Green Baking Failures

Ok, So why is it that though I follow the recipes to the letter, the baked good NEVER turns out how I want them to?! This never happened when I baked with regular flour but now that I have to use flax meal and coconut flour, things turn out drastically different.  Exhibit A: Zucchini Cake.  The recipe in the Max Living book says to use Almond flour but I did not have any and used Coconut Flour instead.  I worked the wet and dry ingredients separately but when I put them together a catastrophe insued that resulted in the batter looking more like play-do than cake batter.  I added almost a full glass of almond milk and water and was still unable to get the batter thinned out.  I went ahead and baked them but the cakes came out more like a shortbread than a cake. SOOOO frustrating! 

I'm thinking about venturing to other recipes to find success. My sister found some amazing dessert recipes through www.healthyindulgences.net.  I came home from work Sunday night to get to try an AMAZING Black Bean Chocolate Cake made by my sister.....who's first time it was to use odd ingredients to bake and yet her stuff turned out amazing in comparison to the baked goods I've attempted so far.  Why is is that recipes NEVER put the right amount of liquid needed to make a batter?  I've seen recipes that only require 3 TBSP of water for an entire batch of brownies....It is IMPOSSIBLE to make brownie batter out of 3 TBSP of water and mix. Try it, I dare you! If any of you have any tips for avoiding organic baking blunders, please let me know!

Apart from my own dismay at failed Zucchini Cake, the night was wonderful.  My mom and I went down to Forest Park, Art Hill to be exact, to hear a free concert put on by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.  They are preparing to kick off their season and compiled all of the best works from all of the shows they'll be presenting over the coming months.  It was an amazing concert on an amazingly beautiful night.  The weather was perfect and the sky was absolutely beautiful.  Check it out for yourself!

Gorgeous, right?!  We are so blessed to live in such a great city with all sorts of free events going on at a moment's notice. I don't think we often stop and think about how many wonderful, cultural outlets we have here that we can access for free or for reasonable price.  If you haven't taken advantage of all St. Louis has to offer lately, you should!

So, here we are friends, on the precipice of another weekend.  While most of you are counting down the hours to freedom, I'm counting down the hours to helping aid in freedom....I have to work. :)

I hope you all have a wonderful and restful weekend filled with lots of laughter, fun, and much peace.

Stay Healthy and Green!  - Ash