Camping and a birthday

We went camping to celebrate my oldest daughters birthday, it was so much fun! Here are a couple of pictures of our trip. Can you guess what lake this is?

Here is her birthday cake. I made it for her with regular sugar but I have made it before with these sweetening substitutes with delicious results.

Flourless chocolate cake

10 oz unsweetened chocolate chopped
1 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup erythritol
2 tablespoons xylitol
couple squirts of liquid stevia
1 teaspoon molasses
1 tablespoon vanilla
5 cold eggs

Melt butter, chocolate and water in microwave at 30 second intervals until almost melted let sit to cool stirring a few times. Beat remaining ingredients till tripled in volume about 6 or 7 minutes. Fold half of the egg mixture in the chocolate mixture to lighten it then fold the rest in carefully as to not deflate the batter. Pour into a greased 10 inch spring form pan bake at 325 in a water bath for 20 minutes, it should be jiggly in the middle. Refrigerate overnight. I served it plain camping but it would be so good with a berry sauce, chocolate icing, or whipped cream. Take care to wipe the knife after every cut a plastic knife works great for cutting too.


I took this cold salad to replace potato salad it's my mothers potato salad recipe but I replaced the potatoes with cauliflower. She used to add cubes of american cheese too but I prefer it without the cheese. It would look good with a couple of sprinkles of paprika on top.

Not potato salad

1 head of cauliflower cut up, lightly salted and steamed
1/2 to a cup of homemade mayo
1/2 small onion diced
1 or 2 ribs celery chopped
6 hard boiled eggs mashed
relish to taste dill or sweet (I use Mt Olive no sugar added sweet relish)
squirt of mustard
salt and pepper to taste

Simply mix together ingredients and chill.

We cooked mostly over the campfire here is our morning bacon cooking along with the coffee percolator.

Then some hot dogs fried in the bacon grease, yummy, yum, yum!


I made a pancake with a minute muffin recipe it was very good with bacon and sf syrup.

Minute muffin campfire pancake

1/4 cup ground flax seeds
1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
1 tablespoon sf syrup
1 Egg
1 tablespoon butter
1-2 tablespoons cream

mix well, cook in a skillet over an open fire.

Happy trails to you!!!