It was my daughter, Evelyn’s, seventh birthday yesterday. We had an intimate little get together at the aquarium and the park with her best friend. For the occasion, I made the most delicious and (almost) nutritious lemon merengue pie.
Evelyn chose this birthday “cake” not for the Vitamin C, biflavanoids, and anti-oxidants, not for the vitamin A, lauric acid, and undamaged-cholesterol, but because it is so rich, tart, sweet, and delicious. The pie does have sugar, and that’s what makes it almost nutritious, but otherwise the ingredients are all fresh and of the highest quality. (If you make it with glucose it’s even safe for fructose malabsorption.)
I think it’s the 1/2 cup of fresh squeezed lemon juice that makes it to die for. Or maybe it’s the coconut oil, butter, and six free range eggs.
The pie was a hit, of course, but I haven’t had such luck every year…
Two years ago, on Evelyn’s fifth birthday, we threw a big party and, being the good Paleo mom that I was, I decided to make Evelyn’s Paleo friendly cake myself. The recipe that I chose that day was a serious flop. It was a flourless banana chocolate cake, trying way to hard to imitate the real thing.
There were about 12 girls at the party and about the same number of parents. Upon just hearing that it was gluten free most of them declined. Not one of those that tried it liked the birthday cake. Not one. Not even Evelyn.
I was a smidgen embarrassed.
This year I decided to go for something naturally gluten and dairy free. Lemon merengue pie fit the bill. I got the recipe off the internets. A Google search brought me to CookingGlutenFree.com. I can vouch for the fact that it is good and that kids like it. I even used a little less sugar than it called for (I also traded lemon juice for the cream of tartar, plus didn’t make the nut crust since we have fructose malabsorption and nuts don’t work for us).
What have been your experiences with Paleo birthdays? Did you fail miserably in front of a crowd of people? Or was your Paleo cake so good the whole party decided to go Primal? Please post your stories!
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January 22, 2013 at 10:03 pm
So what did you make the crust out of if not nuts?
January 23, 2013 at 6:12 am
“Paleo” crusts don’t work for us at all. We can’t have nuts or coconut flour. It was a white rice crust. Refined starches don’t cause us problems but anything whole gain is very much off limits..
January 23, 2013 at 8:00 am
I don’t know why but white rice flour seems to be really irritating for my digestion. I wonder if it has something to do with moist-cooked grains vs dry though, since I can eat normally cooked rice just fine. In fact, I’ve tried all kinds of flours for pie crusts and other dry baking applications but none of them are ok (coconut flour is the worst though!)
Actually, it’s kind of funny but out of everything I’ve tried white or sprouted wheat flour seem to be the least problematic. Not surprising then that when I first went gluten-free I didn’t see a huge difference. Of course now I eat baked goods so rarely that it doesn’t really matter. Still surprised me though.
January 24, 2013 at 3:35 am
I have an issue with rice flour too. It’s a major reflux trigger for me. It’ll restart my pre-paleo reflux for a couple of weeks and I have to fast for a day and eat no carbs at all for a few days to get the whole thing to stop. I ended up with tonsillitis (reflux is a risk factor for this) last time I trialled a bit of rice flour daily. I haven’t tried actual rice since paleo because I don’t actually like rice.
I think it’s Paul Jaminet that talks about acellular starch being consumed by bacteria causing problems if you have SIBO. Potatoes are totally fine for me, which is what he suggests should be the case. I suspect I might have SIBO and am going for tests soon. In my referral from my DR to a gastroenterologist she wrote at the end “reflux apparently worsened with treatment with PPIs” and put “apparently” in italics. Seriously? Patronising.
I can do coconut flour in very very small amounts. It doesn’t give me reflux but really kills my stomach- I don’t do well with anything with a lot of fibre though. Green beans are a demon for me and I reckon it’s the fibre.
The occasional nut crust is fine for me. It sits a bit like a rock in my stomach sometimes but that passes pretty quickly and it’s an occasional treat. I
January 22, 2013 at 10:43 pm
What crust did you end up using? It looks so yummy!
January 23, 2013 at 4:24 am
I have to admit that I didn’t even try to make a paleo cake for my daughter’s first birthday for fear of bombing it! This looks amazing…can’t wait to try it. Lemon meringue is one of my favorites.
