A Birthday Cake: 9 Year Old Boy Style

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It seems I have gotten into a ritual of birthday cake sculpture for my kids. I have always tried to do something in keeping with whatever their current obsession happens to be. (Ninjago, in the case of my 9 year old son this year). When I began this I only had one little baby. And making one little fancy cake each year didn’t seem especially onerous... Now I have 4 kids (who insist on having a birthday every year), and they are much more confident in my cake architecture skills than I am.

It’s kind of a labour of love... My ‘thing’, if you will. But the trouble is, I’m never quite certain (until after) that I can pull it off! And I’d hate to disappoint the birthday kid...

This topic came up with my sister Karen a few weeks ago, and she said ‘Enjoy it, my boys don’t want fancy cakes anymore!’. So remembering this, I tested the waters with Jamen last week. It went something like this:
Me: ‘Jamen, are you over fancy cakes? Some kids get sick of fancy ones when they get older.’
Jamen: ‘No I’m not sick of them. I want a fancy cake!’
Me (a little later, showing him an example on google images of the theme I was thinking of): ‘What do you think of this?’
Jamen: ‘Oh. That’s ok. ...But you can do better than that Mom!’
Me: Sigh...

So instead of being off the hook, I was kind of committed to another behemoth cake feat.

No, I have never studied psychology. Why do you ask?

Admittedly, the birthday cake process was easier before we decided to quit sugar. There are all those handy cake packet mixes and tubs of ready-made frosting available! And if that seems too hard, one can BUY cakes that are already made and decorated!

None of them are fructose free though.

So these days of course, one has to do the entire thing from scratch. Which is fine. I do take some pride in that... And besides, I have got a preference for edible cakes wherever possible. (As opposed to many of the bought ones which are made of styrofoam and covered in so many cubic meters of icing that you can barely eat them.)

I wasn’t actually planning on blogging this recipe yet, but feedback from the party-going, cake-eating participants was super positive, so even though this recipe has not been tweaked quite to my satisfaction, I have decided to share...

It is completely fructose free except for the black licorice strap (which nobody in our family eats anyway) and the silver cachous I used for the decorations.

Yellow Layer Cake
I have made heaps of changes, but this recipe is adapted from this one.

Ingredients

4 1/4 cup (520gr) cake flour (you can make your own: 3/4c plain/all purpose flour + 1/4c corn flour/starch make 1 cup of cake flour)
2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp bicarb soda/baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp stevia
1 cup (250gr) softened unsalted butter
1/3 cup glucose syrup
1/2 cup rice malt syrup
2 tsp vanilla
4 eggs
1 1/2 cup buttermilk ...shake well before measuring (you can make your own - see note below)

Even Better Buttercream Icing

1 cup (250 gr) unsalted butter
3 cups icing dextrose (see note below about how to make this)
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup sour cream
pinch of stevia (to taste)

Directions

1. Cream butter and dextrose together till very pale. Add glucose syrup, rice malt syrup, and vanilla. Beat till combined.
2. Add eggs one at a time, beating well and scraping down sides of bowl between each one.
3. Add buttermilk, beat till just combined (it should look curdled not smooth)
4. Sift flour, baking powder, bicarb soda, salt and stevia together in a separate bowl, whisking to make sure they are well combined.
5. Add 1/3 of flour mixture at a time, gently beating till just combined (you want to beat the flour as little as possible to keep the cake tender).
6. Place batter into a cake tin (or tins) lined with baking/parchment paper (or grease and flour the tin). I used one large square tin (25x25cm/10x10 inch) so I could cut it up into the shapes needed for a Lego Ninjago man. But this recipe would be even better made into two 23cm/9in round or 20cm/8in square layers. Rap the tin onto the bench a few times to force the bubbles out.
7. Bake at 160C (320F) for approx 45-50 mins (less if making 2 layers! Try 35-40 mins). Turn half way through baking if your oven bakes unevenly. Bake till a skewer comes out clean when poked into the centre of the cake.

Even Better Buttercream Icing

1. Beat butter until very pale.
2. Add icing dextrose 1/4 cup at a time, beating between each addition (this makes it thicken with less dextrose needed)
3. Add vanilla, stevia and sour cream. Beat until smooth.

