Baking Sundays: Classic Vanilla Cupcakes (GF)

Gluten-free and perfectly pretty

Sitting opposite my dietitian during our first consultation she uttered the words no cake lover wants to hear -'Your health would benefit from a gluten free diet'. Great. As if it couldn't get any worse, M.E had now stolen away my favourite guilty pleasure. In that moment I was sure my life long relationship/ obsession with cake was over.

Boy was I wrong. Now I'm gonna be honest with you, I wasn't strong enough to be completely gluten free (I wasn't ready to give French baguettes and Dominos pizzas, basically); but I do try my best to eat gluten free about 80-90% of the time. But one thing I have been determined to do is find a gluten free cupcake recipe that works for me, so that I can enjoy my guilty pleasure slightly less guiltily.

I've tried many recipes from around the internet but have settled on a slight adaptation of my tried and tested vanilla cupcake recipe.  If  you're somewhat of an experienced eater in the gluten free field, you'll be aware there nothing ever really really tastes like the real thing. However these little lovelies are about as close as it gets- my ultra picky family demolished them without even questioning whether they were 'normal' or not... which is a good sign, trust me.

A bit about M.E.

 I've already told you a little bit about me, but now I think it'd be useful if I introduce you a little more to the illness that's prompted the writing of this blog- M.E.

M.E, or to use its rather long and hard to pronounce full name, Myalgic encephalomyelitis, is to be honest, a bit of a minefield. The vast multitude of symptoms and lack of a definite cause make it both hard to diagnose and hard to understand.

 Back in my pre-diagnosis days, I scoured the internet in a desperate attempt to self diagnose the illness that I believed was staring my doctors right in the face. The problem was, with so many varying symptoms, there was so much to rule out- anaemia, Lyme disease and thyroid problems to name but a few. 

I knew that for number of years I'd been a lot more tired than could be considered normal, but what I didn't know was that so many of other, seemingly irrelevant problems I had day-to-day all had the one underlying cause, M.E.

Therefore, believe me, I know how confusing it can be. Before I could even begin to get those around  me to understand this 'new' mystery illness I was suffering from, I had to fully comprehend it myself. So now, with a fair few years of M.E know-how behind me and a number of the symptoms experienced at one time or another, it's my turn to help you. Whether you're looking for a bit of information or simply just reassurance that you aren't alone, hopefully I can be of some use :) So here it is, my short but unfortunately not so sweet guide to the gloriously unique illness that is M.E!

Introducing Me...

So hello! Welcome to my first ever post of my first ever blog Slowly Mending Me. Whether you're a full-time sufferer, an optimistic recoverer or purely an external observer to our little M.E world, I extend to you the warmest welcome. 

From L-R: My boyfriend and I at is his graduation, my lovely doggies, cake- because I love to bake, my family on holiday last year.

  

I myself fall somewhere between full-time sufferer and optimistic recoverer. Having recently made it to the end of my three year university course I can now proudly say that I am officially an unemployed graduate. Woo! Rather than fill me with despair and worry, this is in fact the biggest relief. Having struggled through university carrying the heavy load that is M.E along for the duration, having an empty future laid out ahead of me gives me the much needed break my body desperately craved. So now, here I am- rested, relaxed and ready to embark on the long journey to recovery.

I've packed my bags, meticulously pealed blue tac off the walls and headed back down from the Midlands to Essex for the very last time. For the first time in three years I'm now properly living back home. With all the home cooked meals and mummy-care that that entails, I'm finally in an environment in which I can just be ill and hopefully, as time goes on, get better and better.

I've had M.E for such a long time now that I don't even know what it's like to not be ill. Little was I to know that sharing a drink with my glandular fever riddled friend at the age of 14 would change my life in such an indescribable way. Over the years I missed a significant amount of school, have had to sit home while my friends go out, and, most heart-breakingly, I had to give up dancing- M.E robbing me of my dream of dancing professionally. 

However, I am determined not to let M.E get the better of me. In fact, as this quote I happened to stumble across while browsing through pinterest suggests, I intend to look at the stars. And by stars, I mean the positives to come out of this experience, the little steps I shall be blogging about on my road to recovery. If it wasn't for M.E I'd have never started yoga (and I LOVE yoga), I'd never ventured into gluten free baking, eaten vegetables or considered reteaching myself the German I've forgotten since I left school- though I probably would binge-watch a lot less American tv from the comfort of my bed. 

Every cloud's got it's silver lining, and after years of struggling and feeling defeated by this illness, there's now a far more positive relationship between me and M.E.

So, that's me. Me and my M.E.

Welcome to my blog :)

Alice x