My goodness I knew I was getting behind on things when I went through my pictures on the camera and found some from The Boy’s 8th birthday! It was only a few months ago, but it seems like ages!

Since The Man and I were on a paleo-ish diet for 4 weeks (oops, I owe an update on that too :D), I wanted to make a cake that we could all eat. That was a bit of a mistake. Because the end result was so good I ended up eating too much of it. ‘Cuz it was “healthy” right? Hah, I should have just made it unhealthy, had my one piece and been done with it.

8th birthday cake edit

To the cake’s credit, it WAS delicious! And I learned a LOT about GF / paleo baking. Like coconut flour cake is not going to turn out like cake. More like a vanilla, coconut granola bar. Still good, but definitely not cake.

  1. Coconut oil tastes good in EVERYTHING. So good I can see why people like to eat it. By the spoonful. I may have done this also….just sayin’ :D
  2. It’s a lot easier and cheaper to just buy a gluten free cake mix. But you know me, I have to try it from scratch a few times, I just can’t go straight to a mix without making the attempt! Hmm, maybe that’s why our grocery bills were so high in the past….. Confession – I ran out of ingredients and had to buy a gluten-free cake mix after my vanilla cake attempt failed. So half the cake was scratch, the other half a box mix :D
  3. Gluten-free cake tastes best immediately after it’s been baked. The next day it’s pretty stale. BUT…..
  4. When in doubt, drown it in chocolate :D

In case you are interested in making a gluten free/paleo cake mix from scratch, I’ll share the recipe that I used and the modifications that I made. If you try it let me know how it turned out!

Ingredients

Cake Base

  • 1 1/2 cup almond flour
  • 1 1/2 cup cocoa
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 3/4 teaspoons salt
  • 3/4 cups coconut oil
  • 6 eggs
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1/2 cup honey

Filling

  • 1 1/2 cup heavy cream or coconut cream (skimmed from the top of an unshaken can of coconut milk)
  • 1/3 cup chocolate chips

Ganache

  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 8 tablespoons butter or coconut oil
  • 8oz unsweetened chocolate squares
  • 1/2 cup chocolate chips
  • 1-2 tablespoon honey

Directions

Cake Base

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 2 square cake pans with coconut oil and line with parchment paper.
  • Combine dry ingredients with a spoon in a medium size bowl and set aside.
  • Whisk wet ingredients together.
  • Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and fold just until combined.
  • Pour mixture into prepared cake pans and bake for 25-30 minutes.
  • Cool for 5 minutes then remove from pan and cool completely.

Filling

  • Melt the chocolate chips in a double boiler over medium heat.
  • Beat the cream until fairly stiff. (Coconut cream may not get as stiff, but that’s ok!)
  • Add melted chocolate and give another quick whip, scraping down the sides and whipping until combined.

Ganache

  • Melt the butter/coconut oil, unsweetened chocolate and chocolate chips in a double boiler over simmering water.
  • Once melted, stir in the honey then turn off the heat.
  • Remove the bowl from the heat and allow to cool to room temperature. This takes a bit of patience! Stir every so often so it doesn’t get too hard. You want it cool and still a liquid so you can pour it over the cake! This may take up to an hour, so plan ahead.
  • Once cooled, layer the cakes with the filling between. Do a crumb coat on the outside of the cake.
  • Pour the room temp, thickened ganache over the top of the cake. Don’t panic. It will be a bit runny and you might have a hard time getting it to stick in spots. But wait until it hardens a little if necessary and add some more over the patchy areas.

ganache covered cake

After I poured on the ganache, I started to panic. Yeah, it was dripping down the sides and I was supposed to be sticking the NON-GF/Paleo part of the cake to this liquidy goop?!? The Man stepped in to encourage and cheer me on, and I proceeded with my plan anyway. And it worked!

Ganache is truly amazing, so don’t panic and freak out like I did. It might be a bit messy as an icing alternative, but it WILL firm up!

fudgeo towers

I used stacks of Fudgeos, stuck together with peanut butter for the “towers”. Kit-Kats (yes, I know, NOT gluten-free :D) were the castle turrets, draw-bridge and other details, while chocolate bar pieces acted as the castle’s stone walls. I ran out of chocolate bars, so the back didn’t get finished :D

kit kats and chocolate galore

This wasn’t the prettiest cake creation, but The Boy was THRILLED! His face says it all!

thrilled birthday boy

And it was DELICIOUS! Perhaps a little too much so as I DEFINITELY ate leftovers the remainder of the week :D Oh well!