A Healthy Birthday Cake

Benjamin recently turned 4 and while this is not the first birthday party we've had since we started eating healthier, it is the first one to be wheat - free.  I also find that as time goes on I let go of more "conventional" foods.  For example I have come to have a real aversion to food colouring/dye whereas for previous birthdays I would use it.  I used to think it was cute when my kids tongue turned all colours from what they were eating - the other day someone gave them something that had dye in it and it just turned my stomach.  Dyes or colourings are so terribly toxic and bad and I just couldn't put it on my son's cake.

So how do you have a great birthday cake without wheat?  Without tons of sugar?  Without food dyes?  Without lots of little candies all over the cake like I used to do?

Thankfully, it really wasn't that hard :)  I am so very thankful that I live in the age that I do!  There are so many blogs and books and people who are experimenting with wheat free foods that all the hard work has been done for me!   It wasn't that long ago when people were beginning to pave the way for people like me.  I had already test run a chocolate cake recipe, which I found here.  I made sure to sift the almond flour and use very finely ground coconut flour for a smooth consistency.  I also added more cocoa and a bit of sugar (I could have used more honey, but I added the extra cocoa at the end and didn't want to take the time to soften more honey). 

Benjamin really wanted a football cake - which thankfully was very simple to make and was easy to colour naturally. 

I made the cake in a round pan and when it had cooled I cut a piece out the middle and pushed the two remaining pieces together.  Then I used the icing from the recipe omitting the cocoa for the white icing.  I also added some melted chocolate chips and more cocoa powder to the chocolate - I wanted it to be very chocolatey :)  It turned out perfect!  And Benjamin was very happy with it :)  Of course I threw on a small handful of chocolate chips just for fun :)

And the candles burning on his cake are made from beeswax!  I also have an immense dislike for paraffin candles.  Especially scented paraffin. It feels great that not only was the cake healthy, but so was the air :) 

Chloe of course wants to have a princess cake!  Yikes!  That is a little bit of a taller order!!!!  Princess usually means purple or pink and you can't really use cocoa powder for those!  I'm thinking about trying to powder dried raspberries and add that to white icing, but I'm guessing it'll be a little on the dull side.  So I've got to put my thinking cap on and do some more googling and searching.  I've read about using beets to make a red cake, but not sure how that would work with icing. . .   I'm hoping to find something though, her birthday is not that far away.  

*I'd just like to add that in the link I posted about paraffin candles it mentions using soy candles as an alternative to paraffin.  While this might be okay for some people, I highly recommend beeswax!  Beeswax is about as natural as you can get!  I haven't read too much about soy candles and how they make them, but I just don't get how you can take soy beans and turn them into wax without a ton of processing . . .