Gluten-free birthday cakes are everywhere these days and they range in quality as well as taste. Whether you’re buying a mix at the supermarket, getting one from one of the many gluten-free bakeries that are popping up, or making your own from a recipe you found online, the list of ingredients that is used is usually pretty scary. I know that compared to most of the folks that are looking around on this site, I’m somewhat of an anomoly with my grain-free, sugar-free, real food way of life, but I know there are a few others out there. It makes me unbelievably happy to find a grain-free cake that uses such great ingredients like this one from Hayley and Bill of The Food Lovers’ Primal Palate. It may not be totally sugar-free as it contains maple syrup and Enjoy Life chocolate chips, but for a once a year treat on my birthday, this will do fine. I’ll take good maple syrup over refined sugar any day.

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“Another year, another birthday. Today I (Hayley) turn 26. Relatively speaking, yes, I know that is young. However, that doesn’t mean that I feel ready, or even excited to turn 26. There are many more things that have happened this year that are far more worthy of celebration than me turning one year older. In all honesty, a day of celebrating “me” isn’t really my idea of fun anyway. 25 was a great year for me, and the end of my 25th year was celebrated by Bill and I publishing a book, which was an amazing gift all in it’s own right. Being able to celebrate food, and health, create art work out of it, and be able to share it with the world is something I never dreamt I would be given the opportunity to do.

Now, of course being the paleo foodie/health fanatic/over-analyst of my own behaviors around food, I came up with a bit of a “birthday challenge” for myself, which definitely took Bill by surprise. After getting back from Los Angeles, and with the stress of getting the book off to print, we let our diets slip once again (FAILEO). Too much dried fruit and raw nuts, too much dark chocolate, and more indulgence in alcohol than we usually allow for ourselves, considering we rarely have a drink more than once a month. After spending the month of July extremely clean (I did not touch one raw nut, or piece of fruit), I was really able to see how even one bite of dark chocolate really spikes my sugar cravings, and makes it really hard to go back to avoiding it. This of course just starts a mental battle in my head of wanting it, letting myself have it, and then hating myself for it. Bill has similar feelings regarding sugar, however since he is a boy who has never had emotional issues with food, he just recognizes that he doesn’t feel as well when he eats it, and he has more cravings for it. He (unlike me) doesn’t beat himself up about it…”

Read the full post & get the recipe »