First birthday cake and five bean salad

Two for one special this week! We celebrated Josiah's birthday on Saturday with family and I was honestly pretty worried about what to do for the smash cake. First of all, I am not going to just give him sugar. Second, he hasnt had eggs or wheat yet. Third, he is still intolerant to dairy and soy. His eating journey has been painfully slow and he is still on store bought purées (homemade is too thick and he gags) and small pieces of baby mum mums. When I came across this paleo mocha cake, I knew I could make it into a wonderful smash cake! The only new food in it for him would be coconut!  It is also a delicious cake that somewhat resembles a cheesecake in flavour. (But can I really judge that? I haven't had dairy in 10 months) to me anyway! It tasted like fudgy cheesecake!!

But first, the bean salad. Sooooo easy and delicious!!

Seriously that is it. Beans, a couple veggies, vinegar and oil, salt and pepper. 

Open up all your beans and toss them in a big bowl. 

Measure out your balsamic vinegar and olive oil, salt and pepper and combine well. 

Pour over beans and mix well. This is the point at which I often freeze 3/4 of the batch in serving size portions to use later, since it is such a huge recipe. 

Snack bags are actually just big enough to fit one cup in them. I toss these in a freezer bag and away you go!

Before you use the salad, chop up some red or green bell pepper, and some raw red onion. 

Stir it all up and you have a beautiful side dish to any meal! Or a main cored lunch! I often pull this out of the freezer for lunch, add my peppers and onions, the toast some sesame seeds and slivered almonds. I toss them into the salad along with a tsp of sesame oil and a sprinkle of salt! ASIAN  bean salad!! :) so good!!

Five bean salad:

- 1 can kidney beans

- 1 can chick peas

- 1 can black beans

- 1 can navy beans

- 1 can pinto beans 

- 1 can cut green beans (smaller can)

- 1 can corn kernels (opt)

- 1-2 bell peppers

- 1/2 lg red onion

- 3 tbsp balsamic vinegar

- 1/4 cup olive oil

- 1/2 tsp. fresh ground salt

- 1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper

Combine all ingredients and chill to serve.

On to the paleo chocolate fudge cake!!

 Start with your apple sauce, coconut milk and dates. Process them in your blender. I had a magic bullet available to me (alas my vitamix was not present) and it worked just fine! 

The original recipe Iooked at called for coffee! For a one year old cake? I don't think so! So I subbed in coconut milk!

Once blended, scrape it all into a bowl and add your mashed banana. 

Melt your coconut oil and add in your vanilla. Stir this into the wet mix 

Next combine your dry ingredients. Coconut flour, cacao powder, salt, baking  soda and cinnamon.  Cacao is different than cocoa. Cacao is raw, has way less allergins and significantly less caffeine. (Almost none really). 

When you mix the dry into the wet it will look something like this. the texture is like a very thick hummus almost. 

Next is the serious methodology part. Cut out of parchment paper, a circle exactly the size of the bottom of your pan. This is very important. YOU WILL NOT be able to remove your cake if you skip this step!!

Press the mix into the pan, and bake. 

Honestly, this cake will not pass a toothpick test, even when it's done. Just wait till it looks dry and it pulls away from the edges of the pan like this. 

Next comes the icing!! Not bad eh? Call it pudding, call it icing... Whatever! It does the job very well!

Cut your avocado and spoon it out into a small tall bowl. 

Add your maple syrup, vanilla and cacao. Stir it up a little so that you don't kick up cacao dust once you start blending. 

I used an immersion blender, but normal. Egg beaters would work too. And voala! Lovely frosting you can literally eat the whole bowl without an ounce of guilt!

Now came the tricky part. Even WITH parchment this cake wasn't gonna come out of the pan! It is seriously like cheesecake. Like... Use a spring-form pan!! So luckily I was making a little smash cake. So I traced out a little circle and cut pieces out of the perimeter until I had proper access to my cake. 

I inverted this small cake onto a plate, saving the little pieces left over to ice and serve like fudge. 

Decorating tip: a damp paper towel covers over a multitude of icing errors. 

Decorating tip #2: never underestimate the magic of super basic repetitive piping. Anyone can pick up this little design. It's like squeezing a ketchup bottle a hundred times over. That's it!

And there you have it! All that work... (I am shedding a tear). Anyway, I will be making this again!! I loved it so much! But it will be staying in my itinerary for one year old birthdays because it is so rediculously safe, no matter how strict your baby eating policies are!

Fudgy Paleo Birthday "Cheese"cake

- 10-12 pitted dates

- 1 cup apple sauce (or other fruity babyfood purée if you don't have applesauce)

- 1 1/2 bananas mashed

- 1/2 cup coconut oil melted

- 1 tbsp vanilla

- 1/2 cup coconut flour

- 1/4 cup cacao powder

- 2 tsp baking powder 

- 1/2 tsp salt

- 1/2 cup coconut milk (from can)

- 1 tsp cinnamon 

Purée dates, coconut milk, and apple sauce. Mash banana and stir into apple mixture. Add coconut oil and vanilla. Combine dry ingredients and add to wet. Press into 9 inch a parchment-lines spring form pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 50-60 minutes. Cool cake, and then chill completely prior to removing from pan. 

Avocado Icing:

- 1 well ripened avocado

- 1/4 cup cacao powder

- 1/4 cup maple syrup

- 2 tsp vanilla extract 

Blend all ingredients together with immersion blender or hand-held mixer. 

Ice cake as desired or chill and eat like pudding!