And just like that our youngest is another year older! Yes, it is party time in this household and as he is really into Stars Wars at the moment it is a themed one for the first time.
I have to confess that we’re not really the ‘go all out’ type of family over birthdays, it is usually a quiet family occasion with maybe some close friends. However, after a fairly trying and difficult year it was really nice to have something happy and positive to focus on after all the other rubbish that has been going on. Themselves have been finding Star Wars things left, right and centre lately where we would normally not have noticed them at all ….. like garden ornaments in our local hardware store 🙂
Our hardware shop find … himself made the light-saber to make it look all the more authentic.
So we have been decorating, preparing and baking up a storm for our little gathering. I have to admit that I’m feeling a bit smug at actually making the requested storm-trooper head cake look like a storm-trooper head …… there were a few nail-biting moments I can tell you. Thankfully with a good vegan chocolate cake recipe, a little thought before hand and a free day put aside we got there 🙂
The cake all finished
Himself has been sugar free and gluten free (along with vegan) for a while now, he is so much better at sticking to his principles than I would ever be, however for his big day he decided that a bit of gluten and sugar were needed to produce a super yummy cake for all. I thought I had shared this recipe a while back however since I can’t find it I will share again. It is a great vegan cake which you can adapt to make GF, sugar free or loaded up with Gluten and sugar 🙂 This cake doesn’t rise a huge amount so, because we needed a bit of depth, we decided to create two and layered them up with jam in between.
Vegan Chocolate Cake
- 1 &1/2 Cups of flour (you can use GF premixed flour too)
- 1/2 Cup of sugar (we have also reduced this to 1/4 C, used maple syrup instead & used dextrose)
- 1/8 Cup cocoa powder
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 Cup cold water
- 1/2 Cup oil
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
- 1 Tb white vinegar
-Mix all the dry ingredients together.
-Add the water, oil and vanilla essence in and mix until smooth
-Add the vinegar in and stir thoroughly
-Pour into a baking paper lined tin
-Bake at 180 Celcius for 20-25 mins or until the cake tester comes out clean.
-ENJOY
Hope this finds you celebrating your own milestones and may the force be with you 🙂
Arohanui
Y
Becoming Healthy 