January 23, 2013 at 6:07 am
I didn’t do a birthday cake for Evelyn until her 3rd birthday. She didn’t have sugar till well after her second birthday. Don’t feel bad for skipping it. They’re better off at that age.
January 23, 2013 at 4:34 am
For my Bookworm’s party last year we did coconut flour GF brownies (those we made from scratch but there are a bunch of GF mixes available now as well) and coconut ice cream (that we bought in a couple of flavors and it was a big hit!). Combined with a bowl of grapes and drink choices of water and apple cider, that worked out great for all the guests.
This year she wants lemon cake (which Little Sister isn’t fond of) but the lemon meringue pie idea might go over well……
January 23, 2013 at 8:13 am
Like your share. We have older kids (teenagers in England) with all the associated social “norms” that paleo does not fit in with (or so they say) (we however are not going down on this one)!..take a look at this post about our teenage party experience..http://blog.paleoworks.co.uk/2012/06/paleo-teenage-party.html and leave us some feedback, we’d love to hear from you
January 23, 2013 at 11:11 am
For my son’s first birthday I decided to forego trying to make a paleo cake. With family visiting out of town and still having to work I gave in and bought cupcakes from the local frou-frou cupcakery. They were delectable, but we all had major sugar bomb tummy aches that night. Except for my son; after he smashed the crap out of his cupcake he lost interest and just chewed on his apple slices. I’m going to work on some paleo dessert recipes so I’ll have better options next time!
January 23, 2013 at 3:10 pm
I made a tray of chocolate-dipped fruit arranged to form the number eight for my stepdaughter’s birthday party (which involved eight 8-9 year olds). My husband was skeptical when I suggested the idea, but I convinced him that we needed to follow our principles to some extent and that it really wasn’t that unreasonable to serve kids fruit+chocolate. It turned out that all of the kids loved it and didn’t say a thing about the lack of birthday cake! We also served water and milk and none of the kids had a problem at all with the lack of pop or juice either. It was a great experience overall. If I did a cake in the future, I think I’d make sure to use a recipe I had tried before – it’s just too risky otherwise.
January 24, 2013 at 12:17 pm
That is such a cool idea! I went to a wedding once that used a layered chocolate fondue fountain as their wedding cake. It was genius.
January 23, 2013 at 7:23 pm
I’m trying to bake less right now and you’re making it really hard! I agree that rice flour makes a nice pie crust, I like the crumbly and sandy texture it gives. When I bake I try to stick with “safe starches” ala Perfect Health Diet, but I also use just a bit of almond flour for taste and texture. So, that’s mostly rice and tapioca flours with some almond. I usually cut back on the sugar, but I’d like to try the dextrose at some point, because I am clearly in the fructose malabsorbing camp. I agree also that the coconut flour is right out.
On a less festive note, I’ve been baking little tiny loaves of bread lately with the same flour mix and using to hold liver pate. I find that the bread really kills the liver-y aftertaste and it’s not that bad. Also it’s pretty fun to eat my two little pieces of liver-bread in the staff cafe surrounded by teachers swilling cafeteria chow, and they say “oooh, is that Nutella?” and I say, “ummmm, no…..”
January 23, 2013 at 8:30 pm
It’s funny. Birthday cakes are a thing I phased out years ago, well before gluten free or paleo were remotely on my radar. I was an icecream cake or lemon bar person (very rarely brownies, but I was very picky about recipes, it more usually resembles fudge than cake). I don’t like meringue.
I don’t think I’ve ever screwed up a birthday. If I’m in charge, something is wrong enough that whichever kids are just grateful someone’s doing something. (And they usually end up helping. I’m a huge proponent of early introduction of practical skills.)
January 25, 2013 at 7:08 am
I made a coconut flour yellow cake for my daughter’s 6th birthday last February. It was terrible!! It was so dense and just awful! I’m so thankful that my family are good sports and ate their cake anyway. That cake has become a running joke in our house! I’m going to attempt to make another one this year out of almond flour instead. Coconut we found out, makes my daughter’s stomach very upset. It’s just so hard to find a recipe that doesn’t require coconut flour. Oh well, we’ll see how it goes!
January 25, 2013 at 8:20 am
I’m glad I’m not the only one!
Ditto on the coconut flour. That stuff makes my stomach go wild. Almond flour isn’t much better though. Personally, I’m better off avoiding baked goods all together. My body prefers fresh food.