Birthdays and the Coeliac

Just a quick post to share my vision of the future for Coeliac birthdays.

Are you fed up with not being able to go to the supermarket and buy a gorgeous birthday cake for your party? Banging your head against the wall at the thought of paying over the top prices for a professional gf cake? Daunted by the prospect of *gasp* - baking your own birthday cake? Fear not!

2011 brought with it the end of my 20s and the beginning of my 30s, so the natural thing to do was to have a big party and get horrifically drunk. I also wanted a birthday cake - a party without cake is just sad - but was all too well aware of the problems I faced. The previous week, I went down South to visit my family and have small celebrations with them and my big sister, bless 'er cotton socks, bought me a cake from Sainsburys and said that even thought she knew I couldn't have it, she wanted me to have a birthday cake to cut, which was a very nice thought. Aaaaaaanyway, back to the point. My party. A solution came to me in the form of a wheat intolerant colleague, who suggested I challenge those coming to MAKE me a birthday cake. So I did! With invitations, I sent out a sheet which stated what I could and couldn't go into the cake and my personal preferences (glitter, chocolate, etc). I got three entries - a chocolate gooey thing (the winner!), a victoria sponge (damn nice!) and a chocolate cake, cooked by a guy, which is a feat in itself! I got 3 birthday cakes (cheeky, I know), the winner got some sparkling wine (because I'm cheap!) and everyone had a piece of birthday cake (hooray!).

Would be interested to know of any real bakeries selling gf cakes at decent prices, or if anyone has any stories of gf birthday cakes, post them here!

[FionaGFG Administrator]

Miss C - belated b'day congrats!

Love your post. It really goes to show that there is always a way to turn a negative into a positive. I bet your b'day cake challenge also helped raise awareness of CD at the same time in a fun way. If you have pics do email them over and we'll look at adding them.

Re the Cakes - so true. You'd think that mainstream supermarkets would've cottoned onto the niche market of Free From to order cakes. I've had a quick trawl and Waitrose Deliver to these around £23 >£60. If you're a veggie or avoiding soya they seem to love to cater for you.

waitrosedeliver.com/wdelive...

Personally I've tried these great GF suppliers. Always nice to support the small guys and gals - often they are Coeliacs / have food intolerances themselves so take extra care ref cross contamination:

peaceofcakelondon.com/get-i...

- Great b'day and wedding cakes Free From many other ingredients yet they taste amazing.

- Based in London

sweetcheeksltd.co.uk/

- Based London & Watford

What other stories do you all have of gf b'day cakes?