Having a Gluten-Free Birthday Without Losing an Arm and Leg
I want to apologize for a late posting, and I definitely learned a few lessons from this:
Frequently save drafts
Keep a draft that you’re actively updating in a document or a Google Doc
Squarespace does log you out after a period of time though I’d like to know the frequency so I don’t have to try to remember what it was I wrote.
In the meantime, let’s talk about cake!
As I’m beginning to write, it is currently 6 days before my birthday. I will be baking a cake for my online birthday party and birthday stream on my RoseTheWolf36© Twitch channel. I thought about hiring a baker at the beginning of May to craft a small cake. One problem: It’s already pricey to customize a cake, but it’s another thing to customize a gluten-free chocolate cake with almond buttercream frosting. As tiring and tedious as it may sound: let’s make our own birthday cake for next week.
I did something like this before back in 2021 where I made my own gluten free cake. This was also not long after I discovered I needed to be gluten-free permanently. I winged a chocolate sponge cake recipe with some lucrative almond frosting.
For this year, for my 25 birthday, I decided to research an ideal frosting recipe. I was going to make a cake from scratch, but I managed to find one box cake mix from betterbatter that is chocolate in my pantry. Score! I can do a follow-up post about betterbatter, including how my mom sent me home from California with a 20 lb bag of gluten-free flour.
While the design may not be definite, it will help me practice my decorating skills. All that matters is the cake is delicious. I used Procreate on my iPad to draw out the initial design.
I didn’t start baking until the day of the birthday bash and quickly scrambled to have a cake before the party that night. The cake turned out beautifully, but I didn’t follow the directions fully. I replaced water with milk, oil for unsalted melted butter, and added an additional egg. I baked everything at 350 F for 35 minutes. I will also disclose I didn’t double the butter as listed in the hack I found on Pinterest. In the end, the cakes were baked to perfection and the cake in the end was moist, thick, and dare I say creamy.
I had my helper, Miss Mama, watch the cakes as they cooled. I tried to freeze them to help them cool faster but i should’ve wrapped them in foil to cool them faster and not saran wrap.
I began the buttercream frosting the moment the cakes came out of the oven, and I used this whipped almond buttercream frosting recipe I found. It was light, fluffy, and delicious. I used a little more almond extract and a little less vanilla, because I prefer a stronger almond taste in my frosting. I was happy with how it turned out, even though I aggressively whipped it in my mixer near the end to make it even fluffier than possible!
While I did create the purple frosting you see in the initial sketch, I went ahead and made 2 more colors: a light blue and a light green. It brought the cake together with this gorgeous cool color scheme that felt me.
A rose fell off so I forcibly smooshed it back into the cake. I had some cat candles, and I used one of them here.
I think in the end it was a great birthday, and I was happy to spend it with those that I love (and those that wanted to spend time with me.) The cake was delicious, and it brought a piece of nostalgia to me. It’s shocking to me that I am twenty-five now, but that doesn’t have to mean I can’t be excited about birthdays.
Simply put, it’s easy to have a gluten free birthday. It can be exhausting, but the thing to remember is you are working hard for something delicious, not spending a fortune for something half than decent. I recommend betterbatter, but make sure you read their ingredients and consult with your doctor if it’s safe for your gluten allergies or not. Otherwise there’s thousands of recipes online waiting for you to pick one and try it.
I am not affiliate with betterbatter in anyway, I just enjoy their products.