Eat real food.

Well, somebody is going to celebrate his fourth birthday tomorrow. I thought of buying a store cake, made of grossness, and then I thought it would be cheaper to make a cake mix, if I were going to serve non-food. But the problem with that is that the boxes of cake mix and cans of frosting have labels, that say things like:

SUGAR, PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED SOYBEAN AND COTTONSEED OIL, WATER, WHEAT STARCH, HIGH MALTOSE CORN SYRUP, CONTAINS 1% OF LESS OF: SALT, DISTILLED MONOGLYCERIDES, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, YELLOWS 5&6 AND OTHER COLOR ADDED, POLYSORBATE 60, SODIUM STEAROYL LACTYLATE, SODIUM ACID PYROPHOSPHATE, CITRIC ACID, NONFAT MILK, FRESHNESS PRESERVED BY POTASSIUM SORBATE AND SODIUM BENZOATE.

Riiiiiiight. So, hippy cake it is.
I’ll start with the frosting, because I made it first. Mostly, because I wanted to find out how the stevia would work.

Cream Cheese Frosting

2 8oz. packages cream cheese or lower fat neufchatel cheese
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 Tablespoons water
1/2 teaspoon stevia
1/4 cup honey, to taste*

Cream the cream cheese (until, according to one recipe, “fluffy”). Add the vanilla and water until you get something creamy and delightful. Then sprinkle the stevia over the surface.

Blend the stevia well, to avoid lumps. Use your rubber spatula to scrape the sides, and blend some more. Stevia isn’t like sugar, in that you can’t see it. It’s tiny.

*I have concluded that stevia makes a great base for sweet things, but it needs to be supplemented with something that tastes good. When I’m cooking with whole foods, I’ll use honey. If my tendency toward diabetes gets worse, I’ll use Xylitol, probably, though I’d be happier if I could make it at home, instead of getting it from a factory. If you’re cooking for adult hippies, you can leave out the honey, but kids, no way.

Blueberry Cream Cheese Frosting
for decorating, or for all-over

I took some blueberries I had in the freezer, and microwaved them for a few minutes.

Then, I poured about a tablespoon of juice into about 1/3 of the frosting, and blended it. I put it into a small zip-lock bag, and cut a *very small* hole in the tip so I could test my artistic skills. I need practice.

Carrot Spice Cake

Preheat the oven to 350°F
Grease (butter) and flour the pan you’ll be baking in. There’s no problem with using whole wheat flour for this. Plan on baking for about 20 minutes, but use the toothpick test to be sure it’s done. And maybe the jiggle test, too.

Combine wet ingredients:

3 eggs
3/4 cup oil (I was gonna use coconut oil, but I forgot and used canola)
3/4 cup buttermilk (I used regular milk plus a Tablespoon of vinegar)
8 oz crushed pineapple (from a can, if you like)
2 cups grated carrots (I started grating, but then decided to use my mini-chopper instead)
1/2 cup honey (see * above)

Combine dry ingredients separately

3 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon Stevia (or 2 cups sugar)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cloves
(all three spices can be increased a bit)
2 teaspoons baking soda

Blend and bake

Mix the dry ingredients very well, so that you don’t taste blobs of baking soda or blobs of stevia or blobs of spices. Then mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.

Here’s what the finished batter looks like. If you’re used to white-flour cakes or cake-mixes, this will look chunky and uneven. That’s ok. It’s just that it has food in it.

Before I put the cake in the oven, I baked this test cupcake, to see if the recipe was going to be yummy. I didn’t want to offer this cake at my kid’s party just to discover it tasted awful! I’m happy to report that it was a hit. Testers informed me that the frosting wasn’t sweet enough, and had an aftertaste, and that’s why I added the honey. After that, it was awesome.

I haven’t frosted the cake yet, so I’ll post pictures of the finished birthday cake tomorrow. before the party.

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Here’s the finished cake (cut off so you can’t read the name). Not very beautiful, but it was a huge hit! The four year olds loved it. Yay!