Weekly Dish

Can I just say how much I love having access to the opinions and expertise of real people about food?

When my good friend Garland mentioned that she wanted to have a birthday cake for her one-year-old daughter, Wilhelmina, she wondered what such a cake would look like. Because of a history of family allergies, their doctor recommended waiting to give her dairy, wheat, nuts, egg whites, honey, or other potential allergens until at least her second year.

I volunteered to do some research about allergen-free baking, knowing just the cook to turn to. I found a recipe on Karina’s site that looked like it might work, especially since Wilhelmina loves bananas, but I needed to make some substitutions. Karina was on hand with helpful suggestions and answered all of my questions, and I’m happy to report that the cupcakes were a hit! Here’s the birthday girl holding hers:

The cakes were tender and sweet and perfectly banana-flavored, but the icing was a bit trickier. I made the Maple-Orange icing first because I thought it would taste good (and it did!), but it wasn’t thick enough to decorate with. In fact, it was the wrong consistency altogether, and it separated not too long into the party. I also concocted a faux buttercream with shortening instead of butter, and while it didn’t taste as good as the maple icing, it allowed me to make some pink bunnies, inspired by Wilhelmina’s favorite companion: her pink bunny blanket. Were I to make these again and not need the bunny decoration, I’d make a simple powdered sugar glaze with orange juice and maple syrup. Or, if I baked the batter as a cake instead, I’ll bet it a slice drizzled with just maple syrup and topped with sliced banana would hit the spot too.

Banana-Corn Cupcakes

1 1/4 cups wheat-free, gluten-free baking mix (the mix I used was part garbanzo bean flour, part rice flour, part baking powder, and part xanthan gum)
1 cup cornmeal
1/4 t. Kosher salt
3 egg yolks
2/3 cup vegetable or canola oil
1 3/4 cup brown sugar
3 very ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 cup rice milk (orange juice would work here too, I think)
2 t. vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a muffin tin with greased paper or aluminum baking cups.

Mix the baking mix, cornmeal, and salt together in a small bowl. In an electric mixer, beat the egg yolks with the oil and sugar until well-combined. Add the banana until well-incorporated. Add the dry ingredients alternately with the liquid until all is well-distributed. Stir in the vanilla. Divide the batter among the muffins cups (I had enough left to make a cake in a small loaf pan), and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

–Thanks to Karina, the Gluten Free Goddess, for the inspiring recipe and suggestions for modifying it!

Maple-Orange Icing

1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 T. vegetable shortening, or butter
a pinch of salt
1 T. orange juice
1/4 cup maple syrup
On high speed, beat the powdered sugar, shortening, salt, and juice on high. With the mixer running, pour in the maple syrup, until the icing is a spreadable consistency. This icing probably keeps better at room temperature; I refrigerated mine, and it separated. The shortening could have been the culprit there too…

–Adapted from The Joy of Cooking

For the bunnies:

Ice the cupcakes with a thin layer of the maple-orange or other sweet, flavorful icing. You’ll also need a recipe of pink buttercream-like frosting; any thick, pipe-able frosting will do. I put mine in a small zip-top plastic bag, sealed it tightly, and cut a tiny hole in one corner of the bottom of the bag, but if you have the right equipment, you won’t have to improvise. Then, pipe a small swirly circle for the rabbit’s head on each cupcake. For the ears, slice a banana into rounds, and then slice each round into fourths. One fourth makes a good-sized ear. For the eyes, I used dried cranberries cut into tiny specks, grated carrot for the nose, and coconut slivers for the whiskers.

Happy first birthday, Wilhelmina!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 3rd, 2006 at 1:49 pm and is filed under Cake, Fruit, Party Food, Vegetarian. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.