Valentine's Day Recipes

Here's a few recipes from the archives for a deliciously sweet Valentine's Day!

These Creamsicle Cut Out Cookies make fantastic heart shaped treats, on or off a stick.  They lend themselves to easy flavor variation, too.  My personal favorite is raspberry lemon.  Just substitute raspberry preserves for the orange marmalade and zest a lemon instead of an orange.

I originally made these Be My Valentine Cakes as a Little Debbie substitute, but they are a decadent treat that hardly compares.

They are still the closest I've come to making an allergy friendly brownie that I'm happy with.

As a final option, here is my old, reliable Red Velvet Cake recipe.  They are wonderful as a layer cake or as a cupcake of any shape or color!

Here's wishing you a safe and loving Valentine's Day!

Pumpkin Bundt Cake

I will be at the Tampa FAAN Walk for Food Allergy on November 12 as the honorary chair again this year.  I'd be absolutely thrilled if you'd like to join my team, start your own or make a donation.  Hope to see you there!

This cake has been a huge hit at our house.  The first one disappeared so quickly I had to bake a second just to get a photo.  My husband has even requested that I make pumpkin cake instead of pie at Thanksgiving this year.  To top it off (teehee) I've finally figured out how to get that thick, gingerbread fantasy icing without resorting to egg replacer.

One 13.5 oz can of coconut milk will give you enough liquid for both the cake and icing with a few teaspoons left over.  Feel free to substitute soy, rice or any other non-dairy milk for the coconut if you prefer.

Pumpkin Bundt Cake

(Click here for printable recipe.)

Dry Ingredients:

3 ½ C all-purpose flour
1 Tbs baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground nutmeg
¼ tsp ground allspice

Wet Ingredients:
1 15 oz can pumpkin puree (NOT pumpkin pie filling)
1 ½ C coconut milk
1 C granulated sugar
1 C brown sugar
¾ C vegetable oil
1 Tbs apple cider vinegar
2 tsp vanilla extract

Additional Ingredients:
shortening or nondairy margarine and flour to coat pan
or baking spray

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Prepare bundt pan by covering inside with baking spray or greasing with shortening or margarine and lightly coating with flour, then shaking off excess.

Measure dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl, then whisk together.  Combine wet ingredients in a separate bowl and whisk until together until completely combined.  Pour wet ingredients into dry, then whisk again until batter is smooth without any lumps.

Carefully pour batter into the bundt pan, then smooth top surface with a spoon or a spatula. Pick up bundt pan an inch or two above the counter and drop a few times to eliminate air bubbles.
Bake cake for 50 to 55 minutes, until a skewer poked into the cake comes out clean. Allow cake to cool in pan for ten minutes, then turn over onto a cooling rack. Allow to cool completely before icing cake.

Icing:
1 1/2 C powdered (confectioner's) sugar, packed
2 Tbs coconut milk
1 tsp lemon juice

To make icing combine powdered sugar, coconut milk and lemon juice in a bowl. Stir until combined, then microwave for 10 seconds. Quickly and carefully spoon over the top of the bundt cake. Allow icing to dry completely before covering cake to prevent crackling.

I'm submitting this seasonal treat to:

• Allergy Friendly Friday hosted by Cybele Pascal and
• Slightly Indulgent Tuesday at Simply Sugar and Gluten Free.

In for a Pound (Cake)

Shrek: [peels an onion]  Ogres have layers. Onions have layers. You get it? We both have layers. [walks off] 

Donkey: Oh, you both have LAYERS. Oh. You know, not everybody likes onions. What about cake? Everybody loves cake! 

Shrek: I don't care what everyone else likes! Ogres are not like cakes. 

Donkey: You know what ELSE everybody likes? Parfaits! Have you ever met a person, you say, "Let's get some parfait," they say, "Hell no, I don't like no parfait"? Parfaits are delicious! 

Shrek: NO! You dense, irritating, miniature beast of burden! Ogres are like onions! End of story! Bye-bye! See ya later.

Donkey: Parfait's gotta be the most delicious thing on the whole damn planet!.

It's a good thing I've never sat down to make a list of all the things that my son has never been able to eat.  Frankly, I just don't have the time or any leftover guilt to try to bring that number down.  If I'm ever lacking in incentive to get creative in the kitchen, though, media references often spark questions on his part, ("Mommy, what's a parfait?"), which lead to yet another attempt to modify/substitute/wrangle a recipe into submission.

Something else that is sure to get me fired up to try to create a new recipe is the discovery of a "new" ingredient that I haven't been able to use before.  I recently saw that Alisa Fleming of Go Dairy Free, one of my favorite sites, is hosting a recipe contest on behalf of ZenSoy, which makes vegan PUDDING.

Well, that's definitely on the list of things The Kid's never eaten.

So is parfait.

Of course, I'd need to make a pound cake for the parfait.

...wait for it...

I bet pudding in the batter would make for a really nice, moist pound cake.

And the idea for this recipe was born.  Of course sometimes when I'm making something new I have to try...

...more than once twice several times...

...to get a recipe to turn out.  With perseverance, I'll sometimes get lucky.  This time I did.  Even if you don't want a parfait (inconceivable!) this pound cake will melt on your tongue all by itself.

