Let Them Eat Cake!

Well Sunday is my little sister's birthday, and she will be the grand old age of 14. I know, almost mid life right?!!! Well every birthday means cake in our house and this birthday is the first one since the Blattman has been diagnosed as lactose intolerant. Lactose intolerance is not overly difficult to deal with now, there are so many dairy free products and dairy substitutes, and most are available in all supermarkets, not just the health food shops. So I have to create a lactose free birthday cake for my sister, so Hubby can enjoy it and also taste just as good as a regular cake, because lets be honest, normally an intolerance or an allergy means it tastes worse than normal and no one without that intolerance wants to eat it!! If you dont believe me, try carob!

One thing the Blattman has missed is chocolate. I am allergic to chocolate so we rarely have it, and now the milk chocolate he enjoyed is not a possibility. And my sister does love a chocolate cake- lets be fair, who doesnt? So as the Blattman is our head chef, I definately run the patisserie section and ive made up a lovely recipe for some dairy free chocolate cakes- and if you and lactose are still best friends then you can use this recipe with lovely butter instead.

Ok, here we go, this recipe will make 12 big cupcakes.

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees or gas mark 5. Put 12 cake cases in a tin.

Ingredients
100g Pure Sunflower (available in all supermarkets and holland and barrett too) or butter
75g Light Brown Sugar
25g caster sugar
2 eggs
100g self raising flour, once weighed out, remove 2 tablespoons of flour back to the bag, replace this with
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Cream the butter and the two sugars together until well mixed.
In a seperate bowl, mix together the flour cocoa mixture with the baking powder.
Add each egg individually alongisde a tablespoon of the flour mixture and combine.
Add the remaining flour to the mixture and combine completely.

Put a tablespoon of the mixture in each cake case.
Bake for about 15 minutes. Check after 10 mins and then every few minutes until cooked. As every oven is different, some will take longer than others.

You can top with a buttercream made using the pure, as well as icing sugar and cocoa powder, or with jam of your choice. The Blattman prefers cherry jam on his for a blackforest edge.
Enjoy and let me know how you get on with your cakes. Oh and Happy Birthday Ellie!!