Throwback Thursday

Today's "Throwback" is reminiscing on my first good meal after going Gluten Free. I'd been on the diet for just over 2 months and during that time, I'd been planning my 21st. I had decided to do something with my friends and something with my family/family friends. I had done the whole party piss up and get blindly drunk for my 18th, so this time around, I wanted to remember it all.

I ended up settling taking 20ish friends out to do Laser Skirmish. At that stage, I was heavily in love with How I Met Your Mother (still am, but more so then...), so that swayed my decision slightly haha

                                                                All of us afterwards.

It was a truly wonderful night and I'm so so happy I went down that route :) Anyone looking for a different sort of celebration for any birthday - consider it, you won't regret it!

The following day, I had my celebration with family and family friends. I hummed and ahhhhed about this for a while and what to do...in the end, I decided to go out somewhere for a high tea. I decided to go to the Stamford Plaza in the Adelaide CBD. It was more worthwhile (money-wise) some of the other hotels I looked at and was more central than Glenelg. I ended up choosing the Indulgent High Tea. It was fantastic!! We got a glass of champagne upon arrival and had too much food to know what to do with haha. The were incredibly helpful with everything gluten free...they were able to do food for me and my coeliac mum and allowed us to bring our own cake (more on that later though).

This was what I got - Vanilla Panacotta, some finger sandwiches (bread wasn't amazing, but I give them points for trying), lemon curd muffin, vanilla ice cream and chocolate wafer stick. Overall it was amazing and the staff we incredibly helpful. Mind you, when everyone else is getting this....

There is a certain amount of jealousy you feel :( But, everyone enjoyed it and had fun, so that's what really mattered!

The cake, however, was the biggest highlight (apart from having everyone I love in the same place) for me. We went with a local South Australian company, Heidelberg Cakes. We'd heard good things about them, plus the owner's daughter is Gluten Free, so they were very careful with making Gluten Free cakes, so much so that they have an entirely different bakery for them. They're also very welcome to changes. So I wanted this cake, but I wanted it round, so they did that. They have numerous gf cake flavours and I went with the Baci flavour. This is what the end result looked like....

I'm so so happy with it!!! And with the whole weekend actually - was the most incredible celebration and I'll always remember it :)

My absolutely wonderful family - they made it that much more special <3