Halestorm is ready for English and more Keto baking.

    So I am really excited! My new(est) saddle pads from StudioMaire arrived today! She is amazing! I only ordered within the last week or so and they are already here. She custom made the pony saddle pad to a felt pad shape I sent her. And it is a wonderful fit. So now Halestorm is all ready for English on Sunday. I had asked Maire to make me a new pad for my regular traditional size saddles as well and I had to try it on Enchanted Eve.

    Another perfect fit! But then I was looking at these two together and I decided I HAD to get them in a class together. Just for the fun size difference! So, because I don't have enough to do, I am reworking my showing plan so I can get these two in a class together. And yes, I am going to bring Enchanted Eve to a show for the sole purpose of being a prop in one class. Because why not?

    Speaking of Maire, she is going to be at SNEWRU on Sunday! She will have plenty of saddle pads for sale and if you need to find her, she's going to be at my table. Hopefully I can show some restraint and not buy all the things (she has SO Much, I think I'll be OK...)

     I mentioned yesterday that I have been working on chaps and chinks in basically any free moment I can find. Today I managed to get one more pair of chaps cut out and put together. They all still need to have several things done to them before they are finished, but at least I am making some progress. I didn't manage to cut out any doll clothes, though that had been my plan today. But I got into some more low-carb baking. 

   In one of my Pinterest spirals I found a recipe for keto hot dog buns, which I figured would be absolutely perfect for meatball grinders and chicken parm grinders. They looked fantastic in all the pictures on Pinterest and the website with the recipe. They also looked like they would have a good texture for a sub. So I gave them a try.

    Hmm, even though I baked them for 8 minutes longer than they said they needed to bake they never browned on the top like the ones in the official photos. I can only guess that those may have had an egg wash and some glamour shots taken after. I think if I ever make these again I will make my molds much skinnier. I ended up with very flat rolls. I know it's hard to tell the texture of something from a photo but I feel these are not as soft and fluffy as they looked in the pics. they are a bit dense and not pillowy in any way.  They are also somewhat salty so for anyone who is not into that I would skip these. Or skip adding the salt in the recipe. They are not horrible but I am not super in love with them. I have some extremely flat rolls. Maybe I will make some sandwiches for the weekend. Though I really love the coconut wraps and I might just use those instead.

    So keeping with the theme of coconut (the hot dog rolls were also made with coconut flour) I made some coconut breakfast cake. The recipe comes out of the book 30 Day Keto Fix Blueprint. It is one of the free keto cookbooks I got. Every time I see one of those ads on Facebook I can't help it and I follow the link. None of them are actually free, since I have to pay shipping, but I have gotten 3 cookbooks from those ads. I made some shortbread cookies around Christmas from the Keto Sweet Treats cookbook. And they were amazing! I also made some pumpkin cheesecake bars that I brought over to the family Christmas party at my parent's house. Also a really excellent low carb dessert.

     So the coconut breakfast cake is sort of the texture of pumpkin bread. It immediately put me in mind of pumpkin bread anyway. I am wondering if I can do things to the recipe and make it a pumpkin bread. I do have a recipe of my own that I need to try out. I made one way back at the beginning of winter and it was decent, but it needed more work. I have not tried the reworked recipe just yet. After the weight loss competition is over I will try that out again. Anyway, this coconut breakfast cake is pretty good. It's not amazing or anything, but I think Travis will enjoy it with butter, next to his eggs. He scarfed a piece down fast enough when I gave him a bit to try.
    That's all I have for now. Halestorm's western tack was supposed to get here today but USPS decided not to deliver it. Hopefully it comes tomorrow. I would love to see if the doll fits on it. I know the saddle should fit my pony because it is stone pony sized. But the doll I am not sure about. OK, back to work on those chaps!