Happy Birthday Beth!

So, as promised, a blog on how to do an FPIES birthday cake that everyone will like.


We planned a sesame street themed birthday party for beth. I believe there were 15 adults and 7 kids there! Don't worry, it wasn't in my house. I rented our clubhouse for that. We had a kids snack table with cucumber, cantelope, strawberries and cheese, beth's favourite snacks, and we ordered pizza for everyone except beth.


I'm not horribly anal about unsafe food in the area if I'm there and everyone in the room is aware of her issues. I just reminded the adults not to leave plates laying around. Beth isn't too curious about that stuff though. I tell her it's not for her and she says "Make Beth sick". So smart!


The cake, however, had to be all Beth friendly. Did you know that icing sugar has cornstarch in it? Corn is an evil food, it is in everything and Beth cannot eat it. Baking powder also has cornstarch. So does store bough icing or scribblers, light sour cream and many yogurts (her cake recipe called for sour cream)


So I found icing sugar and baking powder at Healthway Market in Abbotsford which uses tapioca starch instead of corn, thank you Jesus.


I used a natural, plain yogurt from Save on foods. The flour was entirely Quinoa flour and I had to use real butter because margarine has soy in it, and sometimes corn. Lame.


Here is the recipe courtesy of Bob's Red Mill (one day I will meet this Bob and kiss him).

• 1/4 cup unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup boiling water
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 1/4 cups organic quinoa flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place the butter in a small heat resistant bowl. Pour boiling water over the butter and stir until completely melted. Whisk in the cocoa powder. In a large bowl, sift together the sugar, quinoa flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the cooled cocoa mixture, egg yolks, vanilla and sour cream and blend well. Beat the egg whites until stiff but not dry. Fold into batter.

Spoon into a muffin tin lined with paper cupcake liners. Bake for 20 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in center comes out clean. Makes 12 gorgeous cupcakes.

I did not make cupcakes, I just did a double batch and poured it into two round cake pans. I used butter cream frosting and royal icing to decorate it. I've never decorated a birthday cake like this before. It definitely wasn't anything professional but the focus wasn't on appearance, it was on making something edible that Beth would not throw up two hours later.

The funny thing is, she had one bite and then wanted to go play. She does not know junk food. She only ever has cake on her birthday and she's only had two of those so it's not that exciting for her. She loved to look at the cake though and blow out the candles and I had the peace of mind knowing that everyone was eating Beth friendly food. And everyone else really liked the cake so that was satisfying. I couldn't have it because of the dairy in it, you can't win 'em all.