1st birthday cake?

we've avoided all of the usual things including egg whites during the boys' first year. now we're approaching their first birthday and i'm totally clueless about what to do for their cake. cake recipes call for whole eggs. do we just slam into a regular cake recipe with refined sugar and eggs and chocolate? or are people doing special recipes with modified ingredients?

i can't believe i'm asking this because it sounds so stupid. but is it okay to let 1 year old babies have normal cake with frosting???

 

Yes, it is okay to let your one year olds have normal cake with frosting. Absolutely.

FWIW, my pedi okayed everything but PB and shellfish at 9 months, so the egg thing wasn't a worry, but the latest I've heard is a year. If you are concerned, Whole Foods carries a great selection of organic cake mixes, and their website has a lot of recipes that are gluten free, egg free, etc. - you could avoid refined sugar and eggs.

We just ordered regular old cakes with tons of frosting from a local bakery.

 

i am going to make their cake from scratch so i can control the quality of ingredients and i probably won't give them chocolate cake. mine have had eggs in pancakes and french toast and a few times scrambled so i am not too worried about the egg part.

i agree with you though, it does seem a little crazy to give them all that sugar! they are going to be bonkers after eating it, but that is half the fun, right????

 

You could always do a white cake, which only has egg whites.

 

white cake, eh? off to google i go!

should i have mentioned that i've never baked a cake that didn't come out of a box before?

oops, wait a sec. egg whites are the thing they HAVEN'T had.

 

Nothing wrong with that! I made cupcakes (straight out of the box) for mine on their first birthday.

 

I'm sure I used a boxed mix as well. I don't think it was chocolate, but other than that it was full on sugar & all that good stuff. They had already had eggs by that point so I wasn't worried about that.

 

I made vanilla cupcakes (from the box) with chocolate frosting (from the can). They loved them and actually took a nap about an hour later!

 

I remember being worried about exactly the same thing. We hadn't introduced eggs or chocolate or peanuts or tree nuts... and I didn't think their first birthday party was the best time. I looked online and found a vegan carrot cake recipe and made that for their little cakes with some cream cheese frosting. I tasted it and it was really very good! I made the big cake with a more traditional recipe.

ETA: it wasn't difficult to make -- no special ingredients or techniques required.

 

We hadn't really introduced chocolate or eggs (other than in pancakes), but we went ahead and just ordered a decorated sheet cake (chocolate with white icing). I didn't know if they'd eat any of it; some babies don't like their birthday cake. But our guys devoured their first piece and asked for more. No reactions from the (tiny bit of) egg or chocolate. They also did not have a sugar meltdown, and took their normal afternoon nap about an hour after cake.

I went back and forth about making a cake, trying to do it without eggs, chocolate, etc. but I couldn't find any evidence suggesting normal cake would be a bad thing. I figured it's one day in their lives; if they have a screaming meltdown from the cake, at least we'll have some funny pictures to embarrass them with when they're teenagers! :lol:

ETA: If you're worried about refined sugars in particular, note that most formula does contain corn syrup so they've probably already had enough exposure that you shouldn't be concerned.

Good luck and have fun! Post pics for our enjoyment!

 

I know this isn't the norm, but birthday cake is how we found out my oldest is allergic to eggs. At first we thought it was all the sugar in the icing that made him projectile vomit about 15 minutes after eating a cupcake. After it happened a 2nd time, we had him allergy tested and figured out it was the eggs. Don't worry though, there is an easy way to make a boxed cak mix without eggs. Take one box of cake mix and add 12 oz club soda, stir and bake according to instructions on the box. You don't add anything else (oil, water, eggs, etc) just the club soda. It doen't rise quite as high as a "regular" cake, but I think it actually tastes better than a regular one!

 

One of mine had a dairy allergy so I found on the box mixes that didn't have milk. It was Betty Crocker or Dunkin Hines. I made them each a cupcake and they loved it.

 

We did a regular chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. It was from a good bakery so I know it at least had real eggs, butter, etc. (not trans fat frosting), but other than that, it wasn't healthy at all. :ibiggrin: A&S had never reacted to anything we fed them during the first year, so I wasn't too worried. Plus, they'd had various baked goods already that had eggs in them, although we hadn't fed them eggs straight up yet.

 

Mine had regular white cake with icing. They didn't eat any of it, they hated it!

 

We had regular cake and ice cream for all of my kid's 1sts!