Have your cake, and EAT it too!!!

Yesterday was my love's birthday, for his sake, I won't tell you how old he is. Suffice it to say that the fire marshal was put on alert for the amount of candles on the cake (just kidding sweetie!).

Birthday cakes had been my fear when starting the gluten-free life. In March, I made THIS CAKE thanks to Gulia at Celiac.com's forum. I used a different flour combination than recommended, and I baked it in a silicone bundt pan. It took a long time to bake and was overdone on the ouside and smelled funny to me. My parents loved it, even my husband said it was not as bad as I thought it was. My kids, however, hated it and refused to eat the funny smelling cake!!! See, kids do know best when it comes to birthday cake. WAAAA I want CAKE!!!

I tried the recipe again a few weeks ago for a young girls book club we hosted at the house. This time, I made it into cupcakes. I followed the recipe more closely, but I did add a few teaspoons of vanilla pudding powder. I also frosted them. All of the girls ate the cupcakes not even realizing there was anything "different" about them. Okay, so lesson learned, using the recipe more closely worked great. I'll admit, these were good. I ate them and enjoyed them. Much better than my first attempt.

So, yesterday, knowing that birthday dinner was looming, I decided to try it again. This time I followed to a "T" and did not vary it at all (which is difficult for a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants sort of baker, let me tell you). I even used the rest of the frosting from the book club cupcakes. (What a great guy that not only didn't he mind that he had a gluten-free birthday cake, but he also didn't mind that it had leftover PINK frosting....gotta love him!)

My husband gleefully blew out the candles (well as gleefully as an old man can blow out candles :D ). Cut into the cake and served with ice cream. It was gobbled up, EVEN BY THE KIDS this time. Loved and enjoyed. We even had seconds later that evening. Even now as I type it is calling my name. I did half the recipe so it made one 8" square cake - but the standard recipe will make a round two-layer or 13X9" pan cake. I would note too that it may take longer to bake than the original recipe claims. So I would set the timer, and if it's not done do another 10 minutes, check again, still not done, bake at 5 minute intervals until done. It took mine 40 minutes - which is twice the time of the recipe.

I did not take pictures of dinner, but I'll post that one tomorrow. We had Pasta Primavera with Grilled Chicken, It was eaten so fast that pictures were not an option! :D See, I'm a true believer of Dessert FIRST! :D