Sugar Free Birthday Cake and Frosting!

Cakes are an essential to celebrating a birthday, however when you live with Diabetes, it can become quite frustrating when you realize that no one out there ever considered making a sugar-free cake.
So, it takes a loving mother (or a loving spouse) to make it homemade!

Unfortuntately, it is easier said than done.  As mentioned in the previous post Baking 101 à la Sugar-Free,   making a fully sugar-free cake can leave you and birthday boy a bit disappointed with the taste texture and even look of the cake.

Fortunately I have finally found the closest Birthday Cake recipe that still tastes great, has a fluffier texture, and with some fancy frosting (also Sugar-Free) looks great!


Vanilla Cake


Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup safflower oil 
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 cup Splenda sweetner
• 1 cup buttermilk (alternatively 1 cup milk with some lemon juice)
• 1 1/4 cup flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 cup warm water

Instructions:

• Heat oven to 350F (180C)
• In the first bowl, whisk oil, egg, vanilla, sugar, and sweetner until fully dissolved and homogenous 
• Whisk in the buttermilk
• In a second bowl, combine flour, baking soda and powder. 
• Cup at a time, add dry ingredients to the wet ingredient bowl and whisk until smooth
• Add warm water and continue whisking
• Pour batter into the mold/cake pan and tap it to remove any bubbles
• Bake for 18 - 20 minutes or until center is cooked
• Cool before frosting

Vanilla Orange Frosting

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cup Cool Whip (sugar-free)
• 1/4 cup Splenda
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1-2 tsp icing sugar
• Zest of an orange (optional)
• Food coloring (as desired)

Instructions:

• Fold in ingredients to the cool whip
• Keep chilled or else it starts to dissolve

**I tried this without the icing sugar, but the consistency was a bit like a foam spray (bubbles and all) and so the small amount of sugar made it into a shiny smoother cream. (Compare the Cowboy's pants to his shirt)

Here is an example of this recipe made for two boy's birthday cake.  For some reason (I want to blame my oven), the cake layers came out a bit lopsided. Fortuntately I had enough frosting to hide all imperfections.  Everyone present was happily surprised when I told them (after their initial bites) that the cake was actually made with Splenda and not sugar!