Kid’s Gluten-free Birthday Cake plus Natural Red Food Coloring

Last weekend we had a belated second birthday party for Elijah and his friends at the downtown Fire Station in Frederick.  His birthday lands three days before Christmas so we decided to wait to have the “kid” party when people weren’t so busy.

It was great!  The firemen and women showed us around the station, we got to sit in the fire engine (best part), see a fire man get dressed in all of his gear and see inside an ambulance. We also got to witness a 911 call and an ambulance driving out of the station.

The cake:

My mom found a fire truck cake mold at a local craft store so I made the cake in the shape of a fire truck.  One of Elijah’s favorite cakes that I made over the holidays for the Just Desserts for Limited Diets e-book was the Carrot Cake with Vanilla Icing.  So I used that recipe but ended up doubling it because the pan was pretty big and said it fit a two layer cake mix.

When we took it out of the mold, it ended up looking like a rectangle with a point at one end because the fire truck imprint didn’t show up on the cake.  I realized that I was going to have to decorate it so that people could see what it was!  I guess I just hadn’t thought about this before I made the cake.

Natural Red Food Coloring:

I had already planned on using the Vanilla Frosting recipe from GNOWFGLINS.com.  I then decided to make the wheels and ladder out of raisins (since the cake has raisins in it, I thought this was a good choice).  Then, I was trying to figure out how to make red frosting without red food coloring to outline the shape of the truck.

I decided beet juice was the was to go so I sent Dave to the store.  We have a juicer so we juiced the beets to make the juice.  It didn’t take very much to turn the icing bright red-fuchsia.  My mom had a cake decorating kit that I used to outline the truck in red icing and it turned out adorable.

Here are the recipes:

FLOURLESS CARROT CAKE (I doubled this recipe for the fire truck cake)
Adapted from:  Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon
TOTAL TIME:  1 HR. 15 MIN.
MAKES 8-12 SERVINGS

Ingredients:
4       egg yolks, at room temperature
1/3 – 1/2   cup honey
grated rind of one lemon
1       tsp vanilla extract
1 1/3 cups grated carrots
1      cup almond flour or other nut flour
1/2  tsp sea salt
1      tsp cinnamon
1/2  tsp ginger, or 2 tsp fresh grated ginger
1/3  tsp nutmeg
4     egg whites, at room temperature
pinch of sea salt
1/2  cup raisins, optional
1/4 cup crispy sliced almonds, optional (I didn’t add these since I was going to frost it)

Steps:
1.  Preheat oven to 350.  Butter or oil a 9 inch spring form pan.  Beat egg yolks with honey for about 5 minutes.

2.  Blend in lemon rind, vanilla extract, carrots, almond flour, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and sea salt.  In a clean bowl, beat egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff.

3.  Fold egg yolk mixture and raisins into egg whites and pour into cake pan.  Sprinkle sliced almonds over the top of the cake (don’t do this if you’re going to use the icing).  Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.  Let cool completely before removing from pan.

VANILLA ICING
Adapted from:  http://gnowfglins.com
TOTAL TIME:   10 MIN.* MAKES 1 cup

Ingredients:
1              cup Artisana coconut butter
1/4         cup honey
1              teaspoon vanilla
4              tablespoons coconut milk, to thin
(For Chocolate icing, add 2 Tbsp. cocoa powder)

Steps:
1.  Blend all ingredients in food processor until smooth, adding the milk one tablespoon at a time. Let the food processor run long enough to gently warm and smooth the frosting, one to two minutes.

2.  Spread on cooled carrot cake.

I ended up using almost three batches of this icing to cover the cake and decorate it!

To make the Red Vanilla Icing:

To 1/2 cup icing, add 2-3 Tbsp. fresh beet juice.  You can also use the beet juice in place of the milk to thin the icing.  If icing gets too thin, place in the fridge for 10 minutes.  It will harden as it cools so keep an eye on it so it doesn’t get too hard.  Then use a cake piping tool to decorate the cake or just frost the red icing onto cake.

Enjoy!  I hope to get the picture up soon!