So I had to make my Birthday cake a day early, so that I could post this today. On my birthday. Had to. Considering I’ve been craving, yet procrastinating making, Spice Cake for the last 6 weeks or so, I think it was actually about time.

Before I get to the recipe I thought I would talk a little about my life, since, you know, you only turn 30 once. 😉 My 20’s were some odd, crazy, full, hard, eye-opening, exciting, happy years. For almost the first half of them, I spent my life in Ohio, going to work as a Medical Assistant and Phlebotomist for a medical doctor, going home, providing everything I made to my family, knowing my 2 co-workers & doctor (barely), but pretty much no one else outside of the house I called home. At 24, I met my now husband (I will share our crazy love story sometime) and went through an extremely dark, emotional time when I chose him and my family disowned me. I moved to NY, worked as a Medical Assistant for a large GI practice of 11+ practitioners and got to realize what it felt like to make and handle my own money. I bought my first car, and learned how to drive in the snow (from my insanely talented hubby).

At 25, I married the man of my dreams, and taught myself how to cook, bake, and take care of our first little apartment. Shortly after we were married, I got really sick and was off on disability for 3.5 months (more of my bizarre story here). When I got no answers in all that time, I returned to work only to have to quit after a month, because I could not physically handle the job. I became a housewife full-time for the first time and fell in love with it.

At 26, I met my chiropractor/NRT Doctor, who helped put my body on the path to true health. We learned about sugar, GMOs, ancient grains, metals, chemicals, pathogens, scars, and tons of other things that help/hurt the body. I detoxed tons of pesticides, went through ups and downs of healing liver, thyroid, adrenal, pancreatic and kidney damage from that, kidney stones and finding out that my two silver fillings were dumping tons of mercury into my system. I had them removed (non-biologically, I highly DO NOT recommend it) and detoxed for a year from that. We bought our first house, a two family home, became landlords to lower tenants and started a 3 year long renovation project on our upper apt that only ended shortly after we bought our second (single family) house, rented out our old apartment and started major renos on the new house. At 28, we got pregnant with our first son, went through major decisions about my healthcare and finally settled on a midwife and home birth, with which we were so thankful we did.

Now at 29, almost 30, I’m 1/2 way through our second pregnancy and excited to find out how our baby is doing and what his/her sex is the end of this week. 🙂 My hubby has a great job at a local bank, we’re hopefully through the worst parts of this reno, we have a great friend, John, who is always willing to do any kind of manual labor for us when my hubby needs help, we have a super sweet, always smiling 14.5 month old, and even though I can naturally find the bad in anything, I have so much to be thankful for.

So on that note, Spice Cake! That’s something I’m thankful for today (and last night, ha). 😉 This is NOT, I repeat, NOT a low sugar recipe. It is however a real food recipe, using ancient grains, natural sugars and unadulterated (not pasteurized) dairy. It’s not a breakfast food or a snack, but a special occasion treat (hello?! This IS the big 3-0 you know). 😉 If you get to try it, drop me a comment and let me know what you think. This is my absolute favorite recipe modification of a lifelong adored dessert that I’ve ever done. The version I grew up on was a boxed spice cake mix made per the box directions, with penuche made out of blue bonnet margarine, brown sugar, pasteurized milk and triple to quadruple the amount of powdered sugar called for (it never set up, my guess was from the fake butter). This is not only a huge improvement in quality, but it tastes real. 😉

Real Food Spice Cake

A delicious, spicy cake that pairs wonderfully with the sweet, brown, butter frosting below. Mmmmmmm.

Author: Tiffany H

Ingredients

2 c organic white spelt
3/4 c coconut or maple sugar
1 tsp baking soda
2 tbsp ginger
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp nutmeg
3/4 tsp Real Salt
1 stick butter (8 tbsp.)
1/2 c buttermilk
3/4 c raw honey or maple syrup
2 pastured eggs (preferably local)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350°.
Grease and flour 2 - 8 inch round cake pans.
Combine top dry ingredients in KitchenAid bowl. Mix well.
Add softened butter, buttermilk and maple/honey. Mix well.
Add 2 farm fresh eggs and beat on medium speed for 2 minutes.
Pour into pans and bake for 28-30 minutes, or until top springs back to touch.
Cool in pans. Remove, frost, savor!

Recipe Notes

I didn't have buttermilk, so I made my own by adding 1/2 tbsp of lemon juice to 1/2 c. of fresh raw milk. Turned out great! 🙂 I also used a combination of honey and maple.