Pudding Pound Cake

(Click for printable recipe.)

Dry Ingredients:
1 3/4 C all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Wet Ingredients:
1/4 C nondairy margarine, softened
3/4 C granulated sugar
8 oz (2 x 4 oz cups) of ZenSoy vanilla pudding
1 tsp vanilla extract

Additional:
margarine and flour for pan

Preheat oven to 350F.  Prepare an 8" x 4" loaf pan with margarine and flour to prevent sticking.  Measure dry ingredients into a medium bowl and whisk together.  Cream margarine and sugar until light and fluffy.  Reduce blender speed to slow and add pudding and extract.  Once completely combined, gradually add dry ingredients and mix until smooth.  Pour into prepared loaf pan and smooth top of batter with a spatula.  Bake 40 to 45 minutes until crust is brown and a toothpick comes out clean.

Variation:  Use banana pudding instead of vanilla and add a pinch of ground nutmeg.

To make a parfait, cut a slice of pound cake into small cubes and layer with additional pudding and fruit.  It may be the most delicious thing on the whole planet.

The contest has been extended, so if you have a killer recipe using either Zensoy pudding or milk, contact alisa@godairyfree.org to enter!

Update:  Veronica was kind enough to mention in the comments, and I confirmed on the website, although the information is NOT on the label, that Zensoy does use shared equipment with dairy items when manufacturing their soy products.  Here is the statement from their website:

We do manufacture at a plant that also produces dairy products; however, our machines are cleaned and sterilized before we manufacture the soy products. Our products are Kosher Certified Parve.

Please be aware of this if you have any milk allergies in your household!

Fudgie Chocolate Cupcakes with Sunbutter Frosting

One of my coworkers celebrated her birthday last week, and I offered to bring in some cupcakes.  She is seriously addicted to Reese's Cups and peanut butter with chocolate is her favorite flavor.  Now, peanut butter doesn't make it through my front door, let alone contaminate my kitchen, but sunflower seeds make an amazing substitute spread.  One hurdle down.

To complicate matters further, I have another coworker with celiac disease, who is perpetually excluded from the cakes, cookies and pizzas that parade through our break room.  I decided to make a gluten free version of the cupcake, in addition to the original batch.  (I had a serious discussion with my celiac coworker, first, since my kitchen isn't exactly a gluten free facility.)

Unfortunately, chocolate cupcakes and I have a history.  I try to squeeze as much chocolaty goodness as I can into that batter, pour it into cupcake liners, shove them in the oven and watch them go flat.  That's if I'm lucky.  The good news is that there are many things that taste really good nestled into the top of a concave cupcake.

Since then I've found some really excellent vegan cupcake recipes that rise to unparalleled heights, creating the perfect cupcake dome.  The textures are nice and flavors good, but they lack the chocolate intensity that should be encapsulated by a cupcake wrapper.  Clearly, I have strong opinions about chocolate cake!

The lesson I did learn from these recipes, was that they were all simple oil cakes rather than the thick creamed margarine and sugar batters I had been churning out.  Finally it occurred to me to try substituting chocolate soy milk for some of the liquids in an oil cake.  Success!  I lost some of the beautiful rise, but managed to achieve the dense chocolate crumb I had been seeking.

To make the cupcakes gluten free:

SUBSTITUTE 1 Cup + 2 Tbs brown rice flour for the all-purpose flour 

ADD 1 tsp xantham gum to the dry ingredients

OMIT vanilla extract (or use gluten free if you have available)

Please double check all ingredients for gluten, since that's not one of the usual 8 allergens that I search for on ingredient labels.  (And please let me know in the comments if I missed a possible source of gluten!)

Dry Ingredients:
1 1/4 C all-purpose flour
1/3 C cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Wet Ingredients:
1 C chocolate soy milk
1/2 C granulated sugar
1/2 C brown sugar
1/3 C vegetable oil
1 Tbs apple cider vinegar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350F.  Line standard muffin tin with cupcake liners.  (To make sure I didn't mix them up, I baked the regular cupcakes in silver liners and the gluten free ones in gold liners.)  Sift dry ingredients together  into medium bowl and set aside.  Combine wet ingredients in a bowl and whisk together.  Pour wet ingredients into dry and continue to whisk until batter is smooth.  Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full of batter.  (Do not overfill.  You may have some left over.)

Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick come out clean.  Allow to cool 10 minutes in pan before removing to a cooling rack.  Cool completely before frosting the cupcakes

Original cupcake on left, gluten free version on right.

Sunbutter Frosting (adapted from Fluffy Peanut Butter Frosting):
1/4 C dairy free margarine, softened
1/2 C sunflower seed spread
1 C powdered sugar, sifted
2 Tbs vanilla soy milk

Cream margarine and Sunbutter together until fluffy.  Gradually mix in powdered sugar.  Add vanilla soy milk and mix until smooth.  Frosts one dozen cupcakes.

During my gluten free research, I discovered that May is Celiac Awareness Month.  May 22-23 is also the Gluten Free Challenge, which urges everyone to eat gluten free for the weekend.  I'm contemplating it, but haven't decided yet if I'll take the plunge!

