Birthday Time!

Right after my last post, I suddenly remembered I said I would blog about the birthday cake I made for Lily’s first birthday, so here it is!

Note: I just made a single layer cake for her because I wanted to keep it simple and not have too many leftovers as we just had a small birthday party gathering. The recipe below is the original recipe I based mine off of for a double layer cake. To make it single, just halve all ingredients.

Lily's First Birthday Cake (adapted from “What to Expect When You’re Expecting”)

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups thinly sliced carrots

1 cup apple juice concentrate

1 1/2 cups raisins

Vegetable spray, shortening or butter

2 cups whole-wheat flour

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 whole eggs

4 egg whites

1 tbsp vanilla extract

3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

1/2 cup wheat germ

2 tbsp low sodium baking powder

1 tbsp ground cinnamon

Prep: Preheat oven to 350 F. Line two 9” square cake pans with waxed paper and spray the paper with vegetable spray/shortening.

Combine the carrots with the juice concentrate in a medium size saucepan.

Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer, covered, until carrots are tender, 15 to 20 mins. Puree in a blender of food processor until smooth.

Add the raisins and process until finely chopped. Let mixture cool. Combine the flour, wheat germ, baking powder, and cinnamon in a large mixing bowl. Add the oil, eggs, egg whites, and vanilla; beat just until well mixed. Fold in the carrot puree and applesauce. Pour the batter into the prepared cake pans.

Bake until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean, 35 to 40 mins. Cool briefly in the pans, then turn out onto wire racks to cool completely. When cool, frost with Cream Cheese Frosting below or sprinkle a bit of powdered sugar if desired.

Frosting

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened

1 cup white sugar

1/8 tspn salt

1 tspn vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

Directions

In a large bowl, beat cream cheese, sugar, salt and vanilla until smooth. In a small bowl, whip the heavy cream until stiff peaks form. Fold into the cream cheese mixture.

For the colored frosting we (Grandma and I) added vegetable-based food coloring and powdered sugar to the cream cheese frosting. Grandma decorated and I added shredded coconut to the sides.

 

The frosting came out especially well, and the cake was tasty and moist. Not bad for my first cake, although I did make two test cakes prior. The first one was way too wet because the original recipe said to add a cup of apple juice to the actual batter as well. So, for the second cake I didn’t do that and it came out perfectly. If you try making this cake and think the batter is too dry for any reason, add some apple juice to it gradually to get desired consistency.

Also, I came across this recipe from WholesomeBabyFood.com for a banana glaze that sounds really good if you’d rather not use dairy or any frosting. I didn’t try it, but here is the recipe below.

Banana Glaze

1/2 med. banana

1 tsp lemon juice

1/2 cup chopped nuts optional

2 or more cup powdered sugar

Mash banana well then add lemon juice and nuts. Gradually add powdered sugar until you obtain right spreading consistency. Ice cake after completely cool.

And I don’t mean to direct you to another site, but WholesomeBabyFood.com is a wealth of information on how to feed your baby and great recipes. I refer to it quite often.

Aside from the cake being yummy and everyone enjoying it, the party was a success. We had about 20 guests and a variety of hors d’oeurves were served including tortilla chips, hummus, veggie dip, carrot sticks and baby cookies. Lily looked super cute in the outfit I got her for her special day with matching custom-made headband, and she got a lot of great gifts, although I was the one who opened them all. She also got a lot of playtime in with her cousin Rhys which was really sweet.

The only downside was that it took us about three days to fully recover from all the madness and cleaning and having to get Lily re-introduced to her routine. Then once that happened, I got the flu, and then Lily got a resurgence of roseola. It was not a pleasant week. But, we are all good now and Lily is walking around all over and getting into everything. So, I’m exhausted again. Sigh. But, she sure is fun to watch :) 

Enjoying her cake?