Yesterday my husband, son and I launched our new YouTube channel!! We started with a short welcome video and today was our first official video! Our channel is called “Brambleberry Cottage”. The name “Brambleberry Cottage” is a name we’ve called our home for many years now because of our raspberry and blackberry bushes we’ve planted and others that grow wild on our property. We’ve lived here for over 20 years and have changed our decor and renovated in our home many times. We’re renovating again and wanted to start a channel to give others ideas and tips on how we’ve lived on a very strict and tight budget for these 20 years.

My husband, Paul and I have always renovated found treasures, heirlooms and bought items and made them our own. We love to preserve certain pieces of furniture at times as well. We have gifted items and sold others, having a small business on the side with those renovated pieces through the years also. We have always wanted to save money, recycle to better our planet really believe that a lot of older pieces are just simply made better, but sometimes need a facelift or some TLC.

This has been a dream for a few years and it has been so nice to see it be realized!! This year, Paul and I have made our dreams of being authors a reality and now we are on YouTube! It’s been so rewarding to see our hard work turn our dreams into reality!

We really hope it’ll help others find ways to save money in these difficult economic times and also learning to love antiques or find items along the way. We hope you’ll join us and watch our channel and maybe even subscribe to the channel so you don’t miss an episode!! We would love to see you there!! We hope you enjoy watching and thank you for being a part of our journey!! From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for your support! It means so very much to us!!

The channel is ” Brambleberry Cottage” on YouTube. A new post will be posted every Monday at 6 a.m. Our welcome video was posted yesterday and first official video was posted today. Welcome!!

I’ll still be here on my blog! I’d love to see you here as well!! I am very grateful to my followers! You mean so much!!

Over the weekend, we were focusing on launching our channel on YouTube, and we visited with our daughter who came to visit. We had a lovely dinner and dessert with the most delicious vanilla almond cake!!

Gluten Free Vanilla Almond Cake

Ingredients:

2 cups gluten free all purpose flour (make sure xanthan gum is in flour)

6 Tbspns potato starch

1/2 tsp baking soda

2 tsps baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

4 egg whites, room temperature

1 whole egg, room temperature

2/3 cup almond milk, room temperature

2/3 cup dairy free, plain, unsweetened yogurt, room temperature

1 tsp lemon juice mixed in with almond milk (let curdle a bit)

2 tsps vanilla extract

1 tsp almond extract

10 Tbspns grass fed unsalted butter, softened at room temperature

1 1/2 cups organic granulated sugar

Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease two 8″ cake pans (Not dark or glass pans). Grease them well with coconut oil spray, cut 2 rounds of parchment paper to fit bottom of pans by tracing bottom of pan and fitting it inside pan. Spray a bit more of oil spray over parchment circle. Set aside.

2) Into a medium sized bowl, whisk the flour and potato starch. (You can sift if you’d like as well). Add the baking soda, baking powder and salt and whisk to combine well. Set aside.

3) In another medium sized bowl, place the egg whites, regular egg, almond milk and lemon juice mixture, yogurt,vanilla and almond extracts and whisk to combine. Set aside.

4) In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix the butter and sugar for three minutes, stopping at every minute to scrape the bottom and sides of bowl to make sure everything is blended well. Make sure it gets light and fluffy.

5)Mix in well in 4 equal portions, the dry ingredients and alternating with the wet ingredients, beginning and ending with the dry. Make sure to bend well with each addition.

6) After everything had been added, blend for an extra minute. Using a rubber spatula, stir by hand. There may be some lumps, that’s ok. Do not overmix.

7) Evenly divide the batter in two pans spreading out tops with rubber spatula and banging pans on counter a few times to work out any air bubbles.

8) Place the cake pans in the center of the preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes. After that, rotate pans and bake for 10 more minutes. Take cakes out of oven and place on cooling racks. They’re done when the sides lift away from the sides of pans, there’s no jiggling in center of cakes. You can check with toothpicks too if you wish to double check doneness, but don’t overbake. It should be done at this point.

9) Cool cakes in pans on cooling rack for 15 minutes. Turn cakes out of pand and back on cooling rack, removing the parchment paper on bottoms as well. Cool completely before frosting cakes.

Frosting and filling:

Your favorite jam or preserves ( I used blackberry preserves)

6 Tbspns grass fed unsalted butter, softened at room temperature

1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions for icing cake:

1) Place bottom cake layer on serving cake dish. Place jam to desired thickness on top and spread to edges and whole layer.

2) Place top cake layer on top of jammed bottom layer and now make frosting.

3) In medium bowl, mix together softened butter, confectioner’s sugar and vanilla extract together with a hand held mixer at medium speed for a minute, then switch to high speed for a couple more minutes until frosting is light and fluffy. Spread sides and top of cake with frosting. Serve when you want. Cake will keep for a few days in covered serving container. Enjoy!! 😊🎂

Looking for some other recipes? Check out my cookbook on Amazon!! “Plant Based Living for the Gluten Free Cook”