Yesterday was Darrell’s birthday! I wanted to bake Darrell an extra special birthday cake since I know how much he loves this dessert. I had never baked a cake from scratch before and a couple weeks ago I decided his birthday would be the time I give it a try! It was so much fun and it turned out SOOO GOOOOD!!! Like I’m shocked to say this homemade gluten free cake beat even the fancy bakery gluten free cakes I’ve had before!

I’ve done hardly any gluten free baking up until this point so I was a bit intimated just not knowing how well a recipe would turn out when I was swapping out “real flour” for Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free 1-to-1 Baking Flour. Plus I just feel like most gluten free baked goods, even the really really good ones, just aren’t the same as “the real thing” so I don’t know, I just hadn’t made an effort to try many baking recipes. And I should also add, normally if I bake something gluten free from like a mix, no one else wants to eat it and then I end up eating too much of it or 3/4 of it goes to waste.

For the record, I asked Darrell several times if he wanted a cake baked with real flour or gluten free flour and he assured me he was cool with trying a homemade gluten free cake. He LOVED this cake!

I used a recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction. She gave some great tips and pointers in the directions that helped make this a little easier for a newbie baker. The only thing I changed was the flour. She recommends something called cake flour which I’m not super familiar with but I tried to look into it and decided just to use the gluten free baking flour I had on hand and what I was most comfortable with. And the cake taste, texture, everything was so great that I’m not sure it could be any better. This recipe is also really versatile if you want to get fancy with different flavors. I stuck with vanilla cake and vanilla buttercream frosting to keep things simple and because that’s what Darrell wanted. This buttercream frosting was HEAVENLY!!

Tiny round cakes are so cute so I wanted to make a round multi-tier cake for D’s birthday. I ordered the pans before I found a recipe, so I only have two 6-inch pans but I baked a 3 tier cake. I just reused one of the pans after the first round of layers cooled. (I put the batter in fridge until it was time to bake the third layer.) But since I wasn’t precisely divvying up the batter when the first two layers went into the oven, the third layer wasn’t quite as thick. It eats the same lol.. shrugs..

Darrell isn’t a fan of candles so I found this super cute Happy Birthday cake topper to use instead! I cut the sticks down a little with kitchen scissors so that the words would be closer to the top of the cake. I cleaned them off when we cut the cake and saved them to reuse!

To make this project a little more interesting, I decided to use my new tripod to set up my phone to do a time lapse of each part of the process. (I was inspired by my amazing baking wizard friend Cathy who has done super cool baking videos for her 4-Hers over the last couple months during COVID-19!) I’m not on her level and can’t talk you through what I’m doing haha, but I made it just for fun and I hope you enjoy it! Although, I’m sorry I missed a couple moments, like checking if the cakes were done and cutting off the tops of the cakes to make them flat! Forgot!

You can watch the magic below:

Disclaimer: I am not a dietitian or medical professional and while I share what ingredients work for me or what I choose to eat (at my own risk) while dining out, I advise you do your homework when choosing ingredients and places to eat. I highly encourage everyone to do their own research when it comes to the products they cook with or restaurant’s procedures. I do not have celiac disease but rather a gluten-intolerance and I’m not an expert on gluten or other food intolerances, autoimmune diseases, or food allergies. I simply share the ingredients I have found work for me, the places where I’ve dined and my personal experiences.