It was the first birthday party of my “adopted niece”, Z- today. I was there for her mom’s labor and her delivery, as well. It was nice to see everything going so well after a year. I regret not being able to make it to S- more to see her, mostly because it is a bummer that she doesn’t really know me.

I got to make her birthday cake! A- wanted her to be able to eat some, but she didn’t want to give her sugar. It was a little experimental, but the cake turned out well. I used 1/2 of the sugar and substituted sucanat for the rest. I added 1/4 tsp of baking soda to the recipe to compensate for the heaviness of the sucanat. I also replaced about 1/2 of the milk with pineapple juice. I think the acidity of the juice also helped it rise.

I filled the layers with a raspberry/maple syrup glaze and used some sugar-made raspberry glaze to cover the outside…we didn’t give that part to Z-. Finally, I sprinkled some powdered sugar on top and made a dark chocolate candy spiral for the top, which I pulled off before serving.