Notes:

Icing dextrose: Add the dextrose to a food processor or blender and pulse/blend till very, very fine (like icing sugar!). You will need to stir it a few times, but let it settle before taking the lid off or you will have clouds of powdered dextrose floating around your kitchen! I like to blend a whole packet of dextrose at a time, and keep it in a container ready for the next icing episode.

Buttermilk: To make one cup of buttermilk, measure slightly less than one cup of milk. Add 1 Tbsp (20 ml) of lemon juice or vinegar. Wait 5 minutes then stir. Voila!

The Cinnamon Bun Rescue

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When I was a little girl my Mom would bake bread every so often. It was an all day project yielding dozens of loaves, most of which were destined for the big chest freezer, and from there, loaf by loaf to our lunch boxes. She usually did this when my sisters and I were at school. I loved Bread Baking Day because the last lump of dough was always made into cinnamon buns, and thoughtfully timed so that they were coming out of the oven (smelling utterly divine) just as we girls walked in the door after school. Thusly began my long, affectionate, decadent (and sometimes rocky) relationship with cinnamon buns. All would be smooth sailing, I’m sure, if only they were healthier.

 Sigh... The carbs! The butter! The sugar!

...Well it seems that nothing can be done about the carb guilts. But ah! ...the sugar guilts can easily be done away with now, armed as we are with some new knowledge and having done some recipe trials. And as a bonus, the said new knowledge also kindly lifts the butter guilts - it turns out that there’s hardly anything healthier than good old delicious butter! (Yes, veggies, I know, but they have no place in this paragraph, so shh). Two guilts down, one to go.

And we are back to just carb guilts. Happily though, I can handle that once in a while.

 This is one of those whiles.

Of all the cinnamon bun recipes I’ve tried I like this one best. Most home baked cinnamon buns need to be eaten pretty quick or they dry out (full sugar or fructose-free, it makes no difference). But these stay nice and soft and seem freshly baked a day later (I can bring out witnesses to this phenomenon if you don’t believe me!). This recipe saves sweetening the buns until we drizzle them with glaze icing just before serving, so they stay soft (instead of letting the dextrose sit all over them, sneakily drawing the moisture out while we wait to indulge).

Of course they tend to do a quick disappearing act right after leaving the oven. But theoretically, it’s possible to surprise everyone in the house with fresh cinnamon buns some Saturday morning (and not have to get up at 4am in order to do so). If you want to bake now and serve later, this is your recipe. They are quite delicious now though, so good luck with that.

Cinnamon Buns

This recipe is adapted from the King Arthur Flour one and makes 18 buns

Dough

3 1/2 cups (420 gr) bakers flour (plain/all purpose flour will work too if you haven't got that)
2 tsp instant yeast
2 Tbsp (20 gr) (I use a 20 ml tbsp not 15 ml!)potato flour (or 1/4 cup instant mashed potato flakes)
2 Tbsp (20 gr) milk powder (dry milk)
3 Tbsp (35 gr) dextrose
1 1/2 tsp salt
4 Tbsp (60 gr) softened butter
2/3 cup (150 gr) lukewarm water
1/2 cup (115 gr) lukewarm milk

Filling

1 Tbsp cinnamon (20 ml)

Topping

2 Tbsp melted butter

Cinnamon Glaze Icing
1/4 cup (60 gr) cream cheese
2 Tbsp cream
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 cup dextrose

Instructions

Oven temp 160C (320F)

1. Add all of the dough ingredients to a large bowl, mix and knead. You can use your hands, a mixer with a dough attachment, or bread machine with dough setting (I use my thermomix).
2. When the dough is smooth and soft, shape it into a ball, and put it in a greased bowl. Cover the bowl, leave it in a warm place and let it rise for about 90 minutes (or till doubled in size).
3. Gently punch the dough down, and place it on a lightly greased surface.
4. Roll the dough out into a rectangle shape about 30cm (12in) by 46cm (18in). Sprinkle all over with cinnamon (I like to use a small sieve).
5. Starting from the long side, roll the dough up into a long log and pinch the edges together to seal. You can stretch the log a bit if the dough has 'shrunk' during rolling.
6. Using a ruler or tape measure, make a knife mark on the log at 2.5cm (1 in) intervals. Cut the dough into rolls using your marks to make them even. The easiest, neatest way is to use dental floss for this. Slip a string of floss under the log, bring the ends together over one of your marks and pull tight till the floss cuts right through.
7. Place the cut rolls into a greased baking pan, spacing them evenly apart. I use a 33x23x5cm (13x9x2in) ceramic baking dish, but you could use two smaller ones, or whatever other convenient pans you have on hand.
8. Let the buns rise until they are all puffy and cozily crowded together, about 90 minutes.
9. Bake at 160C (320F) for 20-24 minutes, turning half way through (unless your oven bakes more evenly than mine). They should look golden brown, and spring back when gently touched in the center.
10. Brush the buns with melted butter (I like salted butter for this). Let them cool slightly (if you can resist that long).

