Chocolate Birthday Cake :: Gluten Free, Egg Free, Nut Free

Three years ago last week, I gave birth to the brightest light of joy you will ever meet. Her name is Claire Joy to be exact, and she has lit up every room she has come into from that day forward. She came out sunny side up in 2 pushes flat, and she hasn’t stopped moving since. Her name means “clear, bright joy” and she exudes happiness with her whole being!

This wee one asked for a chocolate cake for her birthday!

We are a gluten free house, and I have a nephew that is very allergic to eggs. It is so important to me that everyone be able to enjoy the party – and have happy tummies and behaviors afterward. It can take days, weeks, and, for some kids, literally months to recover from food sensitivity exposure. Sure the outward signs may clear up in day or so – but the internal gut inflammation takes time. It isn’t worth it for one party.

Getting a gluten free cake that is also egg free to RISE is quite a feat though! I am *not* much of a baker of desserts. We just don’t have them often enough for me to be good at it!

So off to Google I went and happened to find THIS recipe. I made a few ingredient swaps to avoid vegetable oils and processed milk. I also made my own flour blend, and I like using raw cacao powder vs cocoa. And I do like just making a classic buttercream frosting so I made my own frosting. I have to admit cake baking makes me so nervous! The cake turned out way better than I had expected – and absolutely zero sinking in the middle!

YES those babes can have fun AND eat real food at the same time! Let me know if you give the cake a try!

PS! I do realize there is real sugar in the recipe. We have birthday cake at birthdays. It is not an everyday food – or an every month food for that matter. I don’t worry about sugar from a non GMO source for special occasions 🙂

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Tips:

• I realize xanthan gum is sort of the “undecided” good guy or bad guy in the real food world. It is virtually impossible to get gluten free cakes like this to rise without it however, and like I said about the sugar – it is a very very occasional treat we have at birthdays. I don’t worry about the few times per year that we have it.
• I baked the cakes the morning before the party and frosted it the night before. You could absolutely make the cakes off even a couple days before. The frosting goes so fast you could even just frost it right before the party. It keeps well enough though too so you can do it a day or so in advance.
• I absolutely think you can make this whole cake dairy free. The cake part is easily dairy free by just using coconut milk vs the whole milk. The frosting is the tough part since it is mostly butter. I did a quick search though and found THIS and think would work great!
• I sprinkled THESE chocolate chips on the top.
• I baked and frosted with organic pure cane sugar and pure cane powdered sugar that I found at Costco.
• Here is the white rice flour, tapioca flour, and brown rice flour.
• I get raw cacao powder in the fridge section at our local health food store, but you can get it HERE too. If you prefer to use carob you can do an equal swap! Look in the refridgerated section at your health food store for carob.
• I just got THIS cake stand this year! I LOVE It! We do our own birthday baking so it is nice to have something pretty to display the cake on!