Thursday, October 17, 2013

Radically Natural Recipe: GAPS Vanilla Fig Birthday Cake

The first week of October was my birthday, and my wonderful, number one son created this beautiful and delicious cake as a surprise gift.  It was scrumptious, and not just because my son baked it for me.  Here to share his recipe is my guest blogger, Caleb, 13:

The morning of my mother's birthday, I realized that I had not made a gift, gotten a card, or even baked a cake.  There was an idea!  Baking a cake was right there on the list of things I could do without help.  I got out the KitchenAid mixer, found a recipe, and started to bake.

Caleb's Gaps Vanilla Fig Cake

Preheat oven to 350º F
Melt 1/3 cup of butter.
Add 1/2 cup of raw honey to the melted butter.
Stir the melted honey and Butter well.

In the mixer, Beat 6 eggs.
Add in the honey/butter mixture.
Then add 1/4 tsp of salt and 1 Tbsp of pure vanilla extract.
Mix all ingredients well.

Add 1/2 cup of coconut flour and mix thoroughly.
Gently fold about 1 to 1 1/2 cups of chopped fresh (or dried) figs into the batter.
If the batter is too thin, add a little more coconut flour; it can't be too thin, it can't be too thick.

Pour batter into your muffin tins or cake pans.  (I use silicone muffin and cake pans. If you don't have silicone, I would suggest putting parchment paper in, or greasing with a lot of coconut oil or butter.)

Bake for 20 to 30 minutes or until a knife blade or toothpick comes out clean.

Vanilla Icing
Beat three room-temperature egg whites until foamy, or until soft peaks form.
Boil 1/2 cup of honey until it reaches the hard ball stage.
While beating the egg whites, add the boiling honey.


I really love this recipe.  I encourage you to play around with the spices.  Add some ginger, or cinnamon, or go for a spice cake with all the above and allspice and cloves!  The fun of baking never really ends.  When I was done with the cake, I cleaned up the whole kitchen so that it looked the same as before.  (I even faked some dirty dishes in the sink to make it really authentic!)  My little sister was so eager to eat the cake, she spilled the beans.  Mom was delighted nonetheless.  I love being in the kitchen, and am eager to get other kids cooking real food. 

Original recipe came from the Internal Bliss cookbook.  I added the figs.  Enjoy!