"Baby Cake"

For Breck's First Birthday, I wanted to find a recipe for a cake that had nutritious ingredients, no refined sugar, and that tasted great.  I scoured the internet for a recipe that I might fit and finally landed on this one (which that blogger adapted from this recipe).  I modified it slightly to make it gluten free!

I have made this recipe (sans frosting) 6 times since Breck's birthday because he loves it and WE love it!  It's a snack I feel good about serving to him, and I feel good about eating myself.  The birthday cake version inludes the cake recipe, frosting, and halved blueberries for the "one" on top.  But when I'm making it for every day eating, I just make the cake, minus the frosting!  Sometimes I add blueberries to the batter itself, which is also delicious.  The way Breck likes it most is straight from the freezer.  I cut the cake into small slivers and freeze it so that I can grab a chunk that he can hold and suck on and then eat.  It's great for teething babies who need something cold to soothe their mouths!  If you don't want to freeze it, it's also great refrigerated for up to a week.

I have only ever made this recipe using 2- 9 inch round cake pans, but I am sure you could adapt it to a 13x9 pan (and add some cooking time), or 2- 8 inch square pans.

I apologize for not having any pictures!  I have pictures of Breck with the cake that you can check out if you're friends with me on facebook, but I forgot to take any of just the cake itself!

Without further ado...

Baby's First Cake (barely adapted from FitMamaRealFood)

Cake:
5 ripe bananas
1/2 c unsweetened applesauce- sit out for a bit so it's not cold!
3 T coconut oil, melted
3 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 c gluten free flour (I have used Bob's Red Mill All Purpose Baking Flour and Namaste Foods flour with success)
3/4 c oat flour
1 tsp cinnamon

Frosting:
8 oz cream cheese (I used full fat)
1/2 c apple butter
2 tsp vanilla
1 T maple syrup (optional- I liked it because it made the frosting a little less tangy)

Decorations:
halved blueberries to make the "one" on top if you're making a first birthday cake

Directions:
Grease 2-9 inch round cake pans with coconut oil, then cut out parchment paper circles to fit the bottom of the pans and put the parchment in.  Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Mix bananas, applesauce, and melted coconut oil, and vanilla with hand blender til smooth (a few banana chunks are ok).  Add baking soda, gluten free flour, oat flour, and cinnamon and blend again til smooth.  Pour batter into pans, splitting it evenly between the pans the best you can!  At this point you can add fruit to the batter if you'd like!  (I have been adding frozen blueberries- just note that this will add some baking time).  Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until the cake is no longer jiggly in the middle.

If you are NOT making a layer cake and do NOT want frosting, just let the cake cool and then cut into pieces.  If you are going to store it in the fridge, cut pieces as big as you want.  If you are freezing it, cut it into slivers of whatever size your baby can handle!

If you are making the layer cake and/or frosting your cake, continue reading!  To make the frosting, make sure your cream cheese is at room temperature.  With a hand mixer, blend it with the apple butter, vanilla, and maple syrup.  Mine was a little chunky but tasted delicious and Breck did not care one bit!  Supposedly using room temperature cream cheese helps with this problem but it didn't for me this time.

Let the cakes cool in the pans.  If you are making a layer cake, use a bowl of whatever size you'd like as a "cookie cutter" to cut out 3 circles for the layers.  Place the first layer on a flat surface lined with a piece of parchment paper that is bigger than the cake itself (this allows for easy transfer once you want to serve it to your baby).  You will have pieces leftover after cutting the circles- just break up the rest of the cake and refrigerate or freeze the scraps!  I ended up using letter cookie cutters to cut out the first initial of Breck's baby friends' names so that they could enjoy their own cake at the party!  Then I froze the remaining pieces.

Frost the first layer, place the second layer on top, frost that, place the third layer on top, and frost the whole thing, including the sides.  Decorate with halved blueberries in the shape of a "1."



I hope your little one enjoys it as much as mine did!

*This post is dedicated to my friend Megan, who let me bake the cake for Breck's party (along with a variety of other baked goods) in her oven because mine stopped working 2 days before his party!  Her son and Breck taste tested the cake fresh from the oven and both of them gobbled it up!

Pumpkin Banana Baked Oatmeal

Pumpkin Banana Baked Oatmeal

2 T coconut oil
2 ripe bananas
15 oz. can pumpkin puree
2 eggs
1 c almond milk
2 c oats
1 c brown rice crisps or puffs
1/4 c ground flaxseed
2 T pumpkin pie spice
1/2 c raisins


Melt 2 T coconut oil in a tall, round casserole dish.  Add bananas to the dish and mash them until they are soft and almost liquid.  Add pumpkin and eggs and stir.  Add almond milk, oats, brown rice puffs, flaxseed, pumpkin pie spice, and raisins.  Stir until everything is uniformly incorporated.  Bake at 375 degrees about 30 minutes or until it doesn't jiggle when you jostle the pan around.  For a firmer oatmeal, bake longer, and for a more runny one, bake for a shorter time.  You can play around with the baking time each time you make it to get the consistency just right for you.

