Afternoon Tea with Babycakes

This weekend (in Costco of all places) I encountered the new Babycakes cookbook, an all-vegan, gluten-free (though 25% of the recipes are only wheat-free, not truly gluten-free) cookbook from the folks that own the Babycakes bakery in NYC. You might have seen them on Oprah a while back.

Gluten free sweets?? Can you say Sadie-heaven??? First, a quick review of the cookbook after reading it cover to cover - Pictures spectacular, great writing for everyday bakers to understand, good explanation of ingredients used and why, disappointed at how many recipes contain spelt (not gluten-free), but overall appears to be a great cookbook for me to try.

In the picture above is my first attempt at any of the recipes in the book - cornbread. I tried to follow the recipe exactly as written, but realized that I didn't have corn flour. I had cornstarch, which in the UK is the same as 'cornflour', but here in the US is not the same as 'corn flour' as intended in the recipe...argh! Well, pretending to be a confused Brit, I made it anyway with cornstarch instead of corn flour, which I thought might create an inedible disaster. The cake tastes just fine to me (if a little on the sweet side). In general, I like my cornbread sweet, but after trying this recipe one more time with the right corn flour, I might opt to tinker around with the sweetness level. It turned out a bit more crumby that I expect cornbread to be, so I might increase the xanthan gum next time if after it cools I still have the same problem.

Cornbread is listed in the 'teacakes' section of the book (along with lemon poppyseed cake which is next on the list to try), so I decided to have an afternoon tea break to test it out with a cup of freshly brewed tea. Pictured with my cornbread slice is a cup of 'Golden Langur Blend' (click link for description on menu) tea from The Steeping Room steeping away in my cup with a copy of the Babycakes cookbook.

If you are reading this at work, stop and take a tea break of your own.