I also ran across Gluten Free Wednesdays hosted by the Gluten Free Homemaker, so I'm sharing my chocolaty cupcakes with Linda's inspiring round up of gluten free recipes.

Volcano Cake

Dinosaur island erupted just in time for a party! I ran into more problems than usual while baking this birthday masterpiece, but dry ice hides a multitude of sins, and The Kid was thrilled to have a functioning volcano cake.

Giada De Laurentiis Copycat Cupcakes

Last night I came home from work to find a request in my inbox for help adapting these Strawberry and Mascarpone Filled Cupcakes from Giada De Laurentiis for a girl with an egg allergy. Giada is not my favorite celebrity chef, since she always comes across more as a spokesmodel, rather than someone who genuinely, you know, eats. (What can I say, I'm an Alton Brown fan.) I am a big sucker, though, for any kid with a food allergy who's looking to score some baked goods. Just ask my son. So here are some cupcakes fit for a Princess.

A basic yellow cake recipe has sat on my to do list for a long time, just because it's so much easier to bake a cake that doesn't rely on eggs or butter for its flavors. I used my standby, soy yogurt, so it has a nice density and tang, despite being a plain oilcake. There's not a lot of rise to it, so I wouldn't trust this batter to a full size cake pan, but it makes a more than respectable cuppy.

For the filling, I used frozen raspberries instead of strawberries, since that's what was in my freezer. I also halved the quantity for this version, since that's the amount I had left over. Quite a few of the reviews of the original mentioned it's liquidity, which was also a problem for me. Chilling the filling is definitely advisable. Several commentators also mentioned that the icing was incredibly sweet, which I also found to be true. I love the look, though, so I just recommend using a very light hand. These were a lot of fun, too, since I'm usually sculpting dinosaurs, rather than making girly pink filled fairy cakes.

Cupcakes:
1 1/2 C all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 C plain or vanilla soy yogurt
1 C sugar
1/2 C vegetable oil, preferably canola
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350°F Line standard muffin pan with foil liners. (The oil will seep through paper liners, even waxed ones, which is unattractive, though still yummy.) Sift flour, baking soda, and salt together into a medium mixing bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix until smooth. Carefully fill muffin liners three quarters of the way to the top; do not overfill. (You might have a little left over, but it doesn't have eggs in it, so I'm sure you'll find someone to lick the bowl!) Bake for twenty minutes. Allow to cool five or ten minutes in the pan, then move to cooling rack. Once completely cool, keep in the refrigerator.

Filling:
1/4 C thawed and drained frozen fruit
4 oz. Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese
1/4 C sugar
1 1/2 tsp lemon juice

While your frozen strawberries or raspberries are thawing and draining, measure out half an 8 oz. container of plain Better Than Cream Cheese. I didn't chill it, but putting it in the freezer while your fruit thaws is probably a really good idea to prevent the drippies later. Chuck all the ingredients in your food processor or blender and pulverize until you have a nice pink mixture.

Put the mixture in a decorating bag with long, thin tip. (I finally had a chance to use the Bismark tip from my Cupcake Decorating Set for these.) Do not fill more than halfway, or it will come out the top. Giada says to fill from the bottom, but that's just asking for trouble, so you'll want to gently slide the tip into the top of the cupcake and give it a squeeze until you see the top of the cuppy slightly rise. Don't worry about a little overflow, you're going to cover it with more sugar.

Icing:
2 C powdered sugar
1/2 C sugar
1/4 C water
1 tsp vanilla extract

Place filled cupcakes on a cooling rack placed over a cookie sheet or other drip catcher. Measure powdered sugar into a small mixing bowl and set aside. Combine the rest of the ingredients in a small saucepan and just bring to simmer while stirring with a whisk. (The sugar should be dissolved. If not, hang out at a simmer until it is.) Pour sugary liquid over the powdered sugar and continue whisking until just combined. Working very quickly, spread a very thin layer of icing over each cupcake. (The icing in the poorly lit photo above is probably about twice as thick as the optimal amount.) If the icing gets too firm, microwave it. Once iced, keep your little sugarbombs in the refrigerator until consuming.

Update: You can see the ones made for a Princess at To the Moon and Back.

"Be My Valentine" Cakes

It's time for a Little Debbie smackdown! Or would that be snackdown? The Kid's class is having a Valentine's Day party tomorrow, and each of the non-allergic kids will receive a "Be My Valentine" Cake to sugar them up. Since I was forewarned by his teacher, my son will be forearmed with a homemade (and far superior) version of the heart shaped Twinkie.

There are three elements to this decadent treat. The first is the chocolate "cake" itself. It wasn't until I pulled my second and final version of it out of the oven that I realized in my attempt to make a cake dense enough to be sturdy, I'd created a brownie instead. (You don't mind, do you?)

Dry Ingredients:
1 1/4 C all-purpose flour
1/2 C cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt

Wet Ingredients:
1 1/2 C granulated sugar
1/2 C soy yogurt (vanilla or plain)
1/2 C canola oil
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 C boiling water

Additional:
grease (margarine or shortening) for the pan

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a 13"x 9"x 2" pan with parchment paper, then grease the paper with dairy free margarine or shortening. (Some of the traditional baking techniques, like buttering parchment paper, don't come naturally to me, but this time it's necessary to get the cake out of the pan so you can attack it with your heart shaped cookie cutter.)

