Paleo Wedding Cake ~ gluten free, grain free, dairy free

So I’ve Been busy! Super Busy! Planning a wedding!

After 31 years of marriage my parents wanted to do a revow celebration and I was the wedding planner.

I’ve been decorating, flower arranging, cake making, tartan sewing… yep tartan sewing we are from Scottish dissent and so my mother wanted to have a Scottish tartan pinning ceremony at the wedding.

Which would also explain the beautiful purple Scottish thistles that I decorated the cake with.

I love thistles they are such a deep lovely purple color and so very Scottish and they look amazing on the cake!

 The cake was delicious! by the way, the bottom tier is a paleo pound cake with a strawberry filling so basically a strawberry short cake.

Completely nut free so if you have a nut allergy and can eat coconuts this cake is for you it’s made with coconut flour!

The top tier is a paleo carrot cake no filling just frosting in the middle and made with almond flour and maple syrup! yum! both cakes are grain and gluten free I used dairy in my recipe but I have alternatives that I tested that work and taste great for the dairy free people in the recipes below.

The amazing looking frosting is a paleo swiss meringue buttercream made with honey! it has a delicate floral sweetness that I just loved! without being to over powering. Smooth and creamy Paleo buttercream how can you get any better than that!

Now lets take a look at some of the pictures I took of my parents on their revow day. Don’t worry we will get back to the cake in just a minute.

My dad wore his Air Force blues to the ceremony and my mom got a new wedding dress and a bouquet full of Scottish thistles!

As you can see in the pictures below my mom and I are wearing our Scottish tartans that where pinned on with our Scottish brooches during the ceremony.

The Scottish pinning of the Tartan ceremony is an ancient Scottish wedding tradition and each pinning ceremony is different for each family and varies depending on whether the groom or his bride is being accepted into the clan.

In this case my mother’s side has the Scottish clan and my father was pinned by her in way of accepting him into the clan, then my parents pinned all of us kids lol and then I pinned my husband accepting him into our clan as well.

A little fun info about the Scottish Thistle.

 The Scottish Thistle is the oldest recorded ‘National Flower’ and is probably one of the most well-known, and easily recognized symbols of Scotland.

Now on to the cake!

 

Paleo wedding cake for my parents revow celebration!

Top tier of wedding cake is an 8″ paleo carrot cake:

Cake:
¼ cup butter, ghee, or palm shortening
5 large eggs
1 large egg white
1 cup maple syrup
3 cups almond flour
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 tsp sea salt
1 cup chopped pecans
3 medium carrots grated

 

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 325F

Grease one 9 inch cake pan (i used a spring form pan) and line the cake pan bottom with a parchment paper circle.

In a small sauce pan melt the palm shortening or butter over low heat and set aside to cool.

In the bowl of a stand mixer with the whisk attachment, beat the eggs, egg white, and maple sugar, on medium-high speed for 15 minutes. The mixture should become thick and Fluffy.

Make sure to beat it for the full 15 mins.

While the egg and sugar mixture is beating, mix together the almond flour, cinnamon, freshly grated nutmeg, and baking soda in a large bowl. Add the pecans, carrots, and melted shortening or butter.

Once the wet ingredients are done beating for the full 15 mins, pour the dry ingredients into the wet ones and with a spatula gently fold them together until the flour is completely incorporated. Spoon/pour the batter into the cake pan and bake for 30-35 minutes.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool for about 15 minutes. Then, run a knife around the edge of the cake to loosen it from the pan and turn upside down onto a cooling rack to release the cake from the pan and let cool completely. (if using a spring form pan unlatch and take the cake out of the pan to cool on the cooling rack completely)

 

Bottom tier of cake is a 10″ paleo pound cake

 

Ingredients:

 

1 1/2 cup plus 6 tsp coconut flour, sifted

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 tsp baking soda

15 whole eggs (6 of them separated)

1 1/2 cup butter/ghee, room temp.

1 cup maple sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

 

 

 

Directions:

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

 

Grease one 10 inch cake pan and line the cake pan bottom with a parchment paper circle.

 

Whisk the coconut flour, salt, and baking soda together in a bowl and set aside. 

 

Note: Coconut flour is very absorbent so to achieve a nice yummy “crumb” texture, the scoop method must be used when measuring coconut flour. dip the measuring cup in the flour and scrape the excess off the top with a knife. Do Not Pack the flour!

 

Separate 6 of the eggs, place the whites in a stand mixer and putting the 2 yolks in a medium sized bowl and set aside. Crack open the rest of the eggs, and add them to the bowl with egg yolks.

 

In a stand mixer with the whisk attachment beat the egg whites until they form thick soft peaks. scoop out the fluffy egg white with a spatula into a small bowl and set aside for later.

 

In the same stand mixer beat on medium speed the butter/ghee and maple sugar, until they are well combined then add the vanilla and mix until incorporated.

