No Fun Allowed Cake

When one of my best friends got married, she ran into an issue with the wedding cake of all things. Picking a cake should be one of the fun experiences when planning your wedding but it wasn’t for my friend. She discovered that there wasn’t a baker in the area where she lives who specialized in baking for celiacs who are also lactose intolerant. The bakeries who were willing to make a special recipe were going to charge nearly three times the price of a typical wedding cake. So, my friend asked me if I could come up with a cake for her special day.

For those who don’t know what Celiac Disease is, it is an autoimmune disease where the ingestion of gluten leads to damage in the small intestine. It affects approximately 1 in 100 people. Gluten is a protein that is found in grains such as wheat, rye and barley.(See https://celiac.org/about-celiac-disease/what-is-celiac-disease/ for more information.)

One weekend, I was busy experimenting with different ingredients, my husband asked why I was making so many different cakes. I explained that my friend needed a dairy free, grain free cake. He exclaimed “well, that’s allowing for any fun”, (which is how the cake got its name).He then proceeded to ask me to make a ‘regular’ cake too. I told him that it was going to be delicious when I was done, he was dubious.

We are lucky nowadays that there are products available that we can use to substitute wheat flour and milk. I found that for cakes a rice flour works well. It is lighter than some other “gluten free’ flours. Almond milk is a nice alternative to cow’s milk.

Here is the cake that I came up with. It has a creamy orange flavor like that of a dreamcicle.

No Fun Allowed Cake

Ingredients:

1 - 8 oz packages Vegan Cream Cheese substitute (room temperature)

1 1/2 C Margarine (room temperature)

3 C Sugar

6 Eggs (room temperature)

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

3 C Gluten Free Cake Flour or Rice Flour

1 - 8 oz can Mandarine Oranges (no sugar)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

2. Drain mandarine orange and toss with 1 TBS flour. Set aside

3. In a large mixing bowl, cream margarine and vegan cream cheese until smooth.

4. Add sugar gradually and beat until mixture is fluffy.

5. Add eggs two at a time, beating well with each addition.

6. Add the flour all at once.

7. Mix in vanilla.

8. Gently fold oranges into the batter.

9. Grease a 10” tube pan pan. Then use powder sugar to “flour” the cake pans.* You can also line your pans with parchment paper. Pour batter into pan.

10. Bake at 325 degrees for about for 1 hour. Rotate pan half a turn about half way through baking.

A tooth pick inserted in the center will come out clean when the cake is done baking.

* Most powder sugars are gluten free, however, there are some that have additives like wheat starch. You may need to read the ingredients label.

**Using powder sugar to coat pans will make icing instead of glue.

“Cream Cheese” Frosting

Ingredients:

1 - 8 oz packages Vegan Cream Cheese substitute (room temperature)

4 TBS Margarine (room temperature)

3 C Confectioners sugar (gluten free), sifted

1 TBS Orange juice concentrate

a pinch of salt.

Directions:

1. In a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, beat cream cheese and Crisco at medium speed until smooth. Approximately 1 minute.

2. Add sugar, salt and the orange juice concentrate. If you use too much juice, just add a little more sugar.

3. Blend on low speed for 30 seconds.

4. Then turn speed up to medium-high and beat until fluffy.

This cake is dense and does well as a layer cake. If you are making a layer cake double the recipe and use an 8”round cake pan for each layer. Use an extra can of drained mandering oranges between the layers.

On a side note, I once tried this recipe using sugar substitute. Apparently, cakes can be gluten/dairy free or sugar free but they cannot be both. The sugar substitute does not combine with the margarine the same way cane sugar does and the cake becomes even more dense.

My husband loves this “ no fun allowed cake” and nearly literally, had to eat his words. He is the biggest fan of this cake and asks me to make it for him as a treat.

Most importantly, my friend loved it. The wedding guests did as well. It was a big hit.