"No Fun" Cake.

We hosted a friend of ours for the weekend.  His birthday landed on his last day here - in fact he came to stay with us for his birthday - so I wanted to bake him a birthday cake.  The catch is that he's gluten and dairy intolerant on top of diabetic.  So, how to bake a sugar-free, gluten-free, dairy-free cake and still have it taste good?

Well, some hours of Bing searches later I came up with something that's actually pretty good cake.

For the cake itself I found this recipe and modified it as seen below:

2 cups white rice flour
1/2 cup potato starch
1/4 cup tapioca flour (aka tapioca starch)
1 1/2 tsp xanthan gum
1 tbs baking powder
3/4 tsp kosher salt
8 tbs coconut oil (melted)
1 cup agave nectar
4 large eggs
some vanilla
3/4 cup french press coffee

Oven: 350°

To grease the pans I brushed on coconut oil using a pastry brush - this actually worked a lot better than I thought it might; it's more effective than my previous method of taking a cold stick of butter and running it across the pan.

Mix all of the dry ingredients together in a bowl.

Combine the agave and oil, mixing on low with a paddle attachment (if you have one).  Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well between each egg and scraping the bowl occasionally.  Add the vanilla.
Once all of that is mixed well, add half of the dry ingredients and mix until incorporated.  Add coffee, mix, add the rest of the dry ingredients.
Spatula the batter into the pans so each is even and then bake for 30-35 minutes or until the top springs back when pushed lightly (they're kinda spongy) and a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
Run a dinner knife around the edges of the pans and allow to cool for 30 minutes.  Flip them onto a cooling rack and proceed to make the frosting.

Now here was the tricky part.  How in the world do you make frosting without sugar or dairy?
Welp, I had to get over my weirdness concerning stevia; to make a sugar free powdered sugar I used the following:

4 cups stevia in the raw
4 tsp tapioca flour (aka tapioca starch)

This will yield about 2 cups (16oz) of powdered sweetener once you've either run it through a blender or a food processor.  It took me about a minute to get the right consistency.  I made a small bit extra also, to dust the cake once it had been frosted.

Once you've got the sweetener to be the texture you want, the frosting recipe requires these things:

1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup coconut oil (melted)
1/4 cup coconut milk
some vanilla

Whisk together the sweetener and the cocoa powder, then add the wet ingredients in whatever order.  Mix well with a hand mixer until fluffy-ish.  I didn't get it to come out to exactly frosting fluffiness, but it got close.
This made enough to barely cover the whole cake (including a small layer of filling).

Refrigerate for about 30 minutes before serving.
It's even better if you can make this a day ahead: the frosting acquires a fudge-like quality on day two of coldness that's pretty awesome.


So there you have it.  You can now make what our friend calls a "No Fun" cake for those special people in your life who happen to have food allergies.

To be quite honest, I was surprised it turned out to be as delicious as it was!