Yesterday we attended our son's first soccer game of the season. It was freezing cold and spitting rain, par for the course this unusually blustery March. After the game the coach passed doughnuts out to the kids. My husband and I have been following the ketogenic diet since September and that made even cold grocery store doughnuts look good! I decided to experiment with some ketogenic mug cake recipes to see if I could re-create the flavor of my favorite Boston Creme doughnut. We rewarded ourselves for sitting in the cold sitting by the fire sampling my test cakes.

To begin, I made filling. This was cream cheese, softened and whipped, then mixed with whipping cream until it had the texture shown in the first photo. Then I whipped it until the texture of the second photo, like a thick whipped cream. I added vanilla monkfruit sweetener to taste. If you don't have vanilla monkfruit, use regular sweetener and vanilla extract instead. The resulting filling tastes like cream cheese frosting rather than Boston Creme. It's good, but next time I think I will use butter in place of the cream cheese to see if the flavor is more what I am after. I'm not great at measuring, I know, but I would say for two cakes, use 4 ounces of cream cheese, about 2 tablespoons of whipping cream, and 8 drops of vanilla monkfruit. My husband likes sweeter desserts than I, and he thought the filling wasn't sweet enough, so if you also have a sweet tooth you will probably always have to adjust my recipes to make them sweeter.

I made the chocolate glaze next. This was wonderful, in my opinion, but it definitely tastes more like dark chocolate than the typical doughnut glaze. For more of a milk chocolate flavor you could add some cream to the recipe. For two cakes, melt 1 ounce unsweetened chocolate with 2 tablespoons unsalted butter and whisk together until smooth. Remove from the heat and stir in 10-20 drops of chocolate monkfruit sweetener. If you are using granular sweetener, add it at the beginning and melt it with the butter to make it smooth.

 The cakes are made with two different mug cake recipes. The cake in the first photo was made as follows:
Grease the mug with butter. Add one egg, 1/4 cup heavy cream, and 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract and mix well. Add one scoop vanilla protein powder ( I used whey protein), 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, 1 tablespoon coconut flour, 1 tablespoon granulated sweetener ( I used monkfruit). Microwave 60-90 seconds or bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes until the center is just done. Turn on to a plate, slice in half, and fill with the filling. Pour the glaze over the top. 

I didn't love the flavor of this cake because the protein powder I used had an aftertaste I didn't like and was too sweet for me. This cake texture was very dry and sturdy. So if you want a traditional layer cake texture, this recipe will work. I think without the filling and glaze it would have been too dry, but with them it makes a pretty much perfect traditional layer cake. Even with the protein powder not being my favorite, I can see if I wanted a birthday cake type of treat this would have hit the spot!

For the cake in the second photo melt 1.5 tablespoons unsalted butter in your mug and swirl it around to coat the sides and prevent sticking. Add 1 egg, 1.5 tablespoons sour cream, 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract and mix until smooth. Mix in 3 tablespoons almond flour, 2 tablespoons sweetener (I used granular monkfuit), 1/8 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon baking powder. Microwave 90 seconds to 2 minutes or until the center is done and you see no liquid on the sides of the cake. Turn out onto a plate. For a stiffer texture cool, then cut, fill, and glaze. For a gooey texture, immediately cut in half, fill, and glaze. I didn't want to wait so we did the gooey version. As you can see it doesn't hold its shape like a layer cake, It was more like a souffle or cream cake. I preferred this version. It was more like the doughnut I was craving and it didn't have the artificial flavor of the first cake.

I have to say, I really enjoyed spending the afternoon sitting by the fire, eating cake. I'll have to try it more often! This has been a depressing month. We got a continuous monitor for our diabetic son, to alert him if his sugar drops in the night, so he won't fall into a coma. Now it turns out the sensors are five times the cost they originally quoted, and we can't afford them. So he is back to testing with finger sticks to monitor. We looked at other monitors but we can't afford any of them. It makes me feel like a total failure as a parent. Then we took our youngest son to cleft clinic and found out he has hearing loss in one ear. I suspected he couldn't hear and I was correct. He needs a new ear tube, which the ENT wants to install immediately. He is supposed to have a bone graft surgery in the summer and the surgeons want to wait and do the ear tube then. I would certainly prefer to pay for only one surgery rather than two, but I also don't want him to lose his hearing! It's a difficult dilemma to decide these things when the doctors all disagree with one another. Then to top it all off, our new computer, which is only two years old, stopped working. I am typing this on the old computer, which is limping along and takes about 5 times as long to do anything than the new one. I hope the repair bill for the computer isn't too steep! I will go nuts if I have to keep working on this one. Thank goodness I kept it though!

