It’s been a while since I posted and I apologize. I think I got overwhelmed with the amount of postings on gluten-free living. I did get lots of good information and I can’t believe some of these people post everyday and sometimes twice a day. Well I’ve unburied myself from the blogs and Facebook posts and I want to get back to why I originally started this blog. I want to find out how you cope with having family members with special diets and especially what quick and easy products or recipes you use when one of them shows up on your doorstep.
One of the biggest things in our family is birthday parties. I like to make the cake and personalize it to whatever theme they want. Depending on who will be there I usually make a regular flour cake and a gluten-free or vegan cake or if everyone is there I can make all three. I never want the gluten-free to touch the gluten filled so there’s a couple of inventive ways I accomplish this.
2 years ago for my granddaughter’s birthday I made a Dora doll cake that was a regular Betty Crocker Butter (yellow) cake and a Betty Crocker Gluten Free chocolate cake with Boots (Dora’s buddy) on it.
The cakes were on two different plates so there would be no contamination. We knew that my grandson would only want the chocolate cake so there was no problem for us. The Betty Crocker cakes are very good. They are flavorful and moist. The only reason I made one regular flour and one gluten-free is that the gluten-free cake mixes cost about 3 times more than the regular cake mixes. I’m sure you’ve all had that experience. Anything that may be better for you, organic, vegan, not much processing involved food seems to be much more expensive!
I’ve also acquired a cake stand that has 3 interlocking pedestals so you can keep the cakes separate but still looks attractive and on purpose. The cake stand is a Wilton stand and you can get it at your local craft store or online. It’s very pretty and practical when you need to keep different cakes separate.
One other thing that I have done was made the 2 different cakes but combine them in a theme so they look seamless. Here is a pic of my granddaughter’s birthday cake from this past year.
The back cake is gluten-free chocolate, the front is a regular yellow cake and it’s joined by a bridge made of foil covered cardboard and then iced over. The gap between the cakes looks like a moat. When we cut the cakes we started from opposite ends so the cake pieces that were left were the ones closest to each other. It worked out perfectly.
I’d really like to hear what you think of my ideas and if you have any inventive ways of doing this of your own. Special occasions like birthdays, holidays and any get together can be tough on the party host. I like it when they tell me ahead of time that someone has a special diet or allergy so I can plan my course of action to accommodate everyone so no one feels like a burden because of needs or allergies.
Love,
Grammy Deb
Anything But Gluten 
That moat separation idea is genius. I didn’t notice that!
Thanks! I try to think of different things to do so it all ties in together.
That moat/bridge separation idea is genius! I didn’t notice that before.