Did I also mention soy-free? Maybe we should start a thread called "Stump the Chumps" like they have on Car Talk, because I think this might be a stumper !

I think I am close to making up a recipe. I'm finally getting around to making my GF and everything else free cake for my birthday, even though my b-day was a month ago. DH is too overwhelmed by my diet for this task. I made a chocolate cake from a Pamela's mix - excellent! The frosting is now the challenge. I tried making the frosting from the "Enjoy Life" semi-sweet chocolate chip package, but I don't like it. Seems that I need to make my own powdered sugar with a substitute for cornstarch. How do I substitute cornstarch in quantity with arrowroot? This is the recipe I found for making your own powdered sugar. Any suggestions for how to make it corn free, and how to make it a good tasting, fluffy chocolate frosting? To give you an idea how good I'm at baking, I own a copy of "The Idiot's Guide to Baking". Help!

2 cups unbleached cane sugar
1/2 cup cornstarch

Blend in food processor or blender for 1 minute. Scrape down sides & blend an additional 30 seconds.

I'm also thinking of substituting my birch sugar (xylitol not from corn) for the cane sugar. It looks and acts like regular sugar.

Claire

Floofy frosting I can't help with. But, if your interested in a delightful chocolate glaze...take some chocolate chips, and melt with just a little orange juice. You want maybe a teaspoonful to 1/2 a cup chocolate. (If your using enjoy life, make it a very scant cup, the tiny chips take up much less room than full size, LOL) It should be thin enough to pour, but thick enough to stick to the cake.


Mmmmm. I miss citrus!

Just a few suggestions, because I'd rather do this than clean out my pantry. Note: I haven't tried these myself, but I would try them if I were in your situation (and, I'm hoping after Tom's food sensitivity results are in that we won't be in your situation).

Do you have any kind of margarine-type substitute you can use? I'm guessing not, based on those restrictions. What about mayonnaise? I know you can always make mayonnaise, and it would meet your requirements (unless you forgot to mention no eggs, just to add to the challenge). I have to admit, I've never made mayo and I know there's a trick to it. But, this is cake we're talking! It's important! Anyway, I would substitute mayo for margarine/butter in your cake frosting and go from there. If you're making chocolate icing, that should take care of any mayo taste. (You should probably refrigerate this one though, especially if you do have to make homemade mayo.)

As another suggestion (and this would add a bigger change to the taste), what about peanut butter? (Were you going to say no nuts, too) Try replacing your margarine/butter with peanut butter and go from there. It might be a little stiffer, so you may need more milk... or maybe half PB and half mayo?

Anyway, here's a frosting to get you started (remember, I've only made the dairy-substitute versions, not the corn & soy-free version):

Alternate Cocoa Frosting
1 pound box sifted powder sugar (use your homemade powdered sugar)
3/4 cup cocoa
1/2 cup mayo or peanut butter or 1/4 cup mayo and 1/4 cup PB
1/2 cup milk substitute (or water, if you don't have a substitute)
1 t vanilla (or skip, if this is a problem)
Mix sugar and cocoa. Cream part of cocoa mixture with mayo and/or peanut butter. Blend in vanilla and part of milk substitute. Add remaining cocoa mixture and blend. Add remaining milk substitute and beat to desired consistency. Beat for at least a minute or two. Longer if desired.


Also, remember that you're adding a lot of sugar. It's going to taste good, no matter how bad it looks, so go ahead and experiment. It will be edible. (So far, my kids have not disagreed with this philosophy. They are happy to eat my sugar disasters. It's the disasters that aren't dessert-related that they stick their noses up at.)

Isn't there an egg-white based frosting? Royal frosting?

Yes! (My memory is good now 1 year since GF!)

http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,166,...254200,00.html

What about coconut milk?

This is an awesome "fudgey" frosting recipe. You would have to substitute arrowroot or tapioca flour or something for the cornstarch, and rice or almond milk or something for the soy milk. You'd probably use less rice/almond milk since they don't seem to be as "thick" as soy...for that matter, you could probably use water.

