What did you do? Or are planning on doing?

My best friend did a carob cake for her little man. It was tasty; she and I sure enjoyed it.

My suggestion is to stay away from sugar-free jello (or anything else with artificial sweeteners) at ALL COSTS. Artificial sweeteners are bad news. Seriously.

Here's the recipe: (I left out the nuts)

Carob Brownies
Ingredients:
1/3 cup butter
5 teaspoons carob powder
1 cup honey
2 eggs
3 teaspoons vanilla
3/4 cup oat flour
1-1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup walnuts - broken

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 8 inch square baking pan. Set aside. In a small saucepan over low heat, melt butter and carob powder, stirring until thoroughly mixed; remove from heat and cool slightly. In a small bowl, beat together honey and eggs; slowly add carob mixture, beating until blended. Stir in vanilla, to taste.

In a medium bowl, sift oat flour, baking powder and salt; add walnuts ( or other nuts). using a spatula, stir in carob mixture and mix. Pour mixture into prepared pan and bake for 25 minutes. When done, the center will still be somewhat soft, but the edges will be cake-like. Cool 10-15 minutes before cutting into squares. If squares are too soft to cut, refrigerate pan 15 minutes or longer, until firm enough to cut.

NOTES:
Carob powder can be found at health food and specialty stores.
To make your own oat flour, pulse one cup uncooked oatmeal in a blender container or bowl of a food processor until finely ground; about 30 seconds.

You could do watermelon cake (cut a huge, long slab of watermelon--decorate with fruit).

You could do muffins--or do a muffin recipe in the shape of a cake.

You could do a rice or soy ice cream cake.

I love the idea of breastmilk ice cream--but not to serve to everyone at a party--so that would be a baby only thing...but if you do the rice or soy milk ice cream cake...that is something EVERYONE could enjoy.

Fruit tart.

Pie.

These are all things I'm considering (my son is 1 in June)...

i made mine sugar free jello eggs and boy did they get everywere!! i don't even know if you can buy the mold anymore, its been around for so long, but he loved it! more squishing went on than anything...lol

Great minds must think alike for I was just about to post this topic! I've been wondering about what to do for my DD's first birthday. Unfortunately, the people I work with and know in real life are more mainstream than I am. They want me to throw a big extravaganza complete with party favors and great goodie bags for everyone. 1st birthdays are a huge deal where I live. It's not uncommon to invite some 200+ people to the party. I really don't think I'm going to do any such thing so my friends and acquaintences are very mistaken. I'm trying to get away from the rampant consumerism in our culture. Plus, DD isn't even going to remember her 1st birthday day so why would I spend a fortune for something only adults will enjoy? I would probably not spend a fortune later on a birthday either. A simple celebration can be just as much fun, IMO. I'm going to look for that carrot cake recipe.

We just had dd's first birthday "unbirthday" party and it went really really well! Since our guests had a huge variety of food allergies and food restrictions we had to get pretty creative when it came to the food.

There were 15 guests...and between them we couldn't use eggs, dairy, wheat, soy, nuts (all nuts), honey, alcohol (so no flavoring extracts), yeast, strawberries, animal products like gelatin, blueberries, caramel, chocolate, and sugar.

Our solution? Cookies! Lots and lots of cookies! That way people could choose the cookie that met "their" dietary needs. So some cookies had whole wheat flour and eggs and chocolate chips, others had rice flour and carob, some had nuts, some had soy, etc. My dh made a few simple icings (some vegan, some low sugar, some with carob) and the kids were able to ice their own cookies and make a fun mess. We also made a chocolate fondue and a "vanilla" fondue and set out a variety of colorful fruits for dipping. Some people dipped their cookies as well.

DD had a large whole wheat chocolate chip cookie sweetened with rice syrup and topped with a dollop of icing to hold the candle (she ate a token nibble and tossed it aside for chunks of melon). We figured that a party is a party and it's okay to be a little "unhealthy"...everything in moderation, and all that...so we were okay with the sugar and general silliness.

Anyway, we had fun. Hope you all have wonderful parties as well, and congratulations on another year well lived!

My dd's 1st birthday party was this past Saturday, she is still pretty much ebf. I made her a sweet potato "cake". I boiled a couple sweet potatoes and mashed them up in a white corningware ramekin. It was very cute and sugar free, just sweet potatoes I figured someone would say something, but not a word. I'll try to post a pic later.
Hth,
Michelle

I plan on having a bakery make her a sugar-free cake for dd's b-day (in May). I'm just going to have a small one made for her (I think they call them smash cakes) & a regular cake for the guests. I've been to a couple groceries stores & in passing asked if they made sugar free cakes & they all looked at me like I was crazy! They all said oh just let her have the good stuff! I was like sugar isn't good for her! :

Well.....I baked a chocolate cake.. sugar and all...and gave James a slice of that. But I love the watermelon idea! You could do some really cute stuff with fruit. In winter you could do a baked apple.