Cinnamon Glaze Icing
1. Add cream cheese, cream, cinnamon, and dextrose to a small saucepan, heat on medium until the cream cheese melts and the dextrose dissolves. I use a stick blender to help blend the last few stubborn bits of cream cheese in, but a whisk will work too.
2. Separate buns and spoon cinnamon glaze icing over them (letting a little bit drip deliciously down the sides to pool on the plate ready to be mopped up by the non-iced inside bits...) And serve. Savour or devour at your preference (I savour, Lincoln devours).

If you want to serve them later...
1. Brush with melted butter, let cool, then cover tightly with plastic wrap. Or freeze in foil. Just before serving, heat in oven at 200C (350F) for 10 minutes (a bit longer if frozen).
2. Serve with glaze, amazing all and sundry with your fresh homemade cinnamon buns (that appear to have been whipped up in a few minutes with magician-like kitchen prowess).

Introducing: A Moist Vanilla Cupcake

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You know those times when you find yourself sitting in a comfy chair, gazing off into space thinking warm fuzzy thoughts and daydreaming of a moist, tender cupcake that melts in your mouth? No? Oh well, maybe that’s just me...

Sadly though, I was woefully disappointed the first few times I made fructose free cupcakes in honour of such times. I don’t mean to sound melodramatic, but they really were such dense little, dry, crumbly affairs. And to top it all off (literally) the icing was gritty. That's dextrose for you... it doesn't dissolve the way sugar does, and I've learned since those early attempts that you need to pulverize it in a food processor (or similar, a blender will work too), and make it into 'icing dextrose' first. But as I was saying...

...My family was quite polite about these baking efforts, which were more or less edible when consumed immediately after baking. Lincoln was willing to choke one or two down like a man (probably considering it a marital obligation). But there were always plenty of leftovers. Unheard of! Then, left to their own devices for a few hours, they magically transformed themselves into medium density particle board. So. Very. Far. from the moist melty cupcake of my daydream. A.K.A: the full fructose Betty Crocker packet mix of a previous sugar-consuming existence. Yes. A packet mix was once the secret to my cupcake fame... one with a sachet of ready made frosting. (That’s a little embarrassing, to be honest...)

One can’t just resign herself to a cupcake-less existence though. Especially these days when they are enjoying such a moment in the trendy dessert spotlight! I was (and still am!) quite determined not to make our fructose free choice feel like deprivation.

So with much recipe tweaking and many cake tragedies, I finally arrived at a fluffy moist result that is just as good as Betty Crocker. Even better, since a ‘from scratch’ recipe doesn’t feel like cheating. Certainly better for us, with no unpronounceable ingredients.

And even better still, these cupcakes will still be moist and lovely a couple of days after they are baked.

Moist Vanilla Cupcakes

This recipe makes a dozen.

1/4 c (60gr) softened butter
1/4 c (45 gr) dextrose
1/4 c (80 gr) glucose syrup
1/2 c (150 gr) rice malt syrup
2 Tbsp (20ml Tbsp not 15!) macadamia oil (or other mild oil)
1/2 c (100 gr) buttermilk (or sour milk - add 2 tsp lemon juice or vinegar to 1/2 c milk and wait 5 minutes)
1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste (real vanilla bean is great too - or just use vanilla extract)
2 eggs
1/4 tsp pure non-bitter stevia powder
1 3/4 c plain flour (all purpose flour)
1/4 c corn flour (also called corn starch)
1 Tbsp (20 ml Tbsp not 15!) baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

1. Cream butter and dextrose until it turns very pale.
2. Add glucose syrup, rice malt syrup, oil, buttermilk, vanilla, eggs, stevia and salt. Blend until well combined and smooth.
3. Sift flour, corn flour and baking powder together. Mix well with a wire whisk or fork.
4. Add 1/2 of the flour to the batter. Stir very gently (not till smooth, just a few stirs) Add the rest of the flour. Stir gently again.
5. Beat for just a few seconds until smooth - the trick for a tender cupcake is not to beat the flour too much (or the gluten develops and makes it tough).
6. Pour batter into a 12 hole cupcake tin lined with papers.
7. Bake at 150C (300F) for 18 - 20 minutes, turning half way through (unless your oven bakes much more evenly than mine)
8. Let cool, then ice and devour.


