Q&A: healthy birthday cake for 1st birthday

Miss W writes:

"My son is turning one on October 31.  I have made all of his baby food since he began solids except when we travel and then he eats only Earth's Best organic foods (jars where the ingredients list is entirely made up of the names of foods and not words that are better suited for a chemistry lab).  He was 10.5 weeks premature, so even though he's turning 1 and has 7 teeth he still doesn't like to do a lot of chewing and really doesn't want to self-feed much of the time.  I'm very careful about what foods I introduce and when.  As a rule, I follow the Super Babyfood book's schedule for introduction of foods.

Obviously for his first birthday, I want to have cake for him. And yet he has never eaten sugar.  The only sweet things he has had are fruits.  I did give him a tiny bite of cake at a gathering in his dad's office this afternoon.  He tolerated it well, but it was just one bite.

What can I do to make sure that he doesn't get sick on his birthday?  Do I throw out the "rules" that I've lived by in feeding him to this point and give him something sugared each day?  Do I bake a special organic/naturally sweetened cake for him? (And if I do, where do I find such a recipe?)  I mentioned that I might make the birthday cake that way and his paternal grandparents turned up their noses and told me the would NOT eat a cake like that and they highly doubted that anyone else would either.

So, what do I do?  How do I keep it enjoyable for my son, avoiding the chance of illness or the dreaded sugar rush, while appeasing the adults?"

I can absolutely understand your desire to give your son a healthy, sugar-free birthday cake. I did the same thing with my older son's first birthday. He also hadn't had sugar at that point (except for one incident with my dad and some Halloween candy), and it didn't make any sense to me to suddenly give him sugar in a cake he'd never remember anyway. I was lucky to have friends who were equally cautious in introducing new foods to their babies, who thought the unsweetened banana cake I made was wonderful, and relatives who pretended not to care. I felt that there was such a little window of time in which I could actually control what he ate that I should take advantage of it (like taking advantage of the years in which he'd be too little to care what his Halloween costume was).

Your in-laws' protestations that they won't eat a sugar-free cake sound like they're more about feeling judged by your feeding choices than about needing a specific kind of cake. I mean, I'm sure they've had all sorts of birthday cakes in the past that haven't been their favorite flavors (and plenty of the grocery store cakes that taste like sugary styrofoam) but they've eaten them happily anyway. Their protest sounds like they think that your caution in introducing new foods (especially ones with no nutritional value) is an indictment of the food and feeding choices they made for your husband. I bet you could ease the situation by asking them to reminisce about your husband's first birthday cake or his favorite foods as a baby and sounding interested and appreciative.

I'm going to assume that they haven't made any remarks about feeding your son "real cake" or anything like that since you didn't mention it. That also leads me to think it's more about their feeling you don't approve of what they did, than trying to control what you do with your son.

Since it's probably more about hurt feelings than about testing behavior (which does sometimes enter into interactions with grandparents), I'd be inclined to make two cakes (or make one and buy one). One healthy one for your son, and one that'll give your in-laws sugar shock and make them happy. Your son will never know the difference, and if it makes the day go more easily for you then it's a small inconvenience. Since cake for the first birthday is mostly about the photo op anyway, you could put the sugary-but-pretty cake in front of your son for some photos but then give him the sugar-free cake to eat. And don't hesitate to use the "preemie card" to justify your choice not to give him sugar. You make the decisions you feel are best, and compliment your in-laws on what wonderful grandparents they are, and everyone should be happy.

I've looked and looked for that banana cake recipe, and just can't find it anymore on the internet. (It's a shame, too, because it actually tasted good.) But I have found a couple other recipes. The first one uses only ripe bananas as sweetener, but uses egg and butter. Personally, I'd take out the raisins, but I hate raisins cooked in things anyway: http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk?topicid=4&threadid=195449&stamp=060724121705

The next recipe from the drgreene.com website is egg and lactose-free, but uses raw sugar or another sweetener (I'd use stevia or maple syrup): http://www.drgreene.com/24_50.html

If you want to frost it, you could use thick Greek yogurt sweetened with a little maple syrup or pureed fruit. Or just make some chocolate ganache and serve it on the side for adults. (To make ganache, take 1 cup (8 oz) heavy cream and bring to a boil in a saucepan. While it's coming to a boil, chop 8 oz. of good semisweet chocolate into tiny pieces. When the cream boils, turn off the heat and put the chocolate in the cream. Stir to blend as the chocolate melts. It will set up as it cools--you may need to refrigerate it. For a drizzly ganache you can pour over cake, use a little less chocolate.)

