Making Birthday Cakes at Home: An Easy CARS Cake. Living With Food Allergies Series

This spring, four children have died from anaphylaxis, and of those four, three had peanut allergies, like my son, who is also allergic to cashews and chickpeas.  In honor of Food Allergy Awareness Week 2013, I'm posting pictures of my children's nut allergy friendly birthday cakes.  

I hope you don't have high hopes for today's featured cake.  Unlike yesterday's fancy cake, with this birthday cake, my goal was simple:  Throw together a quick cake for an early birthday celebration with grandparents.  I made my more complex birthday cake a week later, but I just want you to see that making a nut free cake can be as simple as reading a box and being careful with your decorations.

Again, I went with our Cars theme.

Step 1:  Bake Cake.  Go with a nut-free cake, like Betty Crocker or Pillsbury.

Step 2: Frost as usual.  I'm not going to tell you how many cans of chocolate frosting went on this cake.  You would be shocked by the sugar overload.  Again, read labels to find a yummy rich chocolate frosting that is not processed with peanuts.  I love Betty Crocker.

Step 3:  Add fun stuff to the top!  Walmart now carries these great Wilton kits for decorating cakes.  We bought lightening shaped sprinkles, a candle with Mater & Lightning McQueen, and these great tire-shaped candle holders with candles.  Again, check your sprinkles!  A lot of Wilton sprinkles are not safe.


And that's it!  Enjoy the cake and try not to overdose on all the sugar.  And remember, sometimes, we don't need the fancy birthday cakes.  Honestly, our son was just as happy with this cake as the other, fancier one. Life is not about impressing people with my Facebook pictures or being the Pinterest Perfect mommy.

He loved it...

But once he saw his present from his grandparents,, he was done with the cake and wanted to go for a ride on Mater.

When you make birthday cakes for your kids, do you opt for simple or a more complex cake?