Recipe for Disaster

Have you ever eaten black cake? I have, and trust me, it wasn't black because it was burnt. The colour was just black.

This all started when my friend told me it was his mom's birthday. We decided to take it upon ourselves to make her a cake. Here's the catch, his mom can't eat gluten. I didn't think much of this. I took a recipe for New York Crumb Cake and we went over all the ingredients, eventually deciding we only needed to buy gluten-free flour. This is not as easy as it sounds.

The first grocery store we stopped at did not carry any kind of gluten-free flour. Safeway was our next best bet. We came up to the flour aisle, overwhelmed by how many different types of flour there were. We eventually came across two packages that advertised gluten-free flour. Having never dealt with this kind of flour before, we were pretty hopeless as to knowing what we needed. The two packages were of the Bob's Red Mill brand. It was the only brand in the store that sold gluten-free flour. There were two kinds, Black Bean Flour and Green Pea Flour. We had no idea what these flours were, we didn't even know what flour with no gluten tasted like. We eventually picked the Black Bean flour because upon reading the back of the package, it said "great for baking!" We took our flour back home and proceeded to make our cake. The first sign where we should have realized something wasn't right was when we mixed all our dry ingredients. The mixture was.. a sort of grayish colour. We didn't think anything of it and mixed in our wet ingredients, greased a cake pan and poured the batter into the pan. The batter was a very dark colour and looked more moist than it should have been. The cake topping was more or less the same colour as the batter. This is when we started to question the flour. The cake was eventually put in the oven. Twenty minutes later the timer rang and out came our wonderful smelling, black New York Crumb Cake. I dared my friend to take the first bite and being the brave soul that he is, took a big mouthful. As he chewed his nose began to wrinkle in disgust. I tried a piece and immediately had to spit the foul concoction out of mouth and drink 3 glasses of water and eat an apple.

This is more or less what our cake looked like ^^^

When his mom came home, she split her sides laughing when we told her what had happened.

I did some research when I got home and discovered that there are MANY different types of gluten-free flour out there. The most common type of gluten-free flour used in baking is rice flour as this tastes more or less like normal flour. Black Bean flour is used for things like pizza dough and tortilla shells. Green Pea flour is used mostly for making dips. Potato flour is also used for making baked goods.

Here is a guide on what the different types of gluten-free flour are good for..

http://glutenfreecooking.about.com/od/glutenfreeingredients/tp/20-Gluten-Free-Flours.htm

More and more people are going with the gluten-free diet partially due to things like Celiac Disease and also because the gluten-free diet is supposed to help you drop a few pounds. Grocery stores should make gluten-free flour more available to buyers.

For my first time baking with gluten-free flour, having no knowledge about it whatsoever, I don't think I did too badly. Needless to say though, we threw the black cake out. I think I'll stick to my gluten enriched diet thank you very much.

Sleepy Foods

As we all know, certain foods will make you sleepy, like after a turkey dinner, you're usually ready for a nap. But why? Researchers have targeted most sleep-inducing foods to have marked amounts of 'tryptophan', an amino acid that increases the production of seritonin and melatonin. So how can we take advantage of these sleepy time foods? Here's six foods that have been proven to help you get those extra Z's.

1) Warm Milk;
While some researchers claim the effect of warm milk is purely psychological, but it does have a minor does of tryptophan (85mg). But cap your night time drink to one cup, too much liquid and you'll be running to the bathroom and waking up in the night.

2)Whole Grain Bread;
While whole grain bread doesn't have much in the way of tryptophan, carbohydrates increase insulin, which clears the bloodstream of amino acids that compete with tryptophan. So eating a piece of whole grain toast (or other whole grain food) will increse how much of tyhe calming amino acid reaches your brain.

3)Peanut Butter;
Tryptophan occurs naturally in almost all foods that contain protein, including peanut butter. Put a little peanut butter on a slice of whole grain bread and wash down with a cup of milk and then...wait. It takes about an hour for the brain to register increased tryptophan levels. So while you wait relax with your regular bedtime routine, having a routine helps signal your brain it's time for sleep.

4)Bananas;
This fruit is filled with tryptophan and natural sugars to naturally boost serotonin production, plus magnesium to keep muscles relaxed. If you suffer from sleep apnea, according to researchers from the University of New England, bananas contain certain compunds that help keep the throat open several hours after eating (brief throat closure is a common symptom of sleep apnea)

5)Eggs;
A single egg contains approximately 180 mg of tryptophan, making scrambled eggs on a slice of whole grain toast a great sleeper hit. When it comes to eggs and other protein-dense foods, always pair with a carb, like whole grain bread. Eaten alone, the many amino acids in proteins work to blunt the effects of tryptophan; adding carbs triggers the rush of insulin that clears the bloodstream of these competing amino acids.

6)Sesame Seeds;

Sprinkle these tryptophan rich sesame seeds and you might get to sleep early tonight. Try this  Thyme and Sesame-Crusted Halibut (pictured below) as fish is also a good bet for tryptophan. Or try tahini (ground sesame seeds) used in place of peanut butter on crackers or toast.

But why does a turkey dinner make us want to sleep until dessert? While tukey does contain tryptophan, you could omit the turkey from your chirstmas dinner and still feel that fatigue after eating. That's because we overeat at big family meals, and when we overeat we overwork our stomach and it takes a lot of energy for our body to digest the food, making us tired.

So if you feel like you aren't getting enough sleep, try some of these sleepy foods. Remember to give yourself an hour or so after eating to get ready for bed. Sleep tight!