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Birthday Cake: Gluten free, Dairy free, Sugar free

I was feeling inspired to make a cake because my fiance, Anthony, has his birthday in March. However he is not the biggest fan of cake. He prefers ice cream cake, but I still wanted to dabble in a healthy cake alternative. I looked into some ratios for cake when using almond flour (so far I've been more comfortable using almond and coconut flour for muffins or cupcakes or breading) but I didn't have enough of what I needed. So I experimented with ingredients that I had at home. There were some things that I would change for next time (which I'll go over in this post) but Anthony was actually really shocked. He loved it! He said the consistency of the cake and frosting reminded him of carrot cake, which he apparently also enjoys.

I have made a similar vegan buttercream frosting before; this time I also didn't have enough of the ingredients I needed. Last time I made it, I used all vegan butter and a powdered sugar substitute. This time I didn't have enough of the vegan butter to make enough for the entire cake, so I added coconut oil. On top of that, I used regular powdered sugar to get the proper consistency. You could also use monk fruit sweetener or coconut sugar and blend very thoroughly if you want the frosting to also be refined-sugar free.

I personally thought the cake turned out a little dense, but Anthony reassured me that he liked it as is. So the only other complaint I have is that the cake was super short! If you've been reading my blog for awhile, you know I had the same problem with my pumpkin bread; I should've doubled the recipe so it would raise up taller. But with this cake, I'm not sure what doubling the recipe would do to the consistency or cook time. So in the future, I will make two batches of the cake and bake it in two separate circular pans. Then once it cools, I'll layer them on top of each other and put frosting in between the layers!

With that being said, this attempt was still delicious and definitely satisfied my sweet tooth. When I started experimenting with this, I didn't know that we would all soon be social distancing due to COVID-19. But now that we're in this situation, I think it's a great time to post this recipe because some people are currently celebrating their birthdays at home due to self-quarantine (and some states are in lockdown by now). So hopefully, if you are one of those people, this post inspires you to make a cake or dessert at home!

Ingredients for cake:

-1 cup almond flour

-1 cup tapioca flour/starch

-2 tsp baking powder

-1/4 tsp salt

-1/2 cup melted butter (I used a vegan option, sold at common grocery stores)

-4 eggs

-1/4 cup water

-1/4 cup sugar substitute

-1 tsp vanilla extract

Ingredients for frosting:

-1 cup vegan butter

-1/2 cup coconut oil

-1 cup powdered sugar, powdered sugar substitute, coconut sugar, or monk fruit sweetener

Directions for cake:

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

-grease a 9" circular baking pan (note: if you are doubling the recipe to make two layers, obviously prepare two pans).

-Mix all dry ingredients together in a bowl.

-Mix all wet ingredients together in a different bowl.

-Fill the greased pans.

-Bake for roughly 25-35 minutes; check at 25 minutes to see if it needs more time in the middle.

Directions for frosting:

-Whisk all the ingredients together with a hand mixer until it reaches the fluffiness you prefer. Granulated sugar will need extra whipping time as opposed to powdered sugar.

Once the cake is cooled, cover it with your frosting and decorate how you want! Under normal circumstances I'd love to top it with fresh cut fruit, but all I had in my pantry was sprinkles.

I kept the cake in the fridge overnight to keep it fresh, and the next day we found that the frosting was hardened; in hindsight this makes sense because it is butter and coconut oil. However, Anthony and I enjoyed this result because it was cold and the texture was similar to carrot cake.

Let me know if you try recreating this! Are you celebrating an occasion while you're on lockdown? If you are, I'd love to hear how you're managing and how you are making the most of any festivities at home.

Thank you so much for reading, as always! More recipes will be coming your way that we can all easily replicate at home; I've seen a lot of people cooking now and that does make me extremely happy.

Have a lovely day and stay safe.

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