An Allergy Friendly Easter (and raw frosting recipe!)

First and foremost, exciting news! The Vancouver Voice just put out a Clark County dining guide and it features an article about my blog! While the dining guide itself doesn't exactly do a great job of outlining which Vancouver restaurants are gluten free, the article has a few suggestions that Christina, the Lingonberries owner, and I made (obviously Ginger Pop and Chutneys). I'm so flattered and excited to finally have some publicity! Hopefully it just gets better from this point!!

Alright, I get excited about holidays because it means I get to experiment with new twists on old recipes. This year, I didn't help at all in the preparation of dinner since we dined at my grandma's house, but I wasn't showing up at Easter dinner without at least one dessert I could eat!

I ended up making two desserts, in addition to my grandma's famous "bunny cake" that she made with Bob's Red Mill's gluten free vanilla cake mix this year (which I still had to stay away from because of the corn and sugar). The first was a cake mix Lingonberries just started carrying called 1, 2, 3 Gluten Free Devil's Food Cake (shown below). When we got this mix in, I noticed the list of allergens on the front of the box that the mix didn't contain. I turn the box over only to find that it's also free of potato! Amazing! So obviously I had to try it.

The inside of the box has recipes to make the cake either sugar free or egg free, but unfortunately not both. I went for the sugar free version since I get a lot worse symptoms from sugar than eggs these days. The first thing I noticed was that the batter was to DIE for. I could have easily eaten the whole thing right out of the mixing bowl. It's very thick and fudgy, as opposed to most cake mixes that are generally runnier.

The cake came out great for the most part. My only complaint is that it was a bit dry, but we ate it after it had spent a weekend in the fridge so that could have had something to do with it. Flax gel as an egg replacer generally makes baked goods moister, so if I made this again I'd definitely make it egg and sugar free. What was really awesome though was the raw cashew cream frosting I made to go on top...

Vanilla Cashew Frosting:

• 1 1/2 CUP cashews
• 1/2 CUP water
• 2 TBS agave syrup
• 3 TBS coconut oil
• 1 TBS vanilla
• 1/4 TSP salt

Soak cashews in water for 2-4 hours. Drain, rinse and place the nuts onto a kitchen towel to gently roll them dry. Blend all the ingredients in a food processor until creamy and smooth. Place in a container and refrigerate for a few hours to thicken up. Keep the icing and cake separate until serving.

I can't even tell you how excited I was to perfect a dairy and sugar free frosting recipe, I'll be using that for all my sweet treats from now on. The cake and frosting definitely got the family approval too, which is an added bonus. (or else I probably would have eaten the whole cake).

Mad props to 1, 2, 3 Gluten Free for being the first to realize that you don't have to add refined sugar to mixes to make them delicious! I've been waiting forever for a product like this to come out! Now if they'd find a way to make their other mixes potato free... Oh well, little victories :-) Until next time, live free!