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Need best allergy free cake recipe for Birthday cake

852 views 13 replies 8 participants last post by  menomena 
#1 ·
I'm going to go ahead and try to have a little birthday cake for Alethea. I gave her a little bit of an allergen free muffin a week ago and she had no ill effects. I have someone who is going to bake and decorate it for me. We are going with Kathy's "buttercream" frosting recipe. But I want the best possible cake recipe I can get. It doesn't matter if I have to buy a prepackaged gf mix, or make one. But I get confused when I get a recipe that says, "gf mix" because we can't do corn starch or potato starch, so I need specifics.

Here is what it can't have:

wheat
dairy
soy
corn
potato
eggs
peanuts

TIA!
Tracy
 
#2 ·
Quote:
A basic cake recipe could be:
2 cup GF flours (half and half rice & buckwheat)
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup palm oil shortening
1/2 cup sugar/brown rice syrup/maple syrup
2 Tbsp flax meal (milled flax seeds) + 3 tbsp water, heated and stirred into a gel
3/4 to 1 cup rice milk or other milk sub (e.g. coconut milk) - room temperature
optional: 1 tsp vanilla or other extracts
if you can do chocolate, add 1/4 cup cocoa powder to the flour mixture

mix flours, soda & salt. in a separate bowl, mix shortening & sweetener. add flax gel and vanilla extract. Add flour mixture, stirring until all of the flour is wet. Add milk sub slowly until you reach a "batter" consistency. Bake in two greased round cake pans at 325*F for 15-30 minutes (cake layers will be done when they pull back from sides of pan and spring back to the touch in the middle. you can also do the inserting a toothpick/knife in the middle trick to see if it comes out clean.)

** if you can't do seeds, 1 or 2 bananas can be a nice egg replacer, too.

a quick and easy frosting:
1/2 cup palm oil shortening
1/4 cup milk substitute
1 to 2 tsp vanilla (or other) extract
1 to 2 cups powdered sugar (you can make your own if you are avoiding corn by blending one cup of white sugar with 1 tsp cream of tartar or tapioca starch)
1/4 cup cocoa powder if you want chocolate frosting.

cream shortening, milk sub & flavoring together. (if doing cocoa, add first before sugar) then gradually add powdered sugar until you get your desired frosting consistency. this recipe should be enough for a two layer cake top & sides plus the inside between the cake layers.
This sounds good!

~Tracy
 
#3 ·
I used to love the "wacky" chocolate cake recipe because it was naturally egg and dairy free, but I haven't been able to de-gluten-ize it yet. I've had three failed attempts. For DD's last birthday, I did the carrot cupcakes with the frosting that tasted like cream cheese. And everyone loved them. Nobody could believe that they were missing all the key ingredients!
 
#4 ·
I used the wacky cake recipe once too - it tasted good but was weird. It separated into two distinct layers. I thought maybe it was because I used coconut oil?

do you think the cake above would turn out good (enough)? I went ahead and ordered a costco cake for everyone else (easy and cheap). This will be just one for her.

I had wanted on principal to do only food/cake that she could have, but am not. She doesn't eat that much anyways. Next year.
 
#7 ·
Thanks for asking about her name, sorry we made you hungry!

a-LEE-thee-a (the thee is soft though, not like the th in "the" but like the th in "thick").



Tracy
 
#8 ·
The regular wacky cake has regular white flour. I tried a couple different flour blends and couldn't get it to work. Mine was moist on top, dense on the bottom. Though one time it was very wet on the bottom. Just didn't work. For me (and this was before I was gluten-free, so I was used to the regular stuff), the carrot cake cupcakes with the "cream cheese" frosting (that I made with coconut yogurt) tasted just like regular cake. One of the little boys that came (celiac) started to yell at his brother that he couldn't have it, and the other one said, "Mom says we can." And his eyes lit up. And then they each had seconds. Other people took a bite, and said "What is this? I thought you said G-- could have it." I said, "She CAN."

For the last birthday party, I did make your own tacos, so that all the food issues could be dealt with without making a big deal about it. DS could have corn tacos (as long as they were the natural ones with no soy), DD could have homemade wheat tortillas (at the time, now I'd have to make buckwheat ones). I did one crockpot of chicken and one of beef. And all the toppings. In the 30 people that came, there were my 2, plus 2 celiacs, plus 1 lactose intolerant, and 1 vegetarian. So everybody was satisfied. That one worked out well.
 
