, to be more exact. I thought that with the rising cost of food, and with everyone wanting to know where their food comes from, I would help one of you to set up your own small space garden with these books.

Today you have a chance to win:

McGee & Stuckey’s Bountiful Container: Create Container Gardens of Vegetables, Herbs, Fruits, and Edible Flowers by Rose Marie Nichols McGee and Maggie Stuckey. This book is 400 pages of how-to for small space gardening of vegetables, herbs, edible flowers and fruit.

AND…

Grow Great Grub: Organic Food from Small Spaces by Gayla Trail. This book will show you the basics of gardening, plus teach you how to tend for your plants using natural methods, no chemicals involved. You can transform any small area into a space to grow your own organic goods.

Giveaway Time:

So, if you would like to win BOTH of these gardening books, please enter using the entry form below. The contest is open from March 19th until midnight on March 25th. The winner will be announced on Monday, March 26th.

Please be patient – Rafflecopter (the entry form) may take a moment to load.

**To see a tutorial on how to enter blog giveaways using Rafflecopter, please click HERE**

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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The second order of business today… gluten free Rootbeer Float Cupcakes. Oh, yum! A while back I went meandering in a grocery store in the U.S., and saw this Rootbeer extract. Hmm…intriguing. We don’t have that in Canada. So, I bought it and made cupcakes. Delicious, moist, rootbeer flavoured cupcakes. Mmm…

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I will admit to you, I was very hesitant to try this book. I flinched a little when I read the words “Make ‘Em in Your Microwave”. Not much good has ever been baked in the microwave, much less good AND gluten-free. But, I tried it. And?

I enjoyed some Gluten-Free Red Velvet cake…mixed & baked in about 5 minutes. Seriously. (I was out of red food colouring though, hence the lack of red). This cake was really very delicious, the texture was really good, and it was a nice late night dessert on the deck for my husband & I to share.

Then…

I had some cornbread, also ready to eat in about 5 minutes. And you know what? I’d make it again! If I were having something like chili for supper, and everyone else had their own bread to eat it with, I’d make myself a little cornbread. Really good warm, not quite as great cool, but hey, what do you expect with 5 minute & a microwave? I was quite happy that it was so good warm.

Oh yeah, there’s more…

You see the above? They are gluten-free blueberry muffins, made in the microwave  one morning. Yes, they look a little off, but you know what? They tasted good! I actually preferred them once they had cooled, as opposed to warm.

Ok, I thought, I’ve had cake, cornbread, and muffins. And I have been surprised by all of them. I know what my readers really want to know…can you REALLY make a single gluten-free hamburger bun in 5 minutes? One that tastes good? My answer for you?

Absolutely! I really do not know how Roben does it. She’s amazing, and has totally gained my respect. This hamburger bun was really, really good. Moist, but not wet & spongy. Not crumbly, but not rubbery. I did not eat mine with a burger, instead I topped it with some honey and ate it that way. I shared it with my husband, even he was amazed (he’s not on a GF diet, btw). And you know what? I think we’ll be having burgers tonight for supper, and I will be having mine on a bun!

There are 4 hamburger bun recipes in the book, each is a little different. She tells you the differences in each recipe’s description. This one is more spongy, or this one is more moist. This one tastes like whole grain, etc. Helpful information! Plus, most recipes use only one flour. And you can pick which recipe will work best for you, based on what you have on hand.

Here are some tips from Roben Ryberg herself:

Two tips for baking with Gluten-Free in Five Minutes: 1. Beat egg until nearly uniform in color (or beat your batter well if you forget to beat the egg well) and 2. Remember that each microwave is different. If yours is very powerful, you will need to cook your food item less. If your microwave is not so powerful, you will need to cook your food item more. A 15 second adjustment in time is usually all it takes!

One thing to keep in mind…the microwave will not brown your food for you the way a skillet (in the case of pancakes, which are now on my ‘must try’ list) or oven will. If you want the tops of the buns or muffins to be slightly browned (which will just make for better visual appeal), feel free to pop the item in a toaster oven or oven for a few minutes.

Do I recommend it? Yes. Absolutely. Right now on Amazon her book is selling for less than $12, which I think is a real steal. If you’re looking for a recipe book with quick, easy recipes, give it a try. I can not vouch for all of the recipes, but I tried 4 of them, and they were all really quite good.

The book includes other recipes like English Muffin, Sandwich Bread, Pizza Crust, Stuffed Mushrooms, Lemon Poppy Seed Pound Cake, Extreme Chocolate Cake, Pineapple Upside Down Cake, a section on Icings, Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars, Banana Bread, and Raspberry Cobbler. 123 recipes in total. Wow.

The post Cookbook Review ~ Gluten-Free in Five Minutes appeared first on The Baking Beauties. © 2012 - The Baking Beauties