Sift dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl, then stir in wet ingredients except boiling water. Mix slowly until just combined. The batter will be very stiff at this point. Slowly pour boiling water into batter while mixing. Continue to mix until batter is shiny and completely integrated.

Gently pour batter into parchment lined pan and spread out evenly, if necessary. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow cake to cool completely before using parchment paper to very carefully lift onto a cutting board.

Using a heart shaped cookie cutter, strategically cut the cake into as many hearts as possible. With a 3" wide cookie cutter, I made 12 hearts. Set them aside while making the filling.

Vanilla Cream Filling:
3 Tbs Earth Balance margarine
1 1/2 C powdered sugar
1 Tbs soymilk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Combine ingredients in a mixing bowl. Using a paddle beater, mix until smooth. Now, with a good bread knife and a steady hand, very slowly and carefully cut one of the hearts into half. (Blood does not enhance the flavor, so please avoid the classic bagel slice to the palm.) Gently put down the top half, then spread about a tablespoon of the filling over the bottom. If you have hearts that are taller on one end, this is your opportunity to even things out. Replace the top half of the heart, set aside, and repeat until all have been filled.

Chocolate Ganache Coating:
1 C Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips
3/4 C coconut milk

Place chocolate chips in a medium bowl and set aside. Bring coconut milk just to a boil, then stir into chips. Stir until completely integrated.

You have two routes you can take to cover the cakes with the ganache. The easier and messier method is to pour half of the ganache into a measuring cup. Pick up a heart, dip the sides into the bowl, so they are completely coated. Place the heart on a cooling rack sitting atop a cookie sheet, cutting board, or other drip catcher. With your other hand, slowly pour ganache from the measuring cup onto the top until it meets the coating on the sides. Repeat.

The slower and neater method is to wait until the ganache cools somewhat, then pick up a cake, frost the sides with a spatula, place the cake on the cooling rack (you'll still need a drip catcher), and frost the top, again with the spatula.

With both methods, allow the coating to cool until the ganache is firm. You can speed up the process by putting them in the fridge, but they may still take overnight.

Once finished, the cakes tasted absolutely amazing, rich and chocolaty, but not too sweet. They were time consuming, but really not that difficult to make. In the final analysis, though, I failed to achieve parity with the original snack cake. The cake layers weren't dry and crumbly enough, the cream filling tasted like vanilla instead of Crisco, and I simply could not replicate Little Debbie's waxy coating, forcing me to make do with the ganache. On the bright side, I'm well on my way to finishing the brownie recipe that's long been on my to do list.

That's about all for...wait, what's that banner I see in the sky?

Holy fortuitous food blog event, Batman! February's Sugar High Friday theme is copycat recipes! Originally created by Jennifer, The Domestic Goddess, the long running event is being hosted this month by Marija of Palachinka, so I'm happily sending my Valentine hearts to her.

Abducted by Wilton

I've never been an acolyte of the Wilton school of cake decorating. They make quite a few good products, and occasionally I contemplate taking one of their classes as I face my latest homemade allergen free birthday wreck, but that's just not where my interests naturally lie.

This weekend, The Kid's best friend, the J-Man, celebrated his fifth birthday. My usual birthday party m.o. is to offer to bring some safe cupcakes matching the party's theme. With an overconfidence born of almost a year's worth of Daring Baker challenges, I offered to make the birthday cake itself. Then the unthinkable happened. J-Man's mommy trustingly said yes.

If you've ever read the hilarious blog Cake Wrecks, or flipped past The People's Court as a tearful bride faced down the cake decorator who done her wrong, you know this is serious business. I wouldn't quite go so far as to call a child's birthday cake a sacred trust, but it's not much of a stretch. The pressure was on.

Left to his own devices, the J-Man would subsist entirely on bananas, so I made a banana cake in a Lightning McQueen pan. (Even after a couple modifications, it was still a little concave on top, so I'll hang on to the recipe for now.) Then, armed only with a PDF and my mom's old decorating tips, I faced down the paint by numbers Crisco buttercream horror.

The thing took hours longer than I had expected, and Lightning's a little cross eyed and tread heavy, as well as having a few details, um, adjusted, but overall I was surprised by how well it turned out. The J-man was thrilled, and I learned what all the other mommies already knew, that the kids really don't care about the inside of the cake, just how the frosting looks on the outside. (Kind of the opposite of what we're trying to teach them about the world.)

I have the sinking feeling that this won't be the last of these technicolor monstrosities that I produce, but I'm comforting myself with the mommy mantras, "It's just one day out of the year," "As long as it makes them happy," and "He just loves being able to eat the same thing as everyone else." Yup, I'll be making more of them.

Caramel Cake

I feel as if I am finally returning to the land of the living after spending last week first clouded in a head full of congestion, then sunk into a carbohydrate coma. So please forgive my late and somewhat abrupt Daring Bakers post for last month.

November's recipe was a Caramel Cake from Shuna Fish Lydon. It was chosen by Dolores of Culinary Curiosity, who shared hosting duties with Alex, better known as Brownie of Blondie and Brownie and Jenny of Foray into Food.

