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...
