GF and Dairy Free Birthday Cake

We recently had two birthdays in my family. Since I'm both dairy-free and gluten-free, I adapted a recipe I found elsewhere on the Internet to make this birthday cake edible for me. Everyone in the family loved it!

You know how birthday cakes will sometimes sit around for a week before they get eaten? Well not this one. I think it took about 24 hours and that cake was GONE like the wind!

So here it is:

Ingredients:
1 c. white rice flour
1/2 c. potato starch flour
3/4 c. tapioca flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
3 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. xanthan gum
4 eggs
1 1/4 c. white sugar
2/3 c. mayonnaise
1 c. soy milk
2 tsp. gluten-free vanilla extract

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and rice flour two 3-inch round cake pans.
2. Mix the white rice flour, tapioca flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and xanthan gum together and set these aside.
3. Mix the eggs, sugar, and mayo in a mixer until they get fluffy (like meringue). Then add milk, vanilla, and flour mixture.
4. Spread the batter into the pans you greased and floured.
5. Bake cakes at 350 degrees F for 25 minutes. Use the standard "toothpick test" to decide if they're done. Higher altitudes usually require longer baking times.

I like to stick my cakes in the freezer before frosting them. At the very least, refrigerate them. They hold together better that way. (It prevents them from crumbling as much when you're frosting them.)

Betty Crocker now labels their frostings GF when they're gluten free, but if you're dairy free too (like me), then you need to watch out for dairy ingredients in frostings.

What about cake toppers and decorations? Check out party stores for cake toppers that are inedible (to avoid gluten). I've found a lot of the cake toppers at our party store come from outside the country, and therefore, they don't have to conform to our labeling requirements here in the US. I made the little flowers you see in this picture, using a simple cookie-decorating frosting press. I've provided a link to that tool on Amazon, so you know what to look for in your stores. They're usually found in the area of your grocery store where you can buy aluminum pie pans and measuring cups.

But what about toys and other plastic cake toppers for little children's cakes? I once went to a bakery and asked if I could purchase toy-like cake toppers from them, explaining that our family had food allergies and couldn't order their cakes anyway. Under the circumstances, they were very nice about selling us just the cake toppers. I hope you have just as much luck!