Triple Black Vegan Cake

Celebrating birthdays with birthday cake for a child who has multiple food allergies and sensitivities can be difficult. You have to pick the best of four options:

1. Buy a cake at your local gluten-free bakery.  This option could meet all of your child’s food requirements and save you a boat load of time, but there are downsides. It’s expensive and almost guaranteed to be loaded with sugar.
2. Throw all health concerns out the window (because it’s her birthday). Buy a cheaper, less expensive cake at Costco with dairy, white flour, white sugar, and food dye, even though wheat gives your daughter hives and the icing most likely contains trans fats.
3. Make a birthday cake from a GF cake mix. This would certainly save time, but most likely would have some other ingredient (or three) your daughter can’t have. Plus, the ingredients are usually some kind of refined flour and we run into the sugar problem again.
4. Make your own lightly sweetened, allergy friendly, health-promoting birthday cake.

Which do you think I chose?

I now present to you Re’uth’s Triple Black Vegan Birthday Cake! I made this cake when she turned 1, and I made it again this year when she turned 2.

I make a breakfast soup with black beluga lentils and forbidden black rice, similar to my mung bean breakfast soup. I haven’t posted the recipe yet because I’m still living in the delusion that I can make it perfect. Its unique, sweet flavor gave me the idea to use the same ingredients to make a cake.

I use the dry container on my Vitamix to make my own flour from whole black beluga lentils and forbidden black rice. Lotus Foods sells black forbidden rice flour, but I don’t know of a source for black beluga lentil flour. Might as well grind them yourself. Look at the beautiful flours my Vitamix (dry grinder) made me!

The black pigment in both the black beluga lentils and the black forbidden rice contains proanthocyanidins. This is an antioxidant that’s fabulous for your cardiovascular system. It is especially good for vessel integrity. This same antioxidant is rich in blackberries, which are in the coconut oil based frosting. Eat this cake and prevent spider veins! (I’m not sure how much cooking destroys them, though).

This cake was baked in various sized glass pyrex bowls. I used the glass storage ones that have flat bottoms and come with a lid. I chose glass because glass = perfection when it comes to baking or cooking. It will not leach any chemicals or heavy metals into food, so it helps to keep my natural health anxiety at bay.

Sugar free coconut oil frosting can be sickeningly gross. To cut the coconut oil intensity, I blend cooked white beans into my coconut oil frostings. This trick works wonderfully if you want to sweeten a coconut oil frosting with stevia only.  You need a really good blender that’ll puree those beans to smithereens. You don’t want to find a bean chunk in the frosting!

Let me tell it to you straight: Making this cake is intense. I’ve already come to terms with the idea that you may never make this cake…unless you’re on the elimination diet. I view the recipes on this site as my own online cooking journal. You just get to see how we survive with a gazillion food ingredients eliminated from our diet.

The cake’s only flaw is that it is a little dense. I’m not sure if it’s because the lentil and rice flours are dense or because it needed a bit more liquid. Since I have a trend going with making this for Re’uth’s birthday, I will most likely be making it again when she turns 3. When I do, I’ll be attempting it with a little more coconut milk.

I love this cake so much that I want to yell. If you’re expecting sugar shocking buttercream frosting on top of toothsome white cake, you will be disappointed. Get your brain in the unsweetened department, and you’ll be surprisingly delighted. It’s earthy sweetness is powerfully satisfying. The frosting’s got a mere two tablespoons of honey and 10 drops of liquid stevia, with additional sweetness coming from cooked blackberries. Two pears and a tablespoon of maple syrup sweeten the actual cake.

This is not an imitation cake. It’s not a replica of any kind of cake. It’s a one-of-a-kind, gorgeous cake, specifically made for those seeking an allergy friendly, blood sugar friendly, lightly sweetened cake.

I love that I can give my daughter a cake on her birthday that will truly bless her body.

Triple Black Vegan Cake

Ingredients

Cake Dry Ingredients

• 1 cup black beluga lentil flour
• 1 cup black forbidden rice flour
• 1/4 cup ground flax seeds
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/8 teaspoon powdered stevia
• good pinch of sea salt

Cake Wet Ingredients

• 1.5 cups of pureed pears, skin included (about 2 whole pears)
• 1 3/4 cups full fat coconut milk
• 1/2 cup virgin coconut oil
• 1 Tablespoon maple syrup
• 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar

Frosting Ingredients

• 1 heaping cup blackberries, fresh or frozen (if frozen, thaw before making frosting)
• 3/4 cup virgin coconut oil
• 1/2 cup cooked white beans (Great Northern or Navy)
• 2 Tablespoons honey
• 1 Tablespoon vanilla
• 10 drops liquid stevia
• pinch sea salt

Makes a small tier cake ~ 10 servings

Baking the Cake:

Equipment

• 1.75 quart glass pyrex bowl
• 1 quart glass pyrex bowl
• 2 cup glass pyrex bowl
• 1 cup glass pyrex bowl
• parchment paper
• a really good blender
• mechanism to grind your own flour

Directions

1. Prepare glass pyrex dishes by placing circle shaped parchment paper in the bottom of each bowl. Liberally grease the sides of each glass bowl with virgin coconut oil.
2. Preheat oven to 350°F.
3. Combine dry ingredients. Mix well.
4. Combine wet ingredients in a blender. Blend until well incorporated.
5. Mix wet and dry ingredients together. Pour batter into pyrex bowls, making sure to keep the height of the batter the same in each bowl.
6. Place all of the dishes in the oven at the same time. They will be done baking at different times, so set your timer and watch closely. Times may vary. To test doneness, lightly press the middle of each cake to see if springy. Also test with a toothpick, which should come out mostly clean.
   • After about 22 minutes, remove the 1 cup pyrex bowl.
   • After about 25 minutes, remove the 2 cup pyrex bowl.
   • After about 30 minutes, remove the 1 quart pyrex bowl.
   • After about 31 minutes, remove the 1.75 quart pyrex bowl.
7. Let cakes cool for about two hours prior to removing them from the pyrex bowls.
8. Each cake will need to go in the freezer for about 15 minutes prior to assembly. Plan appropriately.

Making the Frosting:

Directions

1. Place all ingredients in a Vitamix or blender. Ensure as smooth a consistency as possible. If you do not have a blender capable of pureeing the blackberry seeds, you may need to remove them with a strainer.
2. Place frosting mixture in a sauce pan on medium to medium low heat for about 20 minutes, stirring frequently to prevent burning.
3. Remove frosting mixture from heat. Let cool for 15 minutes, and then place frosting in the refrigerator for about an hour to get it to solidify.

Assembling the Cake:

1. Prior to assembly, each cake needs to go in the freezer for about 15 minutes. This will help with the cutting phase.
2. Remove cakes from their glass pyrex bowls.
3. With a long bread knife, trim off any rounded tops that formed during baking. Aim for a flat surface on the top of the cake. The flat surface that was freshly cut will then be the bottom of each cake. Do not try to trim the sides of the cakes, as it will make the circles look uneven.
4. Place largest cake on a cake dish, with the cut side down and the rounded bottom on the top. Cover it with frosting.
5. Place next largest cake on top of the prior one, in the same manner (flip it opposite of how it was baked). Cover with frosting.
6. Repeat until cake is built.
7. Top with a blackberry.

Notes:
Cake should be stored in the refrigerator. Prep will be less intense if the frosting and cake are each made on separate days.

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