Our Fabled Nest

Birthdays should include something decadent right?! Even if you are a four-legged furry toddler! We love baking – yes, gluten free and peanut free are not only possible but easy to do and can be delicious! Better than that, most everything is dairy free in our cozy kitchen too! Food Network saved the day on this one and used the recipe from Ambitious Kitchen for the nutty frosting! We knew for Magda it needed to be a carby, nutty, sugary (ish) kind of layered cake. I think we found a winner!

12 servings

Cake Ingredients

• 2 1/3 cups gluten free all-purpose flour (we prefer King Arthur Gluten Free All Purpose)
• 1 Tbsp Baking Powder
• 1 cup unsweetened plain applesauce
• 6 tbsp unsalted butter (earth balance is our go to!)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2/3 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar (we used coconut sugar here but your choice!)
• 4 large eggs
• 1 tsp apple cider vinegar (it helps the cake rise)
• 2/3 cup sun butter
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup milk (our go to is silk unsweetened soy milk)

Frosting Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup sun butter
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 Tbsp milk (helps the frosting become creamy)

Instructions for Cake

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees. We used two 8-inch round pans and sprayed well with olive oil. Set aside.
• By hand, whisk butter and sun butter add applesauce, eggs, apple cider vinegar, milk and vanilla. Mix all well until creamy.
• For the dry ingredients, mix the flour, salt, both sugars and baking powder.
• Take the dry and add slowly to the wet mixture until incorporated – don’t over mix!
• Divide the batter between the two greased pans and pop in oven. Ours baked for 50 minutes but we started our timer at 30 minutes. Keep checking every 5 minutes – we are using a RV gas oven, and it behaves differently. Let cake cool completely before frosting!

Instructions for Frosting

• By hand, whisk butter, vanilla and sun butter until incorporated and fluffy. Add powdered sugar a half cup at a time until mixed. If it isn’t creamy enough add milk one tablespoon at a time until it’s the consistency you desire.

*******NOTES******* 

We only made this small amount of frosting… it was for a fur kid’s cake, and she doesn’t need a lot of frosting. If making for a human, I’d double or triple the frosting recipe!

Gluten Free flour behaves differently than regular All-Purpose Flour. If using regular flour, you may need an additional 1/4 to 1/3 cup. I would add slowly, a little at a time until you get cake batter consistency.