Congratulations on making it this far. Have a good time at the birthday party, and take lots of pictures!

(Unsweetened banana cake for the first child's first birthday. With my second child, feeding--and almost everything else--went totally off the track because there were other people giving him all sorts of things when I wasn't looking. His first birthday cake was cupcakes from a mix and frosting from a can, slapped on at the party in the playground. That's life.)

Comments

[Amy F]

I too made 2 cakes for my first son's first birthday--one full of chocolate tastiness and one sweetened only by applesauce. Peter didn't care what the cake tasted like, but my husband and I both admitted that the applesauce cake tasted pretty bleh. For kid #2, I think I'll make something like sugar-free banana bread or another fun food that isn't trying to taste like cake but failing. We'll also make a "good" cake, if for no other reason than we'll be celebrating kid #1's 3rd birthday at the same time and he'll recognize a real cake when he sees it.

[Jody]

I look back and wish we'd stayed more diligent with foods and sweetened things, but I also have to let it go, because -- triplets. Anyway, we DID only get bakery-made sweetened cakes for the first birthday, because I did not have time to make special cake.

None of the kids really ATE any of the cake. They smashed at it, but it was waaaay too sweet for their tastebuds. My mom was actually a little horrified: your kids don't like cake! That was because of their Super Babyfood inspired diet up till that point, and I'm sure Mom felt the way Moxie describes: that my choices about food were an indictment of her choices. Sigh/Whatever.

All of which brings me to this: make a small "smash cake" for your son, because he'll probably make a mess of it and no one will want to eat it anyway. Buy a "traditional" cake -- with icing, his name, whatever -- for the adults. Good luck with the in-laws.

And Happy Birthday! It's a huge milestone.

[Laurie]

Carrot cake might be a good compromise choice- the grandparents will at least be familiar with it, and I'm sure there are some healthier recipes out there or one that could be adapted.

[erika]

My daughter just turned one and I've been pretty careful about the amount of sugar she eats. I made carrot cake cupcakes for her daycare party with a "yummy yam" frosting (yams, cream cheese and maple syrup). I thought they actually were pretty yummy but I love carrot cake and not overly sweet foods.

[Christine]

Max hadn't really had sugar either, but I did make him a small chocolate cupcake for the day. I think he might have had a taste, but he really didn't eat any. He loved playing in it though, so I'd make sure whatever you choose has a fun texture.

And my own mother gave me hell for only doing a cupcake instead of a full cake but she's 2000 miles away and thus easier to ignore.

[Heather]

My mom makes a wonderful spice cake that is sweetened with applesauce. I will ask her for the recipe later and try to post it. It isn't at all blah and I think even the most hardcore sugar nuts would love it because it has so many other flavors in play.

[jomama]

I made had two cakes for my son's first birthday on Saturday. One was store bought for the guest and the other was a regular box cake for him to stick his hand in for a photo-op. My son has never had a sugary snack, so I thought of it as a special one time treat. He tasted the icing, but he wasn't even interested in eating the cake. I commend you for wanting to make a healthy cake for your son because the thought didn't even cross my mind.

[Shandra]

I have been diligent in what my son eats too but for his birthday I lost it (due to childhood cake issues as I was the child who had a carob birthday cake that tasted like, err, poo, at her third-grade birthday party - I am not saying healthy cakes can't be good, just this one wasn't and it was embarassing and everything) and bought the transfat-laden, petroleum-product, licensed-character decorated cake, totally anti-everything we actually eat around here.

And my family judged me for that too, so there you go. :)

My thinking on this was that he'd be too young to remember it anyway and it would clear my issues off the deck.

And he hated it, spit it out, and wailed to get down. So I got him a whole wheat zucchini carrot muffin and he ate it up happily.

