Mini Cakes! (perfect for practicing piping skills)

 This easy cake and frosting recipe is absolutely perfect for cutting into rounds or shapes to make mini decorated cakes. Ideal when you or your kids want to practicing piping skills. ;) I hadn't made mini cakes in years, but my youngest was desperate to make a cake to practice decorating with frosting, and I remembered how I'd made these before. A perfect activity - and tasty, too!

My girls getting a bit fancier with the frosting and decor here.

Triple layer mini cakes!

Made this batch of mini cakes completely on her own. 

Mini Cakes! 

Sponge Cakes:

Preheat the oven to 350 F.  Butter the edges and line 2 quarter sheet baking pans with parchment paper (quarter sheet baking pans are approx 8x12 inner dimension or 9x13outer dimension metal cookie sheets - I LOVE this size.  Perfect for the toaster oven, and perfect when you have multiple things you want to roast separately in the regular oven, and of course, opera-style cakes!)

In a large bowl, whisk together: 

1/2 cup coconut flour

1/2 cup white rice flour

1 cup sugar

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

Add and whisk in until smooth: 

1 cup milk

1/2 cup oil

6 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract

Divide between the two parchment-lined pans.  Bake at 350 F for approximately 15-18 minutes.  These are nice and thin, so they cook quickly.  They should look lightly browned and no longer wet in the center.  Depending on your oven, they may need an extra minute or two.  

Remove from oven.  Let cool in pan on wire racks.  Once cool, you can use circle cutters (or other shapes) to cut as desired. 

As you can see above, the girls used a round cutter to cut out the circles for making the mini cakes. They'd mix and match extra pieces to make little cakes after all the circle cakes were decorated. 

Vanilla-Marshmallow Frosting:

Once cakes have cooled, you can prepare your frosting, as it's time to assemble! 

Beat together in a mixer until light and fluffy - 2-3 minutes: 

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 1/2 cup powdered sugar

1/4 - 1/2 cup marshmallow fluff

1/2 - 1 tsp vanilla extract

1 - 2 tsp (or more if needed) cream or milk

Hard at work, focusing on making little decorative toppers for her mini cakes. 

How cute are these? 

She was not amused when her sister wanted to come and join.  So.... we had to make them again the following weekend. 

They stepped up their decorating goals and made a few colors of frosting.

I gave a few pointers, but they decorated these all by themselves. The middle layers were the "less successfully decorated cakes" - meaning the tops could be their favorites.  

Lots of  fun decorated cakes were made! 

Mini Cakes Recipe by Successfully Gluten Free!

 These maybe should be called Chocolate Chips with a bit of Browned Butter Cookie holding them together, since that's really what they are.  Absolutely delicious, crispy, buttery, and packed with chocolate. Plus, you don't even need a mixer! Enjoy!

Delicious Chocolate Chip Filled Cookies - I'm telling you, they are packed with chocolate. Yum!

Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Make ~3 - 4 dozen cookies, depending on size of scooping.

In a small saucepan over medium heat, place: 

3/4 cup butter

Stirring constantly, making sure to scrap the bottom well, let cook and bubble for 5-7 minutes, until it turns into a nice golden brown. Make sure to keep an eye on it, since you don't want to overcook the browned butter. The little bits at the bottom are nice browned bits of milk, which have a lot of flavor, so that's totally normal to see and you'll want to keep and add them into your cookie dough, as well.  

Remove from heat. Pour the browned butter into a bowl.  You want to let this cool to room temperature. If you try to use it while hot, it will melt the sugar and you'll end up with a less desirable texture to your cookies. 

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line 3 baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, stir by hand, spreading with the back of the spoon/spatula until nicely mixed and creamy looking: 

browned butter, from above, RT

1/4 c + 2 Tbsp sugar

1/4 c + 2 Tbsp brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract or bean paste

1 egg

Whisk together the following in a bowl, then stir it into the butter mixture: 

1 cup white rice flour

1/4 - 1/2 tsp xanthan gum

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

Add and fold in: 

2 - 2 1/2 chocolate chips (I like to use a variety of high quality dark and semi-sweet chips)

The dough should really feel like a bunch of chocolate chips barely held together by dough.  Scoop 1 Tbsp scoops onto parchment lined pan.  

Scooped and ready to bake!

Bake at 350 F for 8-11 minutes, until nicely browned.  Let rest on the pan 10-15 minutes, to cool enough to lift onto a wire rack to fully cool.  Leftovers can be frozen in a freezer ziploc. Enjoy! 

Fresh from the oven and ready to taste-test!

I'm including this picture as a sort of FYI. If you are impatient and mix in the sugars before the browned butter has cooled enough, your cookies will end up more crumbly and crisp with a darker overall appearance because of the melted sugars.  They'll still taste good, but they'll be much messier and just not as delicious as it could be if you let the butter cool. 

Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe by Successfully Gluten Free!