Caramel is one of my husband's favorite flavors, so I made the cake for his birthday earlier this month with substitutions for my son's allergies. The cake was nice, but as other Daring Bakers have noted, the frosting was extremely sweet. For the caramels on top of the cake I used a lovely dairy free recipe from Maggie of Dog Hill Kitchen. I made a half batch with one of my carefully hoarded clearance vanilla beans to flavor it and used cookie cutters for shapes to decorate the cake.

I'm afraid I only got a quick snap of the cake, instead of a real beauty shot, since I realized that I need to take more photos of the family and less of the food at events. So thank you to Dolores, Alex, and Jenny for a sweet challenge and happy birthday, honey!

Spider Cupcakes & Halloween Tidbits

These spiders may look intimidating, but they will win you over with their sweet chocolate frosting and hearts of pumpkin. I'm still tweaking the pumpkin cupcake recipe, but the decoration is too delicious not to share.

To make them you will need:

• cupcakes of your choice
• chocolate frosting
• Cake Mate Chocolate Decors
• Wonka Runts
• Twizzlers Pull 'N Peel
• a chopstick
  

Peel off two strands of a Twizzler and cut both into quarters. Frost a cupcake, then immediately dip the frosted top into a small bowl of Chocolate Decors. Insert two of the banana Runts as the spider's mandibles, then use the chopstick to make deep, evenly spaced holes for each of the spiders legs about a quarter inch from the edge of the cupcake. Insert Twizzler legs and place two more Runts as eyes. Grab another cupcake and repeat.

Halloween, the holiday that inspires well meaning individuals to offer potentially deadly candy to food allergic children, is looming, and I am overdue in sharing my own strategy for taking candy from a child, plus I've got some good links. We do go trick-or-treating, but only after doing the prep work. Before the big event, I put together a basket of safe candy and non food treats, such as stickers. Then I use the basket as a not so subtle visual aide when we have our final talk about not eating any candy before going out. Once we get home, we ceremoniously read the ingredients on each piece of candy that has them, and for each one that gets surrendered, The Kid gets to select an item from the safe basket. (It's a little tedious, since I know perfectly well that they're all going bye bye, but it's a valuable reinforcement, and my child enjoys the ritual for some perverse reason.)

The last Food Allergy Blog Carnival, hosted by Alisa of Sure Foods Living, was Halloween themed and has lots of good stuff. There's a good new site called Allergy Free Halloween, and FAAN and Allergy Moms both have good guides for surviving Halloween.

Don't forget to take pictures of your little darlings in costume and submit them to Enjoy Life's online Halloween Party. If you submit a photo before Nov. 5th, they will send you $5 in coupons. Here's the details:

How to Participate:
1. Take a photo of your child dressed up in a costume.
2. Email the photo and your name & address to enjoylifenf@gmail.com (printed coupons will be snail mailed)
3. Enjoy the Party!

Have a safe and happy Halloween!

Dinosaur Birthday Party

We finally had the big day! All in all, it was a roaring success (i.e., all the kids had fun and the EpiPen was unnecessary.) The first preparation for the social event of the season, after reserving a shelter at the park, was to send out the invitations. I included a slip of paper requesting that no food or drink be brought to the party and made sure I provided all my contact information for the other parents.

For the party itself, we planned a few activities for the kids. I bought a variety of bubble makers: big ones, little ones, battery operated ones, crazy wands, and a huge bottle of bubble juice. They kept the kids (and my husband!) occupied for a surprisingly long time. If you are having an outside party, I really recommend making bubbles as a noncompetitive fun activity. I'm pretty sure we'll do it again next year, and reuse all the same equipment.

For a theme activity, I made a "dinosaur dig." To hold it, I emptied out the long plastic box that my wrapping paper lives in, and filled it with sand. (We saved the sand afterward, in case we got hit by Almost Hurricane Fay.) I found this recipe for making "dinosaur eggs" and buried them, plus various other goodies, including little plastic snakes and "petrified" insects in green slime, since an archeologist never knows what he or she will find. (I had also purchased little plastic pith helmets as party hats, but they turned out to be to hot for the kids to wear in the sun.)

The food was a lot of work, but turned out great. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures before we ate, so I just got a few shots of the leftovers. (As I post all the recipes I made at the party, I'll come back and add the rest of the links.) For starters there was a vegetable tray with Ranch Dip, the always popular Dinosaur Crackers with Cilantro Hummus, and tortilla chips with Zesty Tomato Salsa.

For the meal we had Pterodactyl Drumsticks, both turkey and Sunbutter & jelly dinosaur sandwiches made with this sandwich cutter. (I wish I'd gotten a picture of the tray, since I alternated whole wheat and potato bread sandwiches, making a very pretty tesselating pattern.) I also made calzones with this pizza recipe, both vegan (for friends who keep kosher) and turkey sausage.

The all important dinosaur cake (made with this pan) was red velvet, per The Kid's request. Fearing a recreation of the scene in Steel Magnolias with the infamous armadillo groom's cake, I decide on red frosting. My mom was kind enough to do the actual decorating of the cake, since I just am not talented at creating cartoony frosting characters.