#9 ·
Good luck on your cake. I tried 3 different recipes and nothing turned out. They were all barfy and I was not about to give DS any of it.

I finally just made a baked apple and left it at that for his birthday. He loved it and ate the whole apple.

Everybody else had cake.
 
#10 ·
My sister and I are "a lot" free right now so for her birthday I made cupcakes that we could both enjoy. I combined a gluten-free strawberry cake recipe from the glutenfreemommy blog and regular hummingbird cake. Here's what I came up with (and it was very yummy!):

1/2c. almond meal
1 c. brown (or white) rice flour
1/2 c. tapioca starch
1/4. c. potato starch (could sub tapioca)
1/4 c. sweet rice flour
1 1/2 - 2 c. sugar (I use sucanat)
1 1/2 tsp. xanthan gum (or guar gum?)
2 1/2 t. baking powder
3 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1 c. coconut oil melted (or your preferred oil)
2 c. chopped/mashed bananas
6 pineapple rings
about 2 c. strawberries, fresh or frozen
1 tsp. gluten-free vanilla, optional (I think I forgot this
)

Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Puree pineapple rings and strawberries with a little pineapple juice. Mix oil, bananas, 2 c. of the puree, gluten-free vanilla in a separate bowl. Make a well in dry ingredients and mix together. I just learned that rice flour becomes less grainy if it's allowed to soak in liquid for a while so either let it sit for about 5-10 minutes or maybe hold out the rice flours and add to the liquid before adding to the rest of the dry ingredients. Here's the tricky part. Because the fruit adds a variable amount of liquid, I just add extra liquid (pineapple juice) to the batter until it's the right consistency, just like you'd want for muffins. I haven't tried an actual cake but I don't see why it wouldn't work. I made approx. 24 cupcakes, baked at 350 deg for about 25 min. (until toothpick came out clean). For cake, bake 30-40 min.

I made a strawberry/pineapple "buttercream" frosting using coconut oil in a semi-solid state, powdered sugar and the left over puree. The frosting "broke," just like a regular buttercream when you add too much liquid too quickly, but it was still delish! The pineapple's acidity makes the strawberry flavor stand out and gives it some depth. My sister loved it and she's just gone "free" in the past few months she remembers the real stuff. I would think that Kathy's "cream cheese" icing would be amazing as well.

If I were better about blogging I'd add my gf/other f's recipes but I struggle, to say the least


Good luck and let us know what you try and how it turns out.
 
#11 ·
We made the wacky cake using white rice flour, I did half with the cocoa powder and half replacing 1/4 cup of water with one mashed banana. It tasted good but the chocolate ones stuck to the cupcake papers a bit. We didn't have any layer separation issues or anything though! I definitely preferred the banana version (especially with "Enjoy Life" chocolate chips), though!
 
#13 ·
So has anyone made a cake like the one from Menomena in the sticky? So far that looks to be the simplest, and it doesn't have tapioca or coconut in it, which I'm trying to avoid right now.

I'd love to hear from someone who has made this one to know if it comes out okay.

I am so lucky. The woman who runs the small cafeteria where I work is going to make and decorate the cake for me so it will look professional. I am just going to bring in the ingredients. The baby has had Koala Crisp cereal
which has cocoa and has done fine with that. So I'm going to have them make some of the frosting with the cocoa so it can be a white cake with chocolate decorations. I'm so excited!

:

~Tracy
 
#14 ·
I responded to Tracy's PM directly, but I wanted to post here too. I just saw this actually. I have made the cake I posted - it's my default cake recipe. I mentioned to her that if you can toss in a mushed up banana that helps with the consistency - more fluffy. But the same can be said for most squishy veggies/fruits pureed - particularly carrots, pumpkin, apples, pears, etc. I've experimented with baking with avocados. If you add an avocado (or half) then omit most if not all of the oil. I didn't the first time and it was RICH. But creamy.


Here is my "buttercream" frosting recipe. (Which is neither butter nor cream. Discuss.)

Here is my one-bowl brownie recipe that could be used as a cake sub, especially with the frosting on top...

HTH everyone.
 
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