Thankfully, some things are going well. I've finally been added to the Guaranteed Delivery program on eBay. I applied last year! Now eBay will guarantee delivery time for my merchandise, so you can feel confident ordering things for a certain event. My daughter, even though she's only 13, is making origami for me to sell so she can save up for college. I have been turning her miniature water lilies into earrings using 22kt gold-plated fittings, Swarovski crystals, and glass beads. You can custom-order these from my Etsy shop or purchase them ready-made from my Poshmark boutique. You can link to all my stores from the Home page. I hope you will consider purchasing her beautiful work! She's the fastest girl in the 7th grade and competes on the track team and she's so good at math the teacher has her tutoring other kids and grading papers, so it looks like she might be our best hope for a college scholarship. In that case she could use her college savings toward a house or, dare we hope, setting up a medical practice! We could sure use the financial savings!

Today Only! Snag fantastic deals (some items below $5) during Closet Clear Out on Poshmark. New to Poshmark? Sign up with code STUDIOMANDALINE for a $5 credit! Link to my boutique from the Home page.

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Today's your lucky day because I am having a huge 1-Day sale in my Poshmark boutique. Buy any two pieces and get one FREE! To get this deal, go to Poshmark, create a bundle of three items, and I will send you an offer with the cheapest item free! I've never done this before, and the luck won't last: it runs out at 9PM EST TONIGHT! I am running a 1-day sale on eBay and Etsy as well, so make sure to check those shops today. You can link to all my shops from the Home page and save a ton of green (or gold)!

This week I've been paying lots of attention to my fellow resellers on Instagram and in my Facebook group as well as starting the second week of eBay's Seller Boot Camp, trying to bring my business to the next level. It's a little outside my comfort zone; in the past I've always just sold my kids' outgrown stuff or the same sort of things for family and friends, as well as any dolls I happened to finish. To be a "real" business though, you have to source inventory. It's scary to me to spend money  but you have to spend money to make money and so far I'm doing pretty well, if I do say so. Last week my son was home on Spring Break and we went sourcing and picked up some shoes and some stuff from IKEA. Over the weekend all the IKEA stuff sold out as did 1/3 of the shoes! So this week I went back to IKEA and restocked popular items as well as added new things.  I realized I have a whole bedroom in stock, so I got to do some interior design and put together a style board to show the room you could decorate from my eBay store. I have a bunch of nightlights for kids' rooms too. I added molds, including the discontinued and highly desirable diamond ring ice cube tray, to Etsy and eBay.

I placed a big wholesale fashion order and some already arrived and is listed on Poshmark. I have a great selection of dresses for women and girls, just in time for Easter! I also have a few pairs of leggings left and some tops, as well as the vintage fashion and kids' stuff I normally stock. Please view the slideshow to see all the new styles for your home and closet, available in my shops. You can link to all my shops from the Home page.

I found a buyer's agent in China to help me negotiate with manufacturers for doll eyes and that's going well. I hope to order a new set of samples soon, since the last ones were unfortunately not a good fit. If I can find a good manufacturer I have a whole bunch of designs in mind, so keep your eyes on me!

They're here! Atelier Mandaline shops on eBay and Etsy are now offering flat-back (half-round) fixed or stationary, doll eyes for dolls such as reborn, BJD, and even American Girl Wellie Wishers! These high-quality, unbreakable eyes are available in three true-to-life colors. More colors and custom painted eyes are on the way. At present I am only offering these on eBay and Etsy because I want to make sure I can keep up with demand before listing them on this website or in my Facebook shop. Thus far I have not been able to keep enough supply on hand for more than two of my shops! As with all American Girl dolls, the Wellie Wishers have specially-made eyes that aren't available outside the AG hospitals and factories so they fit a little differently than the replacements. You can see the comparison below: the hazel eyes are the originals and the blue ones are the replacements. I will try to find everyone who has contacted me wanting these eyes and reply to your messages; in the meantime, please head to the shops from my Home page to purchase these eyes!

I'm thrilled to announce Studio Mandaline is now a Posh Ambassador on Poshmark! It takes a great deal of work to achieve this rank and I am proud of myself.  I do have more visibility for my boutique now and things are selling out fast. I've stocked lots of new styles for spring and summer and I hope you'll pick them up before they're gone! As always, sign up for Poshmark with code STUDIOMANDALINE for a $5 credit. If you're already a member save 15% when you bundle two or more items.

Atelier Mandaline on eBay has March promos set up. The more you buy the more you'll save, through 3/31. These discounts are automatic and require no coupon code!

On Etsy, use code BLOGGER for any 10% off any order from Atelier Mandaline.

You can link to all my shops from the Home page to get these deals!