I have no idea what the moral of the story is except do what's right for you, 'cause it's unlikely to change his food habits in any direction.

[ches]

For my son's first birthday I made banana cupcakes for the kids then a normal cake for the adults. With the cupcakes I left the frosting off about half of them so each parent could decide if they wanted to let their child have it or not. Everyone loved it and the kids each had thier own little cupcake that they could eat or smash or whatever.

[Katie]

For both of my children's first birthdays I made banana bread using the usually recipe (email me if you want it). I just baked it in a simple round or a large muffin pan. I frosted it with vanilla yogurt and used food coloring to add color. I made a box cake for the guests to match the theme of the party.

[caro]

We made strawberry shortcake for M's first birthday. Neat because they are individual little cakes, and she could mash to her heart's content. Shortcake has hardly any sugar and I suppose if you were hard core you could use whole wheat flour or add flax seeds to it or something :) She mostly loved the whipped cream. But then, if you are concerned about allergies (milk, strawberries), there are obvious problems. It worked for us because we just wanted to avoid sugar overload, and we lucked out that her first taste of strawberries didn't make her blow up like a balloon or anything.

[AmyinMotown]

I did two cakes too--I was worried about food allergies with Maggie so I made her this tiny egg free, milk free cake and frosted it with (GAK) an entire tub of cool whip, because little kids aren't into much but the frosting ayway. I HATE Cool Whip and think it's a symbol of all that's wrong with American foodways, but it's nondairy and the (potential) dairy allergy was my main concern. I made a yellow cake with chocolate icing (homemade from scratch to assuage my food-snob guilt) for the grownups. It was hilarious, she dove into the cake and wore more than she ate. I feared she'd be all "You've SO been holding out on me" with the sugar because she hadn't had anything sugary to that point either, but she went right back to her tofu- and veggie-loving ways.

I think its OK to relax your high food standards a bit for birthdays. WE care about the cake, they are much more interested in the party and the presents. Have fun! Watching your little one enjoy all the fuss and excitement is just a joy.

[Kate]

I second, third, fourth the idea of a little cake just for the birthday boy the ingredients of which you are 100% comfortable with and a big "bad" cake for everyone else. One option for the little cake that I don't think anyone has mentioned yet is an "ice cream cake" made by swirling yogurt and a fruit puree or purees and then freezing it. For what it's worth, with my in-laws, I just say something like oh you know me crazy, neurotic, first time parent who spends too much time on the Internet... no it is not okay to give him M & Ms, potato chips, whatever it is and this seems to keep things pretty defused.

[Bethany]

My firstborn hadn't had any sugar or anything artifical by her first birthday either. I made her a traditional cake, which she took one look at, poked with one finger, and threw on the floor. Guess I shouldn't have fretted over all that sugar! I applaud your effort to stick to your guns, I wish I had more with my second, who at 18 months thinks sugar should be the one and only food group.

[Dani]

We also had two cakes for my daughter's first birthday. I made her carrot cake sweetened with applesauce and frosted it with thickened yogurt sweetened with a little maple syrup and colored with beet juice. I was hardcore. I think everyone else had store-bought cake, because we had a big crowd and I didn't have time to bake something that would feed everyone. For her second birthday, when she still hadn't really had sugar, I made her a pineapple cheesecake. That was a hit, even with the relatives, despite being sugar-free.

I use the cookbook "Sweet and Sugar Free" ( http://tinyurl.com/y8mrt9 ) all the time. It's a great resource. Now that my daughter is older, I modify a lot of the recipes to add in just one tablespoon of rapadura or something to a batch of muffins or cookies. Then we have a healthy snack that everone will eat.

[AV]

We aren't vegan, but I ordered a vegan cake for everyone (and a cupcake version for the child) from a local vegan bakery. You can also google vegan cake recipes (many of which are also low sugar) and definitely check out the cake recipes at veganlunchbox.com - awesome recipes...

