A recipe for free-from birthday cake (…and maybe motherhood).

Standing at the sink doing the mountain of washing up (valuable insight into my glamorous life there), I was thinking about what to write to mark Freya’s second birthday.

The trouble was, every sentence that popped into my head sounded clichéd – and while I actually don’t know how she can be two already and she is growing up too fast, they just skim the surface of what I really want to  say.

For her first birthday I wrote a pretty angsty post about surviving a year of reflux/sleep deprivation. I was definitely still struggling with the fact that her first months weren’t the glorious introduction to motherhood I had been expecting.

While this year has also had its challenges, particularly from a (lack of) sleep point of view and the remaining simmering anger at not being able to make her better, I feel like I might have embraced  Elsa’s life philosophy (maybe because I have heard it approximately 50,000 times) and just Let It Go a bit more, which has led to much more merriment.

As I attempted to scrub blue food colouring off EVERYTHING, my thoughts turned back to the cake I had just made her.

“That, right there, is a good metaphor for our journey so far,” I thought.

When she asked for a Frozen cake and the idea of making it myself popped into my head I said: “I’ve got this. I can totally make a cake.” But as soon as I started to get into it I was more: “Woah, no I can’t. No way can I do this. HELP!”

Exactly the same as becoming a mum.

Then I tried many many different recipes – some better than others.

I worried. Made a mistake or two (or fifteen). Worried some more but eventually I muddled through. While the finished cake might not be the most amazing one in the world, I tried my best and Freya loved it and that’s what counts the most.

Hello last two years.

So, while I clearly can’t offer any great insight into parenting, even two years down the road, thanks to extensive testing I can provide a pretty kick-ass couple of free-from cake recipes.

For her actual cake I eventually settled on this recipe from Muddling Along Mummy but using Doves Farm gluten free flour, Vitalite and  icing sugar butter cream (made with Vitalite) instead of the jam filling. I made three tiers and added blue food colouring for the ice. I then used roll out icing to cover it. I can’t take much credit for the decoration either as I got the idea for the bunting from Pinterest. The castle (yes, that’s what it is supposed to be) was all my own work. Everyone who ate it said how nice and light it was.

If your child can’t have eggs, I also recommend this vegan one from the Doves Farm site (my version pictured above). Instead of the banana I just added more water. It came out a bit crispy on top but was actually really nice. My dad really liked this one.