Budget Friendly, Allergy Friendly, Chocolate Birthday Cake
An egg, dairy and nut free birthday cake for around $8 a batch (or $26.50 if you're starting from scratch), with a gluten free option and chocolate glaze.
If you’ve ever looked into buying a birthday cake that’s egg free, dairy free, gluten free and nut free, you may well have given up.
Allergies and dietary requirements can be challenging for both the parents of kids with allergies and those who are hosting, and that’s without factoring in the added expense.
According to the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, 90% of childhood allergies in Australia are due to:
- Egg
- Peanut
- Tree nuts
- Cow’s milk
- Wheat
- Soy
- Fish or shellfish
Introducing the Wacky / Depression / Crazy Cake solution
Born of the depression era when the cost of butter, eggs and milk was prohibitive, this cake uses vinegar and bi-carb to rise, oil for the fats and water for the liquid.
This recipe is super popular online for both its budget friendliness and its ability to cater for dairy, egg, nut allergies and vegans, without any substitutions.
You can fancy it up by adding coffee, but we’ll stick to the caffeine free and cheapest version possible.
It can also be made as vanilla by leaving out the cocoa. While this is great as it saves more money, I’ve only ever made this with cocoa powder and can’t vouch for the taste of the vanilla only version. I have read that chocolate does a much better job of covering up the lack of dairy. But honestly, I doubt any kids will notice!
Tips, swaps and variations
I won’t post a recipe here as there are probably, literally a million of these online (I’ve included some links below). But, what I will do, is break down the cost for the different options, so you have something to use for comparison and/or budgeting purposes.
For a birthday party of 10 kids, I’d recommend a sheet pan version, which is double the standard recipe. This is nicer as you don’t have to be stingy and you’ll probably have a bit leftover so you can offer to siblings or parents. But for a small birthday (6 kids or less), the standard size is fine. If you’re after the rest of the party too, see my Entire Birthday Party for Under $50 guide. This cake is the allergy friendly swap for the donut or lamington cake in that guide, though it will push you over the $50 total if you don’t have the ingredients in your pantry already. And if you want more allergy friendly food to go alongside it, check out my Allergy Friendly Party Food for Kids list.
The original recipe uses plain flour, but many people have reported successfully swapping 1:1 with gluten free flour, so I’ve shown costs for a GF version as well.
I’ve priced up vanilla essence instead of vanilla extract as it’s significantly cheaper, however I have doubled the amount used as vanilla essence has a milder flavour.
You’ll notice a lot of recipes online include a buttercream frosting, which is NOT dairy free, or if it is, is using much more expensive ingredients (like coconut oil).
Instead, I’ve included the cost of a basic chocolate glaze you can spread over the top. The only additional extra ingredient for this is icing sugar, you’ll have cocoa powder and vanilla essence already from the cake. Alternatively, you can just dust with icing sugar if you’re not a fan of icing. On a chocolate cake, it looks amazing!
Now, if you already have all of these ingredients, then it’s a reasonably priced cake (just over $8 for a double batch with all the upgrades). However, if you are starting from scratch, then the initial outlay can be a bit on the pricey side (around $26.50).
Here’s the breakdown
All figures below are for the sheet pan (double batch) version.
The base cake
| Ingredient | Amount needed | Smallest pack you can buy | Initial outlay | Cost per cake |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plain flour | 375g | 1kg | $1.30 | $0.49 |
| Cocoa powder | 60g | 250g | $7.30 | $1.75 |
| Baking soda | 13g | 500g | $2.50 | $0.07 |
| Vanilla extract | 20ml | 300ml | $3.00 | $0.20 |
| Sugar | 400g | 1kg | $1.80 | $0.72 |
| Vegetable oil | 160ml | 750ml | $4.00 | $0.85 |
| Vinegar | 10ml | 2L | $1.80 | $0.01 |
| Subtotal | $21.70 | $4.09 |
Baking soda was 5c cheaper at Woolies ($2.45) when I checked, but vinegar was 5c more ($1.85), so it evens out either way.
Optional: chocolate glaze
| Ingredient | Amount needed | Smallest pack you can buy | Initial outlay | Extra cost per cake |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Icing sugar | 350g | 500g | $2.50 | $1.75 |
| Cocoa powder (extra, from the same pack as the cake) | 30g | Already have | – | $0.88 |
| Vanilla essence (already have) | 10ml | Already have | – | $0.10 |
| Subtotal | $2.50 | $2.73 |
Optional: gluten free flour swap
Swap the plain flour above for gluten free flour, 1:1.
| Ingredient | Amount needed | Smallest pack you can buy | Initial outlay | Cost per cake | Extra vs. plain flour |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gluten free flour | 375g | 750g | $3.60 | $1.80 | +$1.31 |
Everything together (glazed, gluten free, double batch)
$8.13 per cake if you already have the pantry basics (flour, sugar, oil, baking soda, vinegar, vanilla), or around $26.50 as a total initial outlay starting completely from scratch.
References
Info on allergies
The Australian Government has some good information on food allergies here: healthdirect.gov.au/food-allergies-in-children
Centre for Food Allergy Research