The T. Rex pinata from iParty was definitely the climax of the party. I found a three pound bag of safe candy, and stuffed that thing with enough sugar to keep The Kid and his friends buzzed for days. The pinata was unfortunately a little too sturdy, and I ended up having to partially disembowel it with the pinata stick after the kids had thoroughly beaten up on it so that they could knock the candy out of it. Here are a few suggestions for those who haven't done pinatas before: I decided against blindfolds and spinning, since there are kids with some motor/balance problems in the group. We lined them up from shortest to tallest to make sure the younger ones all had a good shot at it, which proved unnecessary, since it didn't want to break open at all. I learned it's a good idea to discretely weaken it before hand, so that the kids can actually break through it. Also, don't hang the thing until you are ready to actually hit it, since the kids just fixate on the candy in the sky as soon as it is up.

Finally, I wanted to share the gift bags we made before the party, not because they were so fabulous, but because they were inexpensive, fit the party's theme, weren't filled with cheap plastic junk, and most importantly did not have any food in them. (I always have to take away the candy The Kid gets at parties, which is frustrating for both of us.)

The bags themselves were a couple of dollars at the craft section at Walmart. I picked up the crayons for about ten cents a box in the Back to School section there. The dinosaur stickers and "Play D'oh" came from my stash, so I'm not sure exactly what their source was. I picked up the dinosaur pencils and snap together gliders (not on theme, but kinda cool) from the clearance aisle at iParty, and printed out some dinosaur coloring pages to roll up and tie with curly ribbon. To involve The Kid in the bags' preparation, we had him decorate the bags with these dinosaur stamps, which had previously been given to him as a gift by his Grandma.

It was an exhausting day, but worth all the hard work. The Kid was able to have a "normal" birthday party and can't wait for his next one!

Citrus Opera Cake Tragedy

I almost didn't post this month's multi-layered Daring Baker challenge: Dorie Greenspan's Opera Cake, which was thoughtfully dedicated to Barbara of Winos and Foodies by Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice, Lis of La Mia Cucina, Fran of Apple Peaches Pumpkin Pie, and Shea of Whiskful. The first attempt I made at modifying the recipe to make a raspberry jaconde produced a cake that resembled fruit leather. My end of the month schedule was so hectic, including a full blown family reunion, that I didn't think I'd have time to try it again. Today, the first day back at school after the Memorial Day holiday, I received a call from the school to tell me The Kid had had an allergic reaction. (He's doing fine now. I'll post more on that later.) After all the stress and chaos of the day, I found myself wandering back to the kitchen this evening to try the opera cake again.

For the joconde, which was the cause of my original disaster, I went back to the drawing board. The original recipe used almond meal, for which other Daring Bakers had substituted oat flour. I used that again with powdered sugar, baking powder and soda, soy milk, lemon juice, and lemon zest. The result resembled a poorly executed corn bread. I may try to replicate a sponge cake again, but will most likely use cake flour, since this version was far too rustic!

For the other components of the cake, I made a lime syrup, an orange buttercream, skipped the mousse, and made a drippy pineapple glaze. (I wanted to make a glaze out of coconut milk, but discovered I'd used the last of it to make two Coconut Key Lime Pies for the family reunion!)

If nothing else, the opera cake was an effective cure for overconfidence in the kitchen, as well as a reminder that I learn more from the experiments that don't work than from the ones that do.

Chocolate Covered Cherry Cupcakes

To those of you who have been following my less than completely successful experiments with chocolate cupcakes, I would like you to meet the fruit of my labor: the Chocolate Covered Cherry Cupcake. It may not have the perfect cupcake dome, but in this case, the bug is now a feature, since the lack of slope allows the melted chocolate to harden without running off. As an additional bonus for the extended experimentation, the Cupcake Hero contest theme for May turned out to be cocoa powder, so this will be my first submission to that huge event. Despite initially being geared more toward Mommy's tastes, The Kid adores the the cupcake with a surprise in the middle. Allowing him to eat one results in a chocolate covered child!

Creamed Ingredients:
1/2 C dairy free margarine, softened
3/4 C sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Dry Ingredients:
1 C all-purpose flour
1/2 C cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Liquid Ingredients:
1/2 C plain soy yogurt
1/2 C boiling water

Additional:
12 large maraschino cherries

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a standard muffing tin with 12 cupcake liners. Sift together dry ingredients and set aside. Cream margarine then add sugar and continue to beat until light and fluffy. Mix in vanilla extract. Slow mixer, then gradually add in half the dry ingredients, then the soy yogurt, then the rest of the dry ingredients. Continuing to beat mixer slowly, add boiling water and mix until fully integrated.

Divide the batter evenly between the 12 cupcake liners. Very, very gently push a maraschino cherry into the center of each cupcake until even or just below surface. Using a spatula or knife, gently smooth batter over the top of the cherry. Bake for twenty minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Remember not to stick the toothpick exactly in the center due to the cherry! Allow to cool completely, then commence with the chocolate overkill, which may be blamed on Jill O'Connor and the Daring Bakers. (You know who you are.)

Melted Chocolate Topping:
1 C allergy safe chocolate chips, i.e. Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips
1 Tbs vegetable shortening

Place chips and shortening in a small, heat safe bowl fitted atop a small pot of boiling water. Stir until melted, then spoon onto cupcakes. If necessary, spread with a circular motion. Allow to cool before consuming, if you can.