[Carla Hinkle]

My daughter got almost entirely homemade, organic, Super-Baby Food style food for everything she ate until she was 1. But for her birthday I just decided to get a cake that I thought the bulk of the party-goers (adults) would like -- a delicious, white cake with lots of fruit filling and buttercream frosting from a very good, French-inspired bakery. It wasn't organic OR healthy, but I do know that the ingredients were good quality (in a "Europeans eat good, if fatty, quality stuff" sort of way).

I figured, she'll just eat/smash a little of it, so I might as well make sure I (and the rest of the folks at the party) have something good to eat. And that is what happened. She mostly played with the frosting but we got some great pictures, and all the rest of us had some DAMN good cake. And it totally didn't spoil her for healthy food. (Now that she is 2.5 she turns up her nose at all the good stuff I make but that is a different story!)

Good luck whatever you do.

[SarcastiCarrie]

On my blog is the story of "Why I had an atomic cake at my son's 1st Birthday".

My big fear about "real cake" was egg whites since he hadn't had them yet. I made sure to try egg whites on him a couple days before the party in case anything happened. I would have hated to spend the birthday party at the hospital ER (which if you read the story, you'll know why I didn't want to go to the hospital that week).

[Slim]

Ditto Shaundra and AmyinMotown:
"I have no idea what the moral of the story is except do what's right for you, 'cause it's unlikely to change his food habits in any direction."

My first has allergies, so no cake. The boy would now probaby eat sugar straight if I'd let him.

My second got real cake. He likes the odd treat (imported bittersweet chocolate, mainly), but mostly he likes fruits and vegetables.

I don't know that your in-laws feel judged. Maybe they just really like cake, and they want to be sure they'll get good stuff. But informing people that what they're serving isn't good enough for you is just plain rude.

[amy]

I agree with Moxie that the grandparents probably do feel defensive. We encounter this a lot with my MIL.

I made cupcakes, regular old Duncan Heinz butter cake mix with homemade buttercream frosting. My husband was much more worried about giving her cake than I was. And it wasn't even because he thought one taste would flip the sugar monster switch (no, she'd never had sweets before and we are also homemade-food-making, mostly-organic-buying, "supplement"-with-Earth's-Best-types too). Rather, he worried that the birthday cake would be a sort of gateway drug for the grandparents--that it would send the message that it was now open season and that before we knew it they'd be feeding her Vienna Sausages. And in fact we did have a wee showdown, right there in front of all our pals, over the whole issue of who gets to decide when she eats what. Apparently this was deemed up for debate. Ha ha.

In the end, she poked at the cupcake with her big "1" candle and was more interested in chewing the candle than eating the cake. The cupcakes were divine.

[Helen]

Thanks for this discussion. This has been very helpful for me. My son's first birthday is on November 22nd and I have been worrying about the cake. He has had a little bit of sugar because people (friends) give him biscuits, but he's allergic to bananas and I freak out about eggs because his dad has an egg intolerance. I haven't given him anything with egg in it yet and I'm worried he might have a huge allergic reaction on his birthday. So you have given me some great ideas for a worry-free cake! I'm also reassured to hear that many one-year-olds are interested mainly in playing with the cake. I'm sure that's what this boy will do.

He'll have just me and his dad to celebrate his first birthday with, and probably one tiny friend. The grandparents do love to stick their oars in... but it's also a bit sad when they're not there to boss you around!

[me]

you might consider cupcakes -- a small healthy one for him and whoever wants them, then have another option of store-bought (or made-from-a-mix)unhealthy ones for those who have sugar addictions.

[Purple_Kangaroo]

Here's a really good recipe for a healthy carrot-pineapple cake: http://restrictedgourmet.blogspot.com/2006/10/carrot-pineapple-cake.html

The recipe calls for honey as a sweetener, which you wouldn't want to use with babies under a year old, but brown rice syrup or agave nectar would work just as well.

For an egg-free cake, you could try substituting 1 tablespoon ground flaxseed mixed with 3 tablespoons hot water per egg in recipes. I don't know if it will work well in a cake recipe with lots of eggs, but it works great in pancakes and waffles.

[shannon]

I had an almost identical dilemma with my daughter's first birthday cake. Because she had shown no food sensitivies by her first birthday, I compromised and bought an organic (vanilla) cake and frosting mix. And I put conventional food coloring in the frosting.

