Bleh. Babycakes NYC frosting, er, sauce.

It doesn't seem to matter how I make it, or what I substitute. It just NEVER turns out to be more than some kind of sauce. Which is what it is...and like many foods made for vegan eaters it's waaaaay too sweet, not to mention it has rice milk and rice milk powder (yuck and more yuck!) in it. So the cake was au naturel, double decker with banana slices between, but with the sauce on each piece and fancy birthday candles, it went fine. As usual, I don't get to taste it, but I had reports that it was good.

So, a good, nutrient-dense, not too sugary frosting anyone? I used to make an amazing frosting from blended dates and coconut oil, but this year Little Moo wanted pink. So pink, she got.

I have a feeling that I'll have to figure out a real buttercream thing for next year, assuming that she can eat it by then...I wonder if you can make buttercream icing out of ghee...?

Sorry - the party was completely crazy and I didn't get any pictures. :(

I'll post the images I took of them cooling last night...

The best gluten-free bake-book...

If I haven't said it before, it's Babycakes by Erin McKenna.
One of my two complaints, though, is that it's all too sweet and uses too much sugar. They're not bad on the fat, and they do use coconut oil, but do not specify that in order to bake at 350 and higher the coconut oil has to be REFINED, not virgin.

I think it's the vegan thing. People who don't get enough good, whole animal fat and proteins in their diets crave sweets and starches. There's also this tendency that we all have to jump onto a simple bit of information and lose all sense of context. What Michael Pollan calls "nutritionism." There's a lack of information about smoke points and detailed information about what makes food good and good for a person - people just glom onto a factoid, and discard the system that surrounds it: "blueberries have antioxidents," "spinach is super-good for you and has lots of b vitamins," and "agave is less glycemic than sugar" or "coconut oil will do everything including help you lose weight, help your immunity and organize your closets." If coconut oil is damaged in too high of a heat, (or if your spinach is unaccompanied by a good fat,) it's not doing anything good for anyone!

Our other fantastic allergy-free bake-book, which is also vegan, is the same way with the over-sugaring, but better with the nutrition information, although they've bought into the mainstream myth that low-fat is good. I always cut out at least 1/4 cup of whatever sweetener is used and occasionally remove all the sweetener and replace it with applesauce or raisins or whatever.

Ricebread makes a comeback as birthday cake!

We had a fabulous birthday party - the first one of two - for Rain's 2nd birthday tonight. My mother and I took over the kitchen and sent my dad packing. We had some decent girl-time cooking and baking together, which we don't usually get. Rain's deal was "Rain no pants! No underwear!" So, she was the pantsless baby. Friends of the family I haven't seen in years came. They enjoy exciting new foods, so they were really into the grass-fed buffalo and veggies on rice pasta. (Whew.)

I baked a totally miraculous cake that was gluten-, corn-, soy- and dairy-free. Unlike us, my parents have a great oven, and it actually ROSE. We made a custard from coconut milk, egg yolks and sugar and had tons of fruit with it.

Note: My dad ran out to the store to get vanilla extract. In suburban Phila, there's next to no options for whole foods, so there was one kind of vanilla - McCormacks. I noticed after I let a few bits into the cake that it has CORN SYRUP in it. What the heck, right? Okay. So, not entirely happy with that, but I'm not the elephant man yet, and my child seems to be okay. Anyway, if you don't do corn, don't get McCormacks. I'm sure the recipe would be fine with extra banana and no vanilla, if necessary. Even better. Use a vanilla bean!

This cake was basically the Ricebread recipe from the Allergy Survival Guide with a few twists.

• 1 1/2 c rice flour1/2 c flour mix (1 part rice flour to 1 part tapioca starch)1 tb baking powder
• 1/2 c coconut oil, melted
• almost 1/2 c maple syrup
• about 1/4 of a soft banana, mashed
• 1 whole egg + one yolk, beaten
• about 1/2 ts vanilla extract. (Stopped short when I realized it had corn syrup in it! I'm sure it would be tasty with 1 whole ts, or even a vanilla bean...)
  
• 9" round pan. Ours was Pyrex glass and worked fantastically.
  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Blend dry ingredients well. Blend wet ingredients: Put mashed banana into a cup measure and fill up the rest of the way with maple syrup to 1/2 cup line. Blend with oil, egg, vanilla. Add wet ingredients minus the water to dry. Add water at the end. Mix well

Pour into a greased pan (we used coconut oil) and bake for about 45 minutes.

See next entry for tasty coconut milk custard recipe...