Tag Archives: cake

Why You Shouldn’t Buy Supermarket Birthday Cakes

...by Food Babe

My birthday was last week and I had only one thing on my mind. Can you guess what it was?  Nope, it wasn’t thoughts about getting older, or what presents I wanted this year or where I wanted to go on my next vacation. All I could think about was “Where am I going to get my birthday cake from!?!”

This is a dilemma for my family and me every single time there is a birthday on the horizon. We sometimes have knock down, drag out fights about where we buy our cakes…and that’s because not everyone in my family follows the same real food principles as I do. (I’m secretly hoping they will read this post so they’ll think twice about fighting me next time around!)

Growing up we would always get our cake from the local grocery store chain “Harris Teeter.” This was our go-to cake for as long as I can remember. Then in college and in my early twenties I became a Costco member and was thrilled to be able to get such a huge decadent cake for only $14.99 on my college budget. As I became more refined in my taste for cake, I thought it would be a good idea to upgrade and shop at the Fresh Market because… well… it had to be “fresher” than Harris Teeter or Costco, right? Unfortunately, as you’ll find out this couldn’t be further from the truth.

When you look into these three different cakes from three very different places – a regular grocery store vs. a huge wholesaler warehouse store vs. a specialty market – you don’t see much difference in the ingredients. They all resemble one big science experiment…

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Decadent Pound Cake with Chocolate Frosting

...by Food Babe

Before the week ends and you go off hopping with the bunnies and hunting for eggs, I gotta share what I made this week for my Dad’s birthday…

It’s been a while since I had pound cake – you know the kind that’s so heavy that it literally feels like it weighs a couple of pounds per slice, the kind you get at the most fabulous weddings, and the old fashioned kind your grandmother used to make… So I decided to do the google and search for a good recipe to use. All the ones I found used lots of white flour, eggs, and white toxic sugar in extraordinary amounts, like 10 eggs and 3 and half cups of sugar in one recipe. You know I wasn’t having any of that. Through some modifications and some experimentation, I did it…I made a pound cake with no white flour, no eggs and no toxic white sugar. Yep, that’s right. And it tasted damn good too. So damn good that I wish I had a piece right now! But it’s all gone into the bellies of my lovely family. Hope you enjoy this recipe as much as they did…

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5.0 from 1 reviews

Food Babe’s Pound Cake with Chocolate Icing
 
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Prep time

Cook time

Total time

 

Serves: 8 – 12

Ingredients
  • For Cake:
  • 3 tbsp of ground flaxseed + 9 tbsp of warm water
  • 2 and ¼ cup whole wheat pastry flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • ¾ tsp salt
  • 1 and ⅓ cup of coconut oil or butter
  • ¾ cup coconut palm sugar
  • ¼ cup maple syrup
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 cup of almond or coconut milk
  • For Frosting:
  • 3 tbsp coconut oil or butter
  • 4 ounces good quality dark chocolate chopped
  • 1 cup of powdered sugar (I normally don’t use powerded sugar in my baking so I made my own powdered sugar by grinding coconut palm sugar in my coffee grinder and adding 1 tbsp of arrowroot powder, it still dissolves nicely in the icing without lumps)

Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and thoroughly grease a loaf pan
  2. Combine flaxseed and water, mix well in a large bowl, and set aside for 5 mins
  3. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in another bowl
  4. In the bowl with flaxseed, add sugar, other wet ingredients and mix well
  5. Slowly incorporate flour mixture (about a half a cup at a time) into liquid mixture
  6. Pour batter into the greased loaf pan
  7. Bake for 60 mins, it will be done when a toothpick comes out clean
  8. Remove from oven and let cool at least 45 minutes (this is important)
  9. While cake is cooling, melt chocolate and coconut oil on top of the stove using a double boiler
  10. Once chocolate has melted, remove from heat and add powdered sugar. Whisk mixture well, adding a few tablespoons of water at a time to thin out the icing to desired consistency
  11. Recipe makes a generous amount of icing, enjoy it all and don’t forget to lick the bowl clean!

Notes
***Please buy all organic ingredients if possible***

 

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To decorate the cake, I used dried pineapple rings. I took a sharp knife and cut out pieces to spell “DAD”…Later we topped the cake with candles… This is a nice alternative to using artificial colors to decorate your cake and a quicker more interesting way to say something on your cake without having to make additional icing.

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Have a Great Weekend and Happy Easter!

Food Babe