Green Chocolate Protein Smoothie

Ok here's one more smoothie recipe... I would have to say this is my current favorite.  I crave it every morning!  It is sweet, chocolately, and just delicious. 

Green Chocolate Protein Smoothie

1 frozen banana (I cut ripe bananas in half and freeze them for smoothie making)
2 large handfuls spinach
1 scoop (14 g) chocolate whey protein (I use Tera's Whey)
3/4-1 cup water or nut milk
1 T ground flaxseed meal
2-3 ice cubes

Process in blender until smooth.  Drink up!

Tropical Green Protein Smoothie

Another smoothie for your drinking pleasure!  This one is tropical and very refreshing.  I just can't get enough of smoothies this summer...

Tropical Green Protein Smoothie

1 frozen banana (I cut ripe bananas in half and store them in the freezer for smoothie making)
1/2-1 c frozen mixed tropical fruit (I like mango and pineapple!)
1/2 avocado
1 scoop (14 g) unflavored whey protein (or vanilla whey would be good too!)
2 huge handfuls spinach or kale
3/4-1 c water or nut milk (for a super filling and thick smoothie, you could even use canned coconut milk)
3-4 ice cubes

Place all ingredients in large blender and process until smooth.  This is too much for a magic bullet, so you'll need a full size blender to process all of the ingredients.  Makes 1 large serving.

Banana, Blueberry, and Greens Smoothie

Wow, it's been awhile!  The end of this school year was a whirlwind, but now that I'm on break from school for the summer, I think I'll be able to update the blog more frequently.  I have quite a few yummy recipes stocked up to share... so stay tuned!  

The recipe I have to share today may look absolutely disgusting, but it's incredibly delicious, healthy, and a new favorite of mine.  Lesson: don't judge a book by it's cover.  

Rem and I are currently doing a 28 day Detox that involves drinking fruit, veggie, and soaked nut smoothies for a portion of it.  Truth be told, before doing this Detox (1 week ago) I didn't think I was a huge smoothie fan.  One short week later, I am a smoothie lover.  The recipe below is my current favorite!

Banana, Blueberry and Greens Smoothie

1 frozen banana, cut in half (I freeze mine in 1/2 banana chunks)
1/2 c frozen organic blueberries
3/4 c water/milk/almond milk (*I used homemade almond milk)
2 large handfuls organic baby spinach
30 g raw organic walnuts, soaked in a covered bowl of filtered water for 4-8 hours OR 1/2 avocado

You have a few options here:
Option 1: You can throw everything in a regular blender and blend it until smooth.  I like my smoothies thick, and I actually eat them with a spoon rather than drinking them.... but if you want a thinner smoothie, add more water/milk/almond milk.  
Option 2: Put your spinach and almond milk in a single serve magic bullet and blend until smooth.  Then add the banana, blueberries, and walnuts OR avocado and continue to blend until smooth.  

Banana Bread Cookies

The first time I made these cookies I ate 3 right when they came out of the oven, and I think I've been eating about 2 a day since then.  I think I need to cut back... but hey, these are full of vitamins, minerals, and healthy fats from the bananas, eggs, and coconut, and I feel good when I eat them.  I'm going to keep buying ripe bananas so I can make them every time I run out!  Maybe eventually I'll get tired of eating them and try something new... but not yet.  I don't have much else to say here except for: these are good, you should try them.  

Banana Bread Cookies

Adapted from PaleOMG

1/4 c coconut butter (or any type of natural nut butter would probably work just as well!), warmed to a liquid state (I used Marantha Coconut Butter, which they carry at Kroger)
3 ripe bananas
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 T coconut flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
1 T cinnamon (or less if you're not a huge cinnamon fan)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. In a large microwave safe bowl, warm coconut butter in microwave on 50% setting, 30 seconds at a time until there are no more solid chunks.  (If you use nut butter, you may not need to microwave it at all).  
3. Add 3 bananas to the coconut butter and beat with electric mixer.  
4. Next, add the eggs and vanilla, beat again until smooth.  
5. Then add coconut flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.  Beat again until smooth.  
6. With large cookie scoop (1/4 c), spoon batter onto baking sheet.  (It should make 10-13 cookies).  
7. Bake 22-25 minutes or until cookies are no longer jiggly.  Let cool on wire rack.  Enjoy!  These are great right out of the oven, refrigerated, or frozen (give them a few minutes before you try to bite in).