I made a small cake in a dessert bowl for my daughter's big birthday photo-op and poured the rest into cupcake tins. I decorated the bigger cake, put a candle on it, let her stick her hand in it and taste and she wasn't all that impressed. It was her first taste of sugar. But the rest of us loved the cupcakes and the salvaged part of her "big" cake. The organic cake mix came out better than any cake mix-cake I've ever had.

She still (at 20.5 months) doesn't really get refined sugar. (We just went "trick or treating" and collected no candy, in fact.) But now I let her have a taste--a bite or two--of other kids' birthday cakes or treats. It's not the inlaws but other parents I worry about offending by being such a healthy food snob. Since she eats fabulously 99.9% of the time, I feel okay about the occasional slip.

[Kendra]

So glad I found this. My daughter's first birthday is Friday (the 17th of November) and we're doing a Pooh theme for her party. I bought a Pillsbury mix for the Pooh cake mold but I found an egg-, milk- and wheat-free cake recipe on the Internet (http://www.allergydoctors.com/allergy/birthday_cake.htm) to make little cupcakes for her and her friends (going to decorate them as bees/butterflies with dairy-free frosting). Can't avoid all the sugar, with all that other "-free" stuff, but I'll cut it with some applesauce and omit the cocoa.

I decided this after I tried introducing her to wheat this week to prepare and she was pretty sick for a few hours afterward. I hope she's not allergic and it was just a bug but I'll wait to try again. I don't want to try milk (she's BFed) or egg whites on her yet either, and we've been very careful and relatively organic/homemade up to this point.

[Julie]

I want to purchase a birthday cake for my child's first birthday, but I would like for it to be somewhat healthy! It doesn't have to be all natural, but I don't want the traditional sugary icing sheetcakes either. Does anyone know where I could buy a "healthier" birthday cake?

[Lisa]

I am very careful about what my baby eats, too. I have breastfed him until now, and I am beginning to wean him, but I did not start baby food till he was 6 months old. I buy mostly organic for him and I have not fed him off the table until recently- and it is only a little bit. He will be a year old this week, and I am looking for a healthy way to make his cake. I will make a separate cake for the adults because I know my in-laws don't understand why I won't just feed him anything and everything. My husband's mother and grandmother would love to have fed him everything on the table since he was born if I would let them. And I had to practically take him away from my father-in-law because he kept feeding him icing off the cake at my brother-in-law's wedding, even after I said to stop. I don't understand why grandparents won't just respect the way a baby's parents choose to feed him, because apparantly from what every other parent says, they have the same problem, too.

[Lisa]

How do you substitute applesauce in a birthday cake? Does anyone have a recipe for a white birthday cake that is healthy?

[Trisha]

I also have been on the lookout for a healthier cake for my daughter's first birthday in a few weeks. I didn't want to give her eggs or dairy, since she hasn't had those before, and I didn't want to shock her system. I think eggs and dairy are just fine, but not all at once. This is a recipe I tried last night, and it tastes pretty good, but it is really thick, more like a cookie, as opposed to cake, so I think I will play around and try adding more liquid, either more OJ or water. I also want to try to substitute some applesauce for some of the oil. And I had another recipe that said you could cut the sugar in half if you use OJ. So here is the recipe:
7tbsp shortening
2 1/2 c flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 c sugar
5tsp baking powder
3/4 c Orange juice (or milk)

Cram butter and sugar together, then add flour and OJ (Or milk) alternately Bake at 375 for 30-40 min.

Like I said, more liquid needs to be added, otherwise it's a wonderful cookie recipe. Also, I only cooked it for 25 min, but I always have to shorten cooking time for all recipes with my oven.

[Acai Powder]

Nice bog you have here. I pretty much lurk the internet when I'm bored and read all I can about the organic lifestyle, but I really liked you view on things. I'll bookmark the site and subscribe to the feed!

[Rachel]

I found a banana cake recipe on this blog...http://www.grizzlybird.net/2007/01/babys-1st-birthday-cake-recipes.html . I'm going to give it a shot tomorrow. Enjoy!