This Year’s Gluten Free Birthday “Cake”

Some of my children’s friends have a gluten allergy which makes it challenging around birthday time because my kids want to have cake at their parties but don’t want to leave anyone out of enjoying this birthday treat. Last year we decided to make a gluten free four layer birthday “cake” out of gluten free puffed rice marshmallow treats (rice crispy like treats) and marshmallow fondant. It worked pretty well but candidly it was sickeningly sweet and the fondant got supper hard and dry.

This year we (my daughter and I) decided to do the same thing but looked for a new fondant recipe. That’s when we came across this great, simple and delicious fondant recipe from The Twisted Sifter. The only change that I made was that I didn’t use Crisco. I made the assumption that any fat that was solid at room temperature would work so I used coconut oil. It. Was. Awesome! The coconut oil gave the fondant a great flavor and it kept it nice and pliable.

I made the marshmallow treats by melting 1/4 c. of butter over low heat then adding 5 cups of mini marshmallows (they melt quicker) until melted and then pouring in about 6 cups of puffed rice cereal.  Once it’s all combined I let it cool for just a minute or two then I formed it into the circles for the layers. The bottom layer I used a cake tin to make the circle but the other layers I just free formed. I then placed them on greased pieces of tin foil to cool.

While the marshmallow treats cooled we made our different colors of fondant by adding food coloring and rolled and cut out the shapes. I really can’t take much, if any, credit for cutting out the shapes and designing the cake. My daughter came up with the design and sifted through all of our various cookie cutters to figure out what she wanted. Once the shapes were cool I took a sharp knife and trimmed the edges in an effort to make it look smoother than last years cake. I then rolled out the white an purple fondant and covered the layers. My daughter placed the decorations and we were done.

We had a tremendously fun time making this and the kids at the party all enjoyed it, the adults too!