My daughter has not exhibited any allergies, but, with  nut and fish allergic older brother, I see no reason to rush into any potential allergens, such as wheat or eggs.  I will probably introduce egg yolks and then whites to my little one in the next few weeks, but, until then, this birthday cake will have to do.

This recipe turned out even better than I had hoped.  Basically, I experimented a little bit with some alternative flours, settling on a flour mix which I based on a few different sources including the Land O Lakes website and Rebecca Reilly's  Gluten-Free Baking.

Then, I turned to my mother's tried and true yellow birthday cake recipe that I use for all of my birthday cakes and tweaked it until it worked.  Since my daughter has already tolerated dairy, I used real butter and milk for the cupcakes, but I am sure that non-hydrogenated dairy-free margarine and water or soy milk could be used. Also, if you are only avoiding wheat and not eggs, you can use 4 whole eggs instead of the egg substitute. 

What I ended was a very light colored (if you use real eggs, the cake will appear more yellow than the white-ish results that I got) and somewhat spongier cake…but one good enough that my husband and I downed a couple of cupcakes each and my 3.5 year old happily ate his as well.

Wheat, Nut and Egg Free Birthday Cupcakes

makes 2 dozen medium cupcakes

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

2 cups sugar

6 tsp Ener-G Egg replacer mixed well with 8 Tbsp warm water

2 3/4 cups gluten-free flour mix*

3 tsp baking powder (if gluten intolerant, use gluten free baking powder)

1/2 tsp xantham gum

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

1.Preheat oven to: 350 F.

2.  Line
the cupcake tins with cute cupcake papers.

3.   Cream butter in electric mixer,  add sugar gradually while machine is on
and beat together with butter until mixture is light and fluffy.            

4.    Add egg replacer and beat well.

5.     Mix
dry ingredients together and add them alternately with non-dairy
milk/water and vanilla. Be sure to stop machine every so often and
scrape batter from the sides and bottom of bowl into the center.

6.     Using a tablespoon, spoon batter evenly into cupcake tins.

7. Bake about 30 minutes, until a tester inserted into a few different cupcakes in different areas of the pan comes out clean.

8. Wait until cupcakes are completely cool before frosting. 

* Gluten-free Flour Mix

2 c brown rice flour

2/3 c potato starch

1/3 c tapioca starch