Makes one dozen decadent cupcakes and provides incontrovertible proof that food allergies do not cause a life of deprivation.

Apple Baby Cakes

My fellow Daring Baker, Holly of Phe/Mom/enon (she really is one) posted a request looking for a birthday cake recipe appropriate for premature babies who had reached one calendar year of age, but developmentally were not yet able to process eggs and milk. That started me thinking about writing a very "gentle" applesauce cake recipe, and the idea joined the dozens of other recipe ideas churning around in the back of my head.

That's where the idea stayed, until Holly announced that she was going to be walking in the March of Dimes Walk for Babies, a cause near and dear to my heart. To help spread the word, she decided to host a food event, Blogging for Babies, inviting submissions of "little creations." Well. It looks like it's time to bake cupcakes for preemies.

These cupcakes are very dense and moist, not to mention yummy. I have diligently used the most inoffensive ingredients possible, but I am not a doctor or nutritionist by any stretch of the imagination. If you are planning a birthday party for one of these brave babies, please check the recipe with your pediatrician before feeding it to your child. The Jello in the frosting may need to be replaced with a vegan gelatin or eliminated. If that is the case, you could simply dust the cupcake with powdered sugar.

Before baking the cupcakes, you will need to make a small batch of applesauce. I like Macintosh, but any cooking apple will do:

1 lb apples (about 3 large), cored, peeled, and sliced
1/2 C water
1 tsp lemon juice

Place all three ingredients in a pot with a tight fitting lid. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce temperature to medium high and continue to cook for 10 to 15 minutes. Allow to cool, then puree with a stick blender. (Be careful, hot applesauce can burn.) This should make a little over 1 Cup of applesauce. Reserve 2 Tbs for the frosting, and use the rest in the cupcake recipe.

Dry Ingredients:
1 1/2 C all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda

Wet Ingredients:
1 C applesauce
1 banana, thoroughly mashed
1/2 C sugar

Preheat oven to 350°F. Place 12 cupcake liners in a standard muffin tin. (You may not need them all.) Sift together dry ingredients and set aside. Cream the wet ingredients together, then continue mixing, while gradually stirring in the dry ingredients. When completely incorporated, Fill cupcake liners three quarters full with batter. (Initially I overfilled the liners, since I didn't expect much rise from the cupcakes. I was pleasantly surprised.) You most likely won't have a full dozen. Remove excess liners, and bake for 25 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.

For the frosting, I didn't want to make anything that would have hard to digest fat in it, so I tried whipping up Jello, which resulted in a nice pink foam. This is the only part of this recipe that I still wish to improve some more; hopefully I will update this post with an improved frosting, or possibly a glaze. You also may not wish to try it unless you have a stand mixer. (At least have some powdered sugar on hand in case of disaster!) Because the foam does tend to set up, I would recommend not mixing it up until within an hour of when the cupcakes are going to be presented.

1 3 oz package of Strawberry Jello (or flavor of your choice)
1/2 C boiling water
2 Tbs applesauce

Combine Jello and boiling water. Beat on high speed with a whisk attachment until it begins to cool, about five minutes. Add applesauce, and continue beating for another ten minutes. The Jello mixture will become a light foam. To apply to the cupcakes, gently hold the cupcakes upside down and dip the tops in the foam. (You may have quite a bit of the foam left over.) Serve immediately.

I would love to hear any feedback or suggestions from anyone who runs this recipe by their pediatrician and tries it out for their extra special birthday baby. When my son had his first birthday, we had just begun to learn about his food allergies. I didn't even try to make him a cake. Since his favorite food at the time was sweet potato, I baked these patty shaped sweet potato things for the party and stuck a candle in one. Let's just say my baking skills have improved considerably since then! If I can spare anyone that kind of birthday cake disaster, I'll be thrilled.

Want to know more about Little Wonders March for Babies Team? Fantastic!! Here is the Team Page. Any amount that you can sponsor is extremely appreciated. Please, please help spread the word and sponsor Little Wonders if you can! Thank you!

Shrek Cupcakes

Going to a birthday party is one of the more stressful situations for the parent of a child with food allergies. It has all the pressures of trying to make sure your child is included, but still avoiding potentially deadly allergens while smack dab in the middle of a horde of sugar crazed kids. Usually it means bringing a safe cupcake along, so that the allergic child isn't left out of the cake eating extravaganza. As I've gotten more confident as baker, I've changed my tactics, and if I know the birthday child's mom well enough, I'll offer to make a cake for the whole party.

When my coworker invited us to her son's fifth birthday party and I found out that it was going to be Shrek themed, my imagination ran wild with new colors for my Red Velvet Cake. She agreed to let me make (green!) cupcakes and planned to buy Shrek cupcake picks herself to put on them. Unfortunately, none of the stores locally carried them, and there just wasn't enough time to order any. I decided to try to make gum paste "ears" for the cupcakes. As much as I like the way they look, I suggest buying the picks for all the trouble the homemade ears caused! (Hint: they may take from several days to a week to dry. I made them the night before.)

