30/08/2020
Gluten-free for Reya’s 4th birthday 🌈🦄🎂 (recipe for GF marble cake below)
It’s been a looong while since I’ve shared anything on social media. I guess I’ve been in hiding in a way. To be honest, the last 6 months has thrown my world upside down, navigating so much unexpected change, loss, grief and separation, I have never felt so lost and unsteady in my life. The sudden illness and passing of my treasured Dad in June, at a time that already felt so tough, as well as ongoing Tassie border restrictions further complicating my family, work and living situations, some days have felt like too much to bear. My personality, joy, inspiration and creativity felt zapped. I hadn’t felt like cooking or creating much in a long time. What happened to me?
A friend explained to me that and can feel like all the colour has washed out of your world and all that you see is shades of . That certainly resonated for me. He assured me that slowly some colour starts to come back, give it time...
One thing that brings back the colour is our weekly Friday cards night with our close family friends and hanging out with their most joyful wondrous 4 year old daughter, Reya. She is such a delight and I find her company so healing and therapeutic. Dad was so very fond of her too. Thanks to Reya for the first time in many months I felt inspired to bake again. Her sweet love of rainbows and unicorns reignited something in me last week and I felt creativity begin to flow through me once again. It felt really good and I had a lot of fun creating this cake for Reya’s 4th Bday party.
Now it’s certainly not one of my healthiest cakes, I must confess this one is loaded with sugar, butter, eggs and even rainbow sour lolly straps I found at Woolies!! But it is gluten-free and I managed to use natural food colours to pipe the buttercream and create the rainbow marble in the cake batter.
Day by day I’m letting a little more colour in, amongst the grey. Big thanks to my dear friends who have been there on the phone, checking in regularly, even when I’ve been under a rock. You’ve got me through the grey days 💖💚💜🙏🙏🙏
RECIPE NOTES:
The unicorn face, ears and horn I created from rolling out a small packet of white fondant ($8) from the amazing Gingerbread Shop in Kingston, adding Queen natural food colouring (from woolworths) and shaping it into the various pieces. Check out You Tube for tutorials on unicorn horn and ears for more info. The face I drew freestyle on paper first to design it. Then traced it onto baking paper, rolled the white fondant out and cut the face from that. I did the same with the eye and lashes in one piece, and used an Edible black ink pen ($7 from the gingerbread shop) to draw in the black lashes and outlines.
My basic Gluten-free Rainbow Marble Cake recipe:
Preheat over to 180 degrees.
In a mixer, cream 250g organic butter til light & whippy, then mix in 1.5C caster sugar, then add 5 organic eggs 1 at a time, then slowly add in 3/4C milk and 1 tsp pure vanilla.
In separate bowl sift dry ingredients of 1.5C each of almond flour and Orgran GF Self-raising flours, 1/4 tsp Xanthum gum, 1 tsp baking powder and 1/4 tsp salt.
Carefully add dry ingredients to the wet mixer ingredients, scrape sides and mix til smooth yummy batter.
Divide into 4 bowls and add Queens natural food colouring to each, stirring well til you get pretty pastel shades of green, lilac, pink and yellow.
Spoon dollops of each of the batters in greased cake tin lines with baking paper til all emptied. Use spatula to gently smooth out top evenly and tap a few times to let air bubbles out.
Bake in oven for 45-60 mins or when skewer comes out clean (I end up making 1.5 X this recipe to generously fit a 24cm x 30cm rectangular tin and I reduced heat to 160 degrees to all centre to cook evenly without burning edges. But you could stick to the above recipe to make 22cm round cakes baked at 180 degrees).
Buttercream frosting and mane:
Cream 250g organic butter til white and whippy, then cream with 3C soft icing mixture (sifted and 1 C at a time whilst mixing), add pinch of salt and 1 tsp pure vanilla, a couple drops DoTerra lemon and citrus bliss essential oil. Then slowly add 2 tblsp milk. Mix til creamy smooth. Divide 1/2 into a bone with with added Queen natural food colour drops in green. And divide half into 3 small bowls and add lilac, pink and yellow and mix til pretty pastel shades are achieved in each. Spread two layers of green icing over cake with refrigeration of about 1/2 hours between coats. In between coats spoon the 3 colours into piping bag with flower nozzle.
Assemble the unicorn fondant head over cake. Then add eyes and nose piece. Pipe the multicolored buttercream icing to look like hair onto the mane area of unicorn head. Follow with pieces of rainbow sour straps twisting and securing with toothpicks.
Hope this is helpful if you ever want to give this a go. Feel free to comment below if you have any questions 💖💚💜
@ Blackmans Bay, Tasmania