Vanilla Butter Creamcheese Icing
(I am still perfecting this, but this version is pretty good)

1/3 c (70 gr) softened butter
1/3 c (70 gr) softened cream cheese
1/4 tsp vanilla
1 c (150 gr) icing dextrose (see note below about how to do this)
Pinch of stevia powder (1/16 tsp)

1. Blend butter, cream cheese and vanilla together.
2. Add icing dextrose and blend until very smooth.
3. Pipe or spread onto cupcakes (or just eat it with a spoon if nobody is looking)

Note: To make icing dextrose, add the dextrose to a food processor or blender and pulse/blend till very, very fine (ummm, like icing sugar!). You will need to stir it a few times, but let it settle before taking the lid off or you will have clouds of powdered dextrose floating around your kitchen! I like to blend a whole packet of dextrose at a time, and keep it in a container ready for the next icing episode.

A Gingersnap With Snap

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What is it about Christmas and ginger? They kind of seem to go hand in hand somehow. Almost as cozy as a romance. Well maybe not, but anyway, it’s only a week out from Christmas day... which we are going to be spending with Lincoln’s (my husband’s) family, most of whom still cook with sugar. I can’t quite imagine Christmas without some sort of sweet ginger-y, spice infused confection. A whole line-up of them would be nice, really.

I have always enjoyed supplying plenty of baking when we all get together at Christmas time. But these days even more so, because if I do then we fructose-free weirdos can have some treats too, and not feel deprived. (No, enlightened, not weird!) And so today I find myself contemplating my next flurry of kitchen activity with a ginger theme.

I have got some gingerbread man dough chilling in the fridge which needs rolling out, and cookie-cuttering. But that’s very messy, and we have visitors coming tomorrow morning (I don’t need to go into any more detail than that in my reasoning against the gingerbread man process today, do I?)

All up I kind of feel like a less arduous act of ginger-ish-ness. It’s mid-afternoon, and I’m feeling lazy. Plus I have a friend or two who are interested in my crunchy gingersnaps. And the longer I prattle on about it in a blog post, justifying my rationale, the longer I can sit on the couch with my coffee procrastinating...

Nevermind. They are easy, once you get into the kitchen!

*Aack! I have just corrected a typo in the Glucose syrup amount below. Hope nobody made these before I picked that up... My apologies if you did!

Crunchy Gingersnaps

This recipe makes heaps of gingersnaps!

1 c (200 gr) Butter
1 1/3 c (380 gr) Glucose syrup
1/2 tsp pure 'non-bitter' Stevia powder (NuNaturals brand if possible. Stevia's are not all equal, some are horrible.)
1/2 tsp Salt
2 tsp Bicarb Soda (Baking Soda)
1 tsp Cinnamon
1 Tbsp Ginger powder (I use a 20 ml Aussie tbsp. The North American tbsp is 15 ml so add an extra tsp if your spoon is a 15 ml!)
2 1/2 c Flour
1/4 c Dextrose (for rolling dough balls through to coat before baking)


1. Add butter, glucose syrup, stevia, salt, bicarb soda, cinnamon and ginger to a large mixing bowl. Beat till very pale.
2. Add flour. Beat. This mixture is quite thick, so if your beaters aren't powerful, you might want to mix by hand and save them from the effort...
3. Shape dough into small balls, about 1 1/2 - 2 cm, and roll through dextrose to coat.
4. Place on baking tray leaving plenty of space for spreading! These spread a lot! (One of the photos above shows the size of a dough ball compared with the baked gingersnap to show how much they spread.)
5. Bake at 150C (300F) for 16-18 minutes turning half way through - unless your oven bakes evenly without doing so.

