Vanilla First Birthday Cake

I love a good cake post.  Sometimes I think I should had started this blog years ago when I have time to bake to my hearts content, then I could post about nothing but cake....and I'd be the size of a house.  Maybe it's a good thing I didn't start blogging until now....back to the birthday cake! 

Roman, the lucky devil will have two birthday cakes.  One for his cake smash and one for his actual birthday party.  I found this recipe on Wholesome Baby Food while cruising the internet for a baby friendly cake recipe.  Because Roman is going to be let loose on the cake with nothing stopping him from eating the entire thing (don't worry I'll step in if it looks like he's going to eat it all) I didn't want to make him a traditional cake.  Don't get me wrong, I see nothing wrong with a kid enjoying a piece of cake on their first birthday, but I also think they should only have a piece not the entire cake (just my opinion). 

Vanilla First Birthday Cake (makes one 9" round cake)
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup pastry flour
1/2 cup sugar
2t baking powder
1t baking soda
1/4t salt
1 1/2 cups plain Greek yogurt
1 cup buttermilk*
4T canola oil
3t vanilla
3 egg whites

*If you don't have buttermilk you can use regular 2% or whole milk.  Just add 1T of lemon juice to 1 cup of milk and let it stand for 5 minutes.  Super easy money saving tip!

Spray cake pan with oil.  Combine dry ingredients in a small bowl and mix until well combined.  In a large bowl, whisk together all wet ingredients.  Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix until most of the lumps are gone.  Pour into pan and bake at 350° for 1 hour or until toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.

This recipe immediately spoke to me as it only has 1/2 cup sugar in a 9" round cake.  Not bad at all!  I also learnt that if you happen to be out of regular oil spraying spray cooking oil into a measuring spoon also works fairly well.  Granted my measurements probably weren't exact but the cake still turned out!

This cake ended up being a little too dense for Roman to be able to dig his hands into, so I would probably recommend using a lighter cake recipe for little hands to smash.  We still made it work and Roman got to chow down on a huge chunk of cake thanks to Dad!