Creativity with cooking

I am not one to be creative with baking. I'm too scared that I will screw up whatever I am making to be bold and experiment. I usually stick to a recipe. I'm more comfortable and confident if the ingredients are written down one by one.

To escape the pain today, I cleaned up the kitchen and baked. I made a boxed angel food cake for everyone except me and Olivia. For us, I made Gluten-Free Angel Food Cake Cupcakes. I made these one other time and they turned out great! Today I added a little Almond Extract to the batter. I love Almond Extract. I discovered it a few years ago when I made Strawberry Amaretto Pastries. Totally NOT yeast-free, but worth every last bit of sugar and gluten. I can't even begin to explain how great those are! The taste, the texture...everything about those pastries is delightful! Now, I use Almond Extract in whatever I can get away with-I've even put it into icing for sugar cookies and it was excellent.

Because my doctor took strawberries off of the list of things I can't eat, I bought some. I love strawberries and have missed them. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them but as I washed and de-stemmed them I decided I would make a strawberry topping for the angel food cake. Because I am being good today and the boxed mix has soy in it, I knew I would need to make an alternative for me and the littlest one, hence the Angel Food Cake Cupcakes. So anyway, I sliced the strawberries and put them into a bowl. Then I added 2 Tbsp agave nectar, 1/2 cup chopped almonds, and 1 tsp. almond extract. Last minute I decided to throw in some unsweetened coconut. The result? DELICIOUS! I can't wait to try them on the cupcakes after church tonight! I'll let you know how the two taste combined. Maybe I'll even remember to take a picture or two!