Recipe: Gluten Free & Dairy free Chocolate Cake

              Hey everyone! We are less than one week away from Christmas! I can't believe it. I am so excited to get home to see all of the family for the holiday! With all of the delicious holiday treats and sweets that will be happening, I wanted to share a great gluten-free dessert for anyone who is gluten-free. Gluten-free recipes like this one, let you feel like you aren't missing out this season with all of the good treats around. I found this recipe on Pinterest and really enjoyed this and wanted to share. Reed actually liked this a lot as well.

            I hope you all are having a great week and enjoy your holiday prepping before Christmas. We are heading out of town to Indiana for several days and then on to Memphis. It's the best time of year and I hope you are enjoying it as much as I am. Enjoy this recipe! More gluten free ideas to come over the next couple of weeks not only for the Holiday's but everyday cooking and baking. Enjoy and thank you as always for stopping by xoxo

Recipe: 

Ingredients: 

-3 c gluten free baking powder

-2 c sugar or coconut sugar

-1/2 c of cocoa powder 

-1 tbsp baking powder

-1 pinch of salt 

-1/2 c of coconut oil

-1/2 cup of maple syrup

-1 1/2 cup of coconut milk 

details:

-mix all ingredients together in a medium bowl

-use coconut oil to grease your baking pan or place parchment paper down in pan

-pour mixture into the pan 

-bake at 375 for 28-30 min

-check the center of the cake with a toothpick to make sure the batter doesn't come off on the toothpick

-let cool before slicing and serving 

-you can also make a frosting with this but I chose not to for this recipe

enjoy!

Hosting: Christmas Cookie & Cocoa Party

                 Hi Everyone! I am just now getting around to sharing our Christmas Cookie & Cocoa party from last weekend! We had such a good time with friends and good eats! I love this time of year and love gathering friends or family at our home for the Holidays. We had appetizers and dessert with hot cocoa and enjoyed time with our friends and Paw of course :)

Menu

Appetizers:

-buffalo chicken dip

-bacon tator tots

-okra

-sausage biscuits

Dessert:

-homemade hot cocoa 

-sugar cookies

-oreo balls

-gluten free chocolate chip cookies for myself

Here are a few images of the night! Enjoy and I hope this inspires you to create your own hot cocoa & cookie night! If anyone is interested in any of the recipes in this post, just let me know and I will post them, thank you and as always thank you for stopping by!

host: reed's birthday dinner

Hi everyone! I hope you are all having a great day and week. Over the weekend, I hosted Reed's Birthday dinner at our house with family and friends. We had a great time and I enjoyed having Reed's family over. I wanted to share a few pictures of my table setting. I love simple tables settings with neutral colors and fresh flowers of course :). 

Reed's mother Barbara made the brisket (Reed's favorite) and potatoes and I made a buffalo chicken dip for the appetizer along with his favorite salad, pineapple casserole, and vegetables. To top it off I made a yellow cake with chocolate icing (Birthday boy's request) for dessert haha! It was a fun night with family. Here are a few photos:

host: beautycounter party

hey everyone! i hope you are all having a great week so far! last week, i had the pleasure of spending some time with my family in indiana for a few days and while i was there; my mom hosted my first beautycounter party! we had a great group of ladies and joined together to learn bout safe products & of course good snacks (my mother is known for being a wonderful hostess) :) 

i wanted to share a few photos from our beautycounter party with you all. i am also planning on having a second party at home near Christmas for the gals that weren't able to make it. it was such a fun night educating others on safe products with beutycounter and teaching everyone ways to make safer choices..and my mom was able to earn discounts on products and free products for hosting!! it was a win-win for everyone and we had a great time :)

if you ever have questions on beautycounter, please don't hesitate to reach out to me. my website link is: http://www.beautycounter.com/tesladraffin

to see more products!

enjoy your week and stay tuned for more coming soon to dots & details. see you soon! xo

hosting: katie's baby shower

hey everyone! happy  monday! it's already a new week and june is flying by. i can't believe we are already to fathers day on sunday, wow! this past weekend i had the pleasure of hosting my cousin katie's baby shower. she is having a little girl named harper kathryn and we can't wait to meet her. we had a lot of family from out of town come in for the shower and it couldn't have gone any better. i think we all had a great time showering katie and baby harper.

here are the details from the baby shower above. as you can see the theme here (pink, polka dots, golds and girly details). i made most of the decorations and also gathered a few from different places as well. the cookies were adorable from tyler's cookies & catering back home in sullivan, in. he does a great job and they are always a big hit. the cake turned out perfectly as well and i picked this up from homestyle bakery in nashville. they do a great job!!

my co-host & assistant (my mother) who has more experience than anyone i know at hosting and throwing a great party, was such a huge help and i literally couldn't have done it or anything with out her :) thanks mom! i am so blessed to have such wonderful women in my life to look up to and share experiences with.

we also played a few games and enjoyed catching up with everyone. i think it's safe to say we had a great baby shower and weekend filled with family and fun. i hope you all had a great weekend as well. it sure was a hot one!! i hope you all have a wonderful week and enjoy this beautiful monday.

as always, thank you for stopping by :)