Since I'm already getting questions as to how to make a "normal," i.e., non-allergy friendly version, you may reverse the substitutions by replacing the soy milk and lemon juice mixture with 1 1/2 C buttermilk, and replace the water and egg replacer mixture with two eggs. For the frosting, replace vanilla soy milk with cow's milk and 1 tsp vanilla extract.

This recipe is also my entry for the Food for Plastic Kidz Challenge hosted by Ben of What's Cooking. The plastic in question is Tupperware, since the company is celebrating April as Children's Month, during which time they are donating a portion of sales to the Boys and Girls Clubs.

Dry Ingredients:
2 1/2 C all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp allergen free cocoa powder

Wet Ingredients:
1 1/2 Tbs lemon juice + soy milk to equal 1 1/2 C
1 C vegetable oil, preferably canola
1 1/2 C sugar
1 tsp white vinegar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 Tbs yellow food coloring
10 drops green food coloring
1/4 C warm tap water + 1 Tbs Ener-G Egg Replacer

Stir together lemon juice and soy milk and set aside. Preheat oven to 350°F. Place 18 cupcake liners in standard muffin tins. Sift the dry ingredients together into a medium bowl and set it aside as well.

In a mixer bowl, gently mix together the wet ingredients. Be careful not to splash the food coloring. While mixing, slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ones in three batches. Stop as soon as they are completely combined. Divide the batter evenly between the 18 cupcake liners. (The batter will reach within half an inch of the top of the liners.)

Bake cupcakes for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out cleanly. Cool completely before frosting.

Chocolate Mud Frosting:
1/2 C dairy free margarine
(As usual, I recommend Earth Balance.)
1/2 C allergen free cocoa powder
2 1/2 C powdered sugar
1/4 C vanilla soy milk

Cream margarine in a mixing bowl. Add cocoa powder and continue beating until fully integrated. Add powdered sugar and vanilla soy milk, then continue to beat until nice and creamy.

Dorie Greenspan's Perfect Party Cake

This month's Daring Bakers challenge is Dorie Greenspan's "Perfect Party Cake" from Baking from My Home to Yours. It was thoughtfully chosen by Morven of Food Art and Random Thoughts to allow for a great deal of personal expression in flavor and decoration. The flavors as written, lemon and raspberry, sounded so good, that they were the one thing I didn't change for my egg and milk free adaptation. Dorie Greenspan has many justifiably dedicated fans, but I've never attempted any of her recipes before.

The substitutions for the cake were very straightforward: lemon juice + soy milk for the buttermilk, Ener-G Egg Replacer for the egg whites, and Earth Balance Buttery Sticks for the butter. Unfortunately, the cake didn't rise very well at all, and I wasn't able to slice my two cakes into additional layers.

After some experimentation, I was able to come up with a good substitute for the eggs in the buttercream, which was luscious and not too sweet. (See my previous post.) Even better, I had some of my mom's homemade raspberry preserves to use in the filling for the center.

Although the lack of rise was disappointing, the crumb was amazing, softly melting in my mouth. The lemon flavor was a little overpowering, somewhat out of balance with the raspberry, but then again, I was missing two layers of it! I'm afraid I used up all my creativity on the buttercream, so you'll need to go see what everyone else did to decorate some truly beautiful cakes!

Adapting Dorie Greenspan's Buttercream

I have a reliable powdered sugar recipe for buttercream frosting, but I wanted to stay as close as possible to Dorie Greenspan's original directions for the March Daring Bakers Challenge. I decided to try several substitutions for the egg, so I made three 1/4 batches using corn starch, Ener-G Egg Replacer, and a vegan gelatin. You can see the results above.

The corn starch and egg replacer made glazes instead of frosting. The gelatin started out looking like other two, but after having the margarine added and being whipped, its structure and texture changed completely. The resulting frosting is silky smooth and spreadable with a slippery mouth feel. After tasting it, my husband compared it to a meringue. Success!

Update: Sorry it's taken me so long to get the recipe up!

Ingredients:
1 C sugar
1/2 C boiling water + 10g packet of vegan gelatin
3 sticks (12 oz) slightly softened dairy free margarine, not all the way to room temp (I prefer Earth Balance Buttery Sticks)
1/4 C fresh lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla extract

Dorie's original recipe calls for whisking egg whites together with the sugar in a double boiler. Since the gelatin, which replaces the egg whites, is being mixed directly with boiling water, the gentle method used on the egg whites is unnecessary. One word of caution: if there are any lumps in the gelatin, be sure to pound or sift them out, or there will be lumps in the frosting.

Mix the gelatin and boiling water, then stir in the sugar, making sure it is completely dissolved. (Don't be put off by the appearance. Yes, it looks like a bowl full of snot, but persevere anyway!) Using a hand mixer or the whisk attachment on a stand mixer, beat the mixture on medium speed until cool, about five minutes. Change to a paddle attachment if using stand mixer, and beat in the margarine one stick at a time until smooth. Increase the mixture speed to medium high and beat until thick and very smooth, about six to ten minutes, or longer if necessary. This is when you will see the dramatic change in the texture . Reduce speed to medium and gradually add the lemon juice and vanilla extract. Keep the resulting frosting covered and refrigerate any extra. It will handle much better at room temperature.