Chocolate cake!

One of my favorite comedy bits of all time is Bill Cosby’s “Chocolate Cake for Breakfast”.  Here’s a link in case you haven’t heard it.

Now that you’re smiling,  I have good news. After many experiments and some truly awful failures we have discovered a gluten-free, dairy-free box mix that actually tastes like chocolate cake! No more heavy-dense cakes that taste like wood. No more flat, grainy cakes whose only redeeming quality is that they taste vaguely chocolaty. In the words of the great Cosby, “You want chocolate cake? Chocolate cake coming up!”

Start with Decadent Chocolate Cake mix from Gluten-Free Pantry.  As of this printing, you can buy it on Vitacost for $3.48, which is cheaper than Gluten-Free Pantry’s own site, and cheaper than Amazon.  Link Here

The recipe calls for softened, unsalted butter and buttermilk. Obviously that’s out for our family, but the directions say, “For lactose free version: Replace butter with oil and use water in place of buttermilk.” Don’t you believe it! Trust me, we know from (unpleasant) experience.

To replace the butter, we use Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Sticks(whipped).  We haven’t found a cheap spot to buy this online yet, but our local health food store carries it.

To replace the buttermilk, we use soy yogurt. I know it sounds weird, just trust me, it’s a thousand times better than water. We use vanilla flavored Silk Live Soy Yogurt, vanilla flavored The packaging doesn’t specifically say gluten free, but their website says, “There is no wheat, wheat gluten, rye, oats, barley or malt in Silk soymilk, Silk Live! soy yogurt or Silk Creamer.” It does have natural vanilla, which some people worry about, but our gluten free munchkin has never had a problem with it.

That’s it! Two simple replacements and you too will have children singing your praises, “Dad is great! Gives us the chocolate cake!”