 

On low/medium-speed, mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and continue to mix until the batter is smooth and has no lumps.

 

Add the eggs 2 at a time (not including the egg whites) into the batter. Allowing each addition to be incorporated completely before adding the next.

 

Once that is done fold the eggs whites into the batter with a spatula.

 

Spoon/Pour the batter into a greased and lined 10 inch round cake pan.

 

Bake at 350 degrees for about 45-55 mins. or until a toothpick in the center comes out clean. Baking times will vary from oven to oven, and depending on your bakeware and the thickness of the cake. So keep an eye on it toward the end. The cake should be a nice golden color. 

 

Remove from the oven and allow to cool for about 15 minutes. Then, run a knife around the edge of the cake to loosen it from the pan and turn upside down onto a cooling rack to release the cake from the pan and let cool completely.

 

 

Strawberry filling

Ingredients:

1 lb organic strawberries washed, tops removed and cut into small pieces.
1/4 cup local clover honey

Directions:

Place strawberries and honey in a small sauce pan on medium ~ high heat and cook until strawberries are soft. set aside for later. cool completely before using.

 

Swiss Meringue buttercream Frosting

Ingredients:

6 egg whites
1 1/2 cup local clover honey
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
3 cups room temperature butter or palm shortening
1 tbsp vanilla extract or one vanilla bean scraped.

Directions: 

First make sure you have a clean and completely dry stand mixer bowl and whisk before continuing on.

Once that’s taken care of add the egg whites, honey, and cream of tartar to your stand mixer bowl.

Place the bowl over a pot of simmering water (don’t let the bottom of the pot touching the water). Heat the mixture while whisking continuously until it reaches 160F with a candy thermometer.

Once 160F is reached immediately remove it from the heat and place in your stand mixer with the whisk attachment. Whisk the mixture starting on low and gradually raise the speed to high. Beat the mixture until stiff peaks and it is cool to the touch. which could take about 8-10 minutes.

Once the mixture is fluffy stiff peaks change to the paddle attachment and beat on medium-high adding the butter bit by bit. Beat until thick and smooth. (it might look curdled for a time but that’s ok just keep beating it will smooth out.)

 

To assemble the wedding cake

Equipment:

cake turntable

offset spatula

piping bags

wooden cake dowels

cake boards

 

Step 1: Trim off any really dark bit’s of cake from both cakes, but keeping the cake sides and tops even (I cut my top tier the carrot cake to about an 8″ size and saved the sides a cut for a later project) and then cut both the carrot cake and pound cake in half with a knife, try to keep the halves even in size. Place a little bit not much of the frosting on a 10″ cake board and place one of the pound cake layers on the frosting. (the frosting helps to keep the cake from moving around).

Note: I use a cake turntable  and a off set spatula to fill and frost my cakes, it’s so! much easier.

Step 2: place some of the frosting in a piping bag cut off the tip and pipe a border around the outside of the cake, then spoon the cooled strawberry filling into the center of the cake spread around to even it out. place the second half of the pound cake on top and frost a thin layer over the whole pound cake (this is called a crumb coat because it keeps control of the crumbs). set the pound cake aside for now.

Step 3: Now place a bit of frosting on a 8″ cake board and place one of the halves of carrot cake on the board, refill the piping bag with frosting and pipe a border around the outside edge of the cake layer then fill with the center with icing and smooth and scrape (scrape off if needed) the frosting with your offset spatula until the frosting is about 1/2″ thick, then place the second layer of carrot cake on top of the frosted layer and frost a thin layer over the whole carrot cake.

Step 4: Now place the pound cake on the cake turntable and stick one of the wooden dowels in the cake all the way to the bottom , take it out of the cake and cut it where the top of the cake was on the dowel (there should be some frosting on the cake to show you where to cut) cut five of them to that size. Then place them in the center of the pound cake one in the middle and the others around the first one. Now place the carrot cake in the center of the pound cake over the dowels (yes still with the cake board on the bottom).

Step 5: The look of the frosting on this cake is called messy rustic which is awesome because it’s messy so it doesn’t matter if you “mess up” it’s suppose to look messy anyway lol. So now take the rest of your frosting and frost the now 2 tiered cake again, this time making the frosting a bit thicker. After you have all the frosting on the cake, to get the messy rustic look move your offset spatula back and forth pressing into the frosting and moving side to side and then up right of the cake to make some messy waves. This is the fun part be creative and swish your spatula around to make it fun, pretty and messy rustic! once that’s done transfer to your desired cake stand.

Step 6:  You can decorate your cake how ever you like! This was for my mom and dad and my mom loves Scottish thistles so I just placed them where i thought they looked good and added a few cute white flowers and then topped it off with there heart topper. TADA! Wedding Cake!

 

 

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