Gluten-Free Spice Cake with Brown Butter Cream Cheese Icing
This is how you survive kids jamming in your basement.
Happy belated Valentine’s, Galentine’s, Palentine’s, Schmalentine’s Day, or whatever you call it, if indeed you chose to partake at all. I celebrated by being stuck home with a sick kid while Justin was on a shoot, arguing all day about screen time. My one wholesome tradwife mom move was attempting to make cookies with Jude. He helped mix the egg and vanilla into the sugar and butter before running off to “chat” with his best friend on whatever the hell Roblox is. He just learned how to do this three days ago, and I was very grumbly about it because I am Technology Averse Cranky Middle Aged Mom, until I relented and thought…you know what? This is actually a great way for him to practice his reading and writing skills! He’s a child of the Newfoundland and Labrador education system and apparently practicing reading and writing isn’t a thing anymore because it might damage their self-esteem or something. What an opportunity for him to learn without even knowing he’s doing it! Until I round the corner into the dining room and he’s using “talk to text” (which I don’t even know how to do on the iPad) and wow, thanks for taking away yet another life skill from the children, technology! Round of applause. Now, can we please use all this collective brainpower to solve climate change, cure cancer, end fascism, or like, I don’t know, invent a fucking milk carton that doesn’t leak. Sincerely, someone who will definitely be everyone’s least favourite lady in the old age home.
Took a break this past weekend from daily check-ins on The Downfall of America to do some self-care. Lol not really, you can’t do any self-care when your other half is working all weekend and you’re hosting your kid’s band practice. And as it’s irresponsible to numb the noise with multiple martinis when you have a houseful of children, I invited the moms, we had coffee and cake in front of the fire, and shut the basement door good and tight. And let me tell you something, there is nothing more intense than three moms let loose to have an actual conversation without interruption while their youngsters occupy themselves with electric guitars and drums. The only thing that turned out to be more intense was the string of curses (can’t lie, mostly f-bombs) coming out of the mouths of our primary school-aged children when they invited us into the family room to listen to the fruits of their labour after three hours of song composition. The video we took may never be allowed to see the light of day.
We didn’t get mad, we laughed uncontrollably until our faces hurt. It’s 2025, and we all have a lot to get off our chests. Even the kids.
Gluten-Free Spice Cake with Brown Butter Cream Cheese Icing
For the cake:
¾ cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk
½ cup canola oil
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 ½ tsp ground cardamom
1 tsp ground ginger
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
½ tsp kosher salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 ¼ cups “1 to 1” gluten free baking flour (I used Bob’s Red Mill)
1 ½ tsp baking powder
For the icing:
½ package cream cheese, softened
1 ½ tbsp salted brown butter, softened
1 tsp salted butter, softened
¼ tsp vanilla extract
1 ¼ cups confectioners’ sugar
(I like to do a giant batch of brown butter, let it reharden, and keep it in my fridge for baking or for spreading on toast with French marmalade. Just try it.)
Preheat your oven to 350°F. Grease or spray a 9-inch round cake pan and line the bottom with parchment paper. In a large bowl, whisk the brown sugar and eggs together until pale and slightly thickened. Add buttermilk, canola oil, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, nutmeg, salt, and vanilla, and whisk until smooth. Add flour and baking powder and whisk together until smooth and most of the lumps are gone. Pour the batter into the pan and bake for 30 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the centre comes out clean (check at 25 if your oven runs hot). Cake should be puffed and slightly cracked on top. Let cool in pan for ten minutes, then invert onto a rack and let cool completely.
For the icing, mix the cream cheese, brown butter, butter, and vanilla until smooth. Add the confectioners’ sugar and mix together carefully until smooth. Add more sugar if you need to; icing should be soft enough to spread easily, but should still retain some shape.
Dollop the icing on top of the cooled cake, and smooth over the top with an offset spatula, butterknife, or spoon.
Sometimes, it’s okay to shut the kids in the basement and eat cake. You might even get a great song out of it. Just maybe not one you can play for the grandparents.
Rock on, Chickens. xo
