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This blog post was originally published 7/9/2018. It is being republished on 1/25/2021 with updated photos, notes, and recipe instructions. Thanks!
I truly admire my daughter, Maddy, for her ability to choose a vegan lifestyle and stick to it the way that she does. We have a lot of family dinners around here and there are sometimes very few choices for her to eat, even though I try to make sure there are some vegan choices. Also, there are a lot of temptations!
Just yesterday we had a big dinner and there was delicious Texas Sheet Cake! Definitely not vegan and Maddy had to pass on it as she ate her rice and fruit choices. I felt bad for her, even though she was uncomplaining. I know that I do not have that kind of will power. Well, while I searched for my Texas Sheet Cake recipe, I came across another old recipe that I had forgotten about. It is this Goofy Chocolate Cake that has no eggs, no milk and can easily be sweetened in a vegan way. Since there were many people here yesterday and the Texas Cake is just about gone, I decided to make up this cake this morning as a surprise for Madalynn! She deserves a reward.
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This post contains affiliate links. I will be compensated for purchases made through those links at no additional cost to you. All views expressed are my own. Thank you for your support! A couple years ago, I showed you how I made this Daniel Tiger birthday cake for my daughter's first birthday. That has been one of our most popular posts, so I thought today I'd show you what I did for her third birthday party! She has been adamant for a few months that she wanted an elephant birthday party. So I set about figuring out what one does for an elephant party. I am going to show you the cake I made and give you the recipe for it. I also want to tell you about the games we played. First, a word on decorations. I went with easy and got grey balloons and plates. I got small clear sparkling cups for drinking. Now, on to games! Creating a twist on the classic pin the tail on the donkey game is always fun and easy to do for a kids birthday party. Since this was an elephant birthday party, of course I had to make a pin the trunk on the elephant! I'll be uploading a copy of this to our subscribers only page this weekend, so you can print it and have a pin the trunk on the elephant game for your own elephant party! So make sure you subscribe to get a copy of it! Of course, all the rules to this game are the same. This is a picture of her cousin after he pinned his trunk perfectly (we think there may have been some fraud involved). It is a fun game for all ages! The second game we played was one my MIL came up with. She ran to the store and found a bag of unshelled peanuts (no small feat in December when they aren't in high demand.) She and Emily hid them around her yard. Then when her cousins came over they went on a peanut hunt. All of her cousins at the party were her bigger cousins, so they let the 3 year old birthday girl win. But a hunt is a fun activity when the weather is nice. It'll help the kids work up a nice appetite for the elephant cake you'll eat later! A few other fun ideas for elephant party activities are making elephant masks for the kids to wear, like these here. I was pretty happy with how this cake turned out. Drawing is not my forte, everyone else on this blog is much better at it than I am. Fortunately, an elephant head is a pretty simple shape to duplicate! So, if you're like me and think you can't draw well AT ALL (honestly people, my stick figures don't usually turn out right) I am here to tell you, you CAN make this elephant cake! You can see from the picture the eyes are a little uneven and the trunk isn't perfect. Guess what, it's your kid's birthday party so, it's okay! Emily loved her elephant cake, and that is what mattered. I even drew these little elephants on the side. They weren't perfect either, but they still looked like little elephants. I am really happy with the overall look of this cake, and you will be too! The recipe I'm sharing with you is my go to recipe for chocolate cake. It comes from the back of the Hershey's Cocoa box. It is such a moist, delicious chocolate cake! It also holds up well for stacking! There you have it. A simple formula for a fun elephant birthday party.
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Lindsey and Maddy's birthdays are one day after the other. For Lindsey's birthday, I made a pumpkin roll, because she is Lindsey. The lover of all things pumpkin. I don't think we have shared that recipe with you yet, so that is something we will have to do! For Maddy's birthday, I needed to come up with something vegan that says fall birthday. So, I did! These Vegan Caramel Apple Cupcakes are super delicious! I know she will love them.
Before I give you the recipe, here are a few tips:
After making the cupcakes, let them cool then top them with these 3 steps:
Now, here is the recipe!
The nice thing about these cupcakes is that they are moist and they taste like Fall. No one will ever guess that they are vegan! I know Maddy will love them!
This post contains affiliate links. I will be compensated for purchases made through those links at no additional cost to you. All views expressed are my own. Sometimes I think about how our grandparents, great grandparents, and maybe even our parents grew up having dessert as part of their dinner fairly regularly. My mother in law came to visit about a month ago and was talking about how every Sunday night there was pie. Her mom would bake a pie once a week. Once a week! I love baking desserts, but I generally avoid making dessert for dinner because it takes extra time, and then there are all the extra calories. Dessert is usually reserved for when we're having people over. Sometimes though, I think about having Sunday dinner with dessert. With that thought in mind, I baked this cake yesterday. We shared our Chocolate zucchini cake recipe and I thought about baking that because I had some zucchini, but I also had bananas and thought maybe a non-chocolate cake would be nice. So I did some experimenting and came up with this zucchini banana cake with a delicious cream cheese frosting. We all enjoyed it, and really, you get the added bonus of knowing that even though you're eating cake, there is a vegetable AND A fruit in it, zucchini and banana! A great marriage for a great, moist cake that you can say is healthy (er)! It's a win win. Although, I did decide I'd probably hold off on Sunday night desserts until we have more children and they are a bit older. Because, that leaves a lot of cake to finish off during the week, and I have a husband who doesn't eat leftovers. It's really not helpful. YOU can make this cake, and it will be a hit! I threw my zucchini in the food processor because it is faster. I chopped them up until they looked like this. I threw the zucchini in last and just left it sitting on a paper towel to absorb moisture until I was ready for them.
This zucchini banana cake is also easy to make gluten free. I just substituted regular flour for Bob's Red Mill 1 to 1 Gluten Free All Purpose Flour and it still turned out great! Also, if you wanted to make it vegan you could substitute the eggs for flax eggs and instead of cream cheese frosting, make coconut whipped cream instead! I might try that the next time because I do think the whipped cream would go perfectly with the light taste of this cake! Happy baking! |
Creators of Hot Cocoa Bombs! (copyrighted)
Author
Helen Reynolds: Mother of six children , grandmother to eleven! I love to cook, craft and create things and I especially love doing that with my family, So, when my lawyer daughter, Lindsey, my artist daughter, Madalynn, and I came up with the idea of Hot Cocoa Bombs, this blog was born. Then, one more daughter, with her technical and science skills, plus creativity has joined in to round us out! Read more about us here! Archives
April 2024
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