Thermomix method


1. Add butter, glucose syrup, stevia, salt, bicarb soda, cinnamon and ginger to Thermomix bowl.
2. Beat on speed 3 for 20 seconds, scrape sides down with spatula then beat again for another few seconds.
3. Add flour. Beat at speed 3 for 20 seconds or until well combined.
4. Shape dough into small balls, about 1 1/2 - 2 cm, and roll through dextrose to coat.
5. Place on baking tray leaving plenty of space for spreading! These spread a lot! (One of the photos above shows the size of a dough ball compared with the baked gingersnap to show how much they spread.)
6. Bake at 150C (300F) for 16-18 minutes turning half way through - unless your oven bakes evenly without doing so.


This makes a great dunking cookie, if you are into that! Perfect with tea, coffee or a glass of cold milk...

A Snickerdoodle Story

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So today is all about my love affair with the delightful Snickerdoodle cookie.  (Such an odd name!) I have an aunt who used to always make them at Christmas time, and I always loved their cinnamon-y deliciousness. I find Christmas quite a suitable time for nostalgia of all sorts, so this week seemed a perfect time to tackle Snickerdoodles.

I had a lot of trouble with my cookies after we stopped using sugar. They just wouldn’t go crispy! I honestly have nothing against a good soft cookie, in it’s place, but not when the gingersnaps were gingerdroops. The flavour was still yummy, but it was so annoying that I actually stopped making cookies for nearly a year. Yes. Almost a year with no cookies. My poor children... The Snickerdoodles are not a really crunchy cookie - they are crunchy on the outside, and soft in the middle. And if you leave them out in humidity they go soft, so store them in an airtight container as soon as they cool. And of course, you can leave them in the oven for a few extra minutes to give them a little extra crunch. But watch carefully if you do... don't burn them!

See, dextrose, which is the main alternative to sugar advocated by the fructose-free gurus, really is a tasty bit of business. But it works very differently in baking. My baking results were all over the place when I tried to use my normal recipes and just replace sugar with dextrose. They all burned quickly, cookies didn’t get crispy, cakes were dry, and then if I did manage to get an edible result we had to polish it off within a couple of hours before it spontaneously turned into sawdust. They just went stale and hard so annoyingly fast. Grrr. I much prefer making things a day (or two) ahead of parties and the like, so that I can be cool, calm and collected on the day. As opposed to running around like a madwoman at the last moment. Not pretty. Really. And my family prefers not to have the madwoman put in an appearance either.

So I started making notes every time I made something. Each time I baked, I’d tweak the recipe and make notes about the result. Then later, some suggestions for further changes. And eventually I came up with a very snappy gingersnap! And in time, a cupcake that was moist and tender - even two days after being baked!

But I digress... today will be an ode to the Snickerdoodle. Just in time for Christmas.

Snickerdoodle Cookies

This recipe makes 5 dozen cookies

1 cup (160 gr) dextrose (you can find this in the brewing section at the supermarket.)
1/2 cup (160 gr) glucose syrup (this stuff is much easier to weigh than measure. It's very sticky!)
1/4 tsp pure 'good tasting' stevia powder (NuNaturals brand if possible. Stevia's are not all equal, some are horribly bitter.)
1/2 cup (125 gr) lard
1/4 cup (65 gr) butter
2 eggs
1/4 tsp salt
2 3/4 cups (420 gr) self raising flour (or use plain flour plus 3 tsps baking powder)

Mixture for rolling dough balls through:

1/4 c dextrose
2 tsp cinnamon

1. Add dextrose, glucose syrup, stevia, lard, butter, eggs, and salt to a medium mixing bowl. Beat.
2. Beat in flour
3. Shape dough into 2 cm balls
4. In a small bowl combine cinnamon and dextrose mixture.
5. Roll dough balls through cinnamon mixture
6. Place on ungreased cookie sheet
7. Bake at 160C for 12-15 minutes, turning half way through (unless you have a fabulous oven that bakes things evenly)

THERMOMIX method:

1. Add everything except flour to thermomix bowl, mix on 3 for 15 seconds.
2. Add flour, combine slightly with spatula (I like a stiff narrow silicon one for this rather than the thermomix one)
3. Set to lid closed, and interval setting for 15-20 seconds (till it looks combined).
4. Shape and coat dough balls as explained above.


Enjoy!