Happy Birthday Sweet Boy!

My wonderful, sensitive, caring baby boy is now 11!  Yikes!  How did that happen?  Some of the things I enjoy and love about him are how he is so gentle and kind with little kids, he LOVES to read (just like me!), he is funny, empathic and just an all around great kid. 

When he turned 1, I made him a xylophone cake because he so deeply loved music.  Thus began a tradition of me making his cakes.  I have made Elmo, Scooby Doo, a Wild hockey cake, Dinosaurs, Peter Pan, Gettysburg, Mario Brothers, and many more.  This year's theme was a Spartan/Greek warrior.

Due to food allergies, I have had to modify the recipes I normally use.  I now use a Bob's Red Mill Chocolate Cake mix.  I changed ingredients and amounts of ingredients in the frosting.  Since I know many people are struggling with this I thought I'd share my recipe in the birthday boy's honor.

 Icing Recipe
1 cup Spectrum Palm Shortening
1 cup Earth Balance Soy Free Butter (dairy free)
8 cups 365 Whole Foods Powdered Sugar (corn free)
Coconut Milk as needed to smooth frosting to the desired consistency (about 2-6 TBSP)
4 tsp. Frontier Vanilla
1/2 teaspoon McCormick cream of tartar (my secret ingredient)

Now, I am a terrible recipe follower.  I tend to throw stuff together and just blend it up.  But, in this recipe, I find creaming the shortening and butter together first are a not to skip step.  I then usually add the powdered sugar, then the vanilla, then the cream of tartar.  The milk is the last step.  Don't use too much or you will get soup.  To avoid putting to much milk in, I put a bit in a glass and spoon it in a little at time.  I learned the hard way NOT to pour from the container.  Yup, I have made soup out of frosting.  If the frosting is too butter rich for you, add more powdered sugar.  Since the powdered sugar has tapioca starch in place of the corn starch, it tends to get hard little balls in it.  I have learned that after you mix it all really well, let it sit 5-10 minutes, the mix again.  You can over mix this and then it get all separated and funny like (it will still taste fine).  I scoop a little bit out at a time into a separate bowl and make my colors.  A good corn free and allergen safe brand is Seelecttea's Natural food coloring .  Here are some picture for you to enjoy.