Fudge Frosting
http://www.veganstreet.com/veganliving/recipes022.html

1/3 cup water
1/4 cup non-GMO cornstarch (or substitute)
3/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup almond butter, smooth
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (or roasted carob powder)
2 tsp. vanilla
approximately 1/4 cup plain soy milk (or substitute)

Place the water and cornstarch in a saucepan, and whisk until fully integrated. Stir in the maple syrup. Over medium heat, bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly. Once the mixture is very thick and smooth, reduce the heat to lowand continue to stir for one more minute. Pour the mixture into a food processor or, to mix by hand, a medium bowl. Add the remaining frosting ingredients, and process or stir until very smooth. The mixture should be very thick, but spreadable, so use the least amount of soy milk as possible. Set aside and let stand until completely cool

Frost cake and let the frosting sit for at least an hour for it to set. Decorate with candles and voila!

I remember when I was little my Mom used to decorate wedding cakes. Her frosting recipe was as easy as they come. To save money and make the cake most shelf-stable, she would recommend that her clients have "butter creme" frosting, instead of butter frosting.

Basic butter frosting:
-Whip butter. Add powdered sugar to desired consistency.

Basic Butter Creme frosting:
-Whip butter-flavored Crisco (TM or whatever). Add powdered sugar to desired consistency. (Not buttery enough for you? Add butter flavored extract from any good cake supply store).

She would bring a sample of each to the first client meeting, and most clients picked the Crisco for flavor and texture.

Now- on to your challenge- the only unknown is whether Crisco contains either corn or soy oil in it's "Vegetable Oil" ingredients. I can't get an answer off their website, but I bet a quick call to the manufacturer would do the trick. I did find one reference that said it was made from cottonseed oil, but better safe than sorry.

Problem #2- Powdered sugar: Yep, most powdered sugar has cornstarch added to it. Two reasons why: Less clumping during storage, and better thickening power in recipes. But if you don't need shelf life or thickening power, why add cornstarch? So when you make it yourself, the recipe goes like this:

-Pulse plain old granulated sugar in a food processor until it is as fine as you need it. Sift to remove lumps.

(What!?! You don't own a food processor? Use a VERY clean coffee grinder. It makes smaller batches and takes longer, but it does the job.) ;-)

Just to add a tuck and an half twist to the last trick- If you do want the thickening power and shelf-life of cornstarch, add a small amount of finely ground rice powder (rice, coffee grinder- you get the idea) to your homemade powdered sugar. Not as good as cornstarch, but a strong second-string player.

{Bonus hint, no extra charge- use rice to clean your coffee grinder of all the flavors and oils between using it for coffee or using it for herbs, sugar, etc. Running a batch of white rice cleans it better than anything I have found.}

Now for the half-court shot- if Crisco is not an option, or you can't get an absolute no corn, no soy guarantee, do what your great-great grandma did:
LARD.

No kidding. This giant of the worldwide baking industry has a undeservedly tarnished reputation in North America. Did you know it's lower in saturated fat than butter? Can't have the pork either? Tallow is made from beef and is the same thing, but harder to find.

Great-great grandma would never have used something as expensive as butter just to frost a cake. Lard and powdered sugar with a little vanilla would have won her the county bake-off title three years in a row. I'd add a little butter flavoring, though, just to be fancy.

A few extra steps and some creativity and you'll soon discover that the frosting in a can is a travesty. Homemade rocks!!!

Sorry for the long post, but I just stumbled across your question while doing a web search. I registered for the site just to put my two cents in. Hope it helps.

These are all wonderful suggestions! Thank you very much for taking the time to pop in an help us out... it is all much appreciated!!

I just wanted to add, since we're talking about starches on another thread, that you can also cut it with tapioca starch or arrowroot for the same result.

My daughter has been unable to have icing since diagnosed with allergies to gluten and corn. Are there any recipes out there?

Please read back in the thread. There are many great suggestions here.