Birthday Cake Quest

Here's a birthday cake with some food coloring

My lastest quest is a birthday cake. My daughter turns one year old very soon and we need a cake to ring in her very first year. I’ve enjoyed many a cake, many, many a cake. It’s hard to find one that I don’t like, in fact. So I don’t mind this mission. My quest is to find a delicious cake: one that is fresh, decently moist and not excessively sweet. Oh, and maybe contains a little chocolate. It would be cute to have an edible photo topping said cake, but we don’t, er my daughter doesn’t, do well with food dye. I’ll forego a cake before feeding her artificial food coloring. I prefer to have my baby not completely agitated and sleepless for a day. Especially on her birthday.

Here enters the birthday cake quest I’m on. I’m going to attempt to locate a birthday cake that meets this criteria: tastes delicious, no hydrogenated oil, affordable, bakery bought, and no artificial food coloring. Does it exist? I imagine the trickiest criteria will be affordability. A few organic bakeries exist pretty close to home, and I have high hopes, but have a little price anxiety. There are also a handful of places who give a free “smash cake” for your child’s first birthday. Maybe for a slight fee, they’d make it sans food dye and hydrogenated oil. Maybe they already do.

I hope to report back on the plethora of available options for a simple birthday cake. Stay tuned….