As most of you know, Michael has a long list of severe food allergies. This year, I wanted to bake a birthday cake for Michael that was safe for him to eat and tasted good enough to serve to everyone else at the same time. As soon as I returned home from the hospital with our new baby, I was determined to find and bake the perfect cake. When Michael's birthday occurred a week later, I was STILL looking for the solution. (At least it wasn't as bad as his first birthday... when in addition to his allergies to milk, egg, peanuts, and tree nuts, we were dealing with a gluten allergy!)
I have learned from this experience that it isn't too bad to substitute different things to achieve a milk-free cake, but finding a decent egg substitute is a nightmare!
The first two attempts at baking a cake went directly in the trash can. I didn't even take pictures. I'm not even sure you could have called them cake. I was horrified when I caught Michael digging a handful out of the trash and eating it! It was gross, but it was allergen free! So, while I was disgusted that Michael was eating something from the garbage can, at least I didn't have to run for the Benadryl or the Epi-Pen.
Attempt number three
This is a milk, egg, and nut free white cake. It actually didn't taste too bad, but it was a little too sweet. Michael loved it.
Attempt number four
This is a milk, egg, and nut free chocolate cake. It was very moist and had a good flavor, but as you can see, it fell apart when we tried to get it out of the pan. I was a little disappointed, but Michael was enjoying the job of tasting all these different cakes!
Final Attempt..... It would have to do because it was now a week AFTER Michael's birthday!
So... we settled on the chocolate cake and tried again to bake it AND get it out of the pan. At least the cake held the general shape when we turned it over on the cake board this time. However, lots of it stuck to the pan. As Coley said, "It looks like Blue had his face chewed off." I tried to mold it together the best I could and froze the cake before decorating it. The cake is definitely a far cry from perfect, but considering what it looked like BEFORE the frosting, it actually turned out all right.
I'm not sure how much of my sleep deprivation was actually due to having a newborn in the house and how much was due to staying up too late trying to solve the birthday cake problem!
Happy birthday, Michael!
Hopefully next year, we can eliminate something else from your allergy list and make things a bit easier!
