This past weekend was Adam’s birthday. We had a small get-together with Adam’s family and a few friends. I arranged a meal of a few of Adam’s favorite foods–chicken wings from D-Spot and Nürnberger bratwurst from Kramarczuk’s with crunchy rolls from Breadsmith.

I was also looking for a fun, yet easy, dessert that we could have. Even though Adam’s not dairy-free, I knew that he would feel bad if I made a something for his birthday that I couldn’t eat. I did a lot of searching online to find dairy-free recipes. One of the biggest annoyances for me since going dairy-free has been finding recipes that are only dairy-free. Most of the internet assumes that if you are dairy-free, then you also are gluten-free, soy-free, nut-free, vegetarian, vegan, and Paleo. That means that a lot of substitutes are used that I’m just not willing to use for flavor reasons. Also I’m not willing to go out and purchase a special ingredient only to use a few tablespoons of it.

Eventually I tossed in the towel and I settled on a plain and simple Duncan Hines cake mix with vanilla frosting. But I still wanted to do something fun and creative. After all, this is my partner in mischief’s birthday we’re talking about here! Then I remembered that Adam had some cupcake molds on his wishlist that had been there for years. They were these Chef’n Cake Creature molds that also come with a pastry pen with different tips for injecