Birthday Cake {Dairy-free, Egg-free}

A couple weeks ago, my girl turned 5! She was so excited and as you know, the 5th birthday is quite the milestone. So, I knew I would have to do something special in the cake category. The day before her birthday, I made cupcakes for her K5 class and she would be having cupcakes again for a joint birthday party with her BFF who shares the same birthday. Cupcakes are yummy, but I decided I needed to do a non-cupcake kind of thing for the day of her birthday. So, I went to the store and bought the Duncan Hines Devil's Food Cake Mix {I use Ener-G Egg Replacer instead of the eggs called for in the directions}. It turns out pretty good, but it is a moist cake and that tends to be a bit of a challenge when it comes to holding together. Without eggs, it really wants to crumble. The cupcakes turn out okay, but a sheet cake or anything else would be difficult to do. I began brainstorming and decided I would try to bake individual cakes {bigger than a cupcake, but smaller than a cake pan} in waffle cone bowls. My local Publix has a store brand of waffle cone bowls that have none of my daughter's allergens in them, so I bought them. I made the cake according to the directions, only substituting the eggs. Then, I placed 6 waffle cone bowls into a 9x13 pan and filled each bowl 2/3 full with cake batter. I don't remember how long I baked them, but I know I baked them longer than you would bake a cupcake and possibly as long as a sheet cake, maybe longer. I just baked until I thought they looked right and then inserted a toothpick into one and it came out clean. You'll just have to eyeball it, if you try this. The bowls will take the shape of the pan they are in and mine turned out kind of square. But I thought it looked cute! Once cool, I frosted them with a chocolate icing (store-bought and dairy-free) and then sprinkled the colorful sprinkles on top.

The most important part was that my 5 year old loved it! I never tasted it, but they all got eaten up pretty quickly. I think I will be trying a made-from-scratch allergy-free cake recipe soon to see if it holds up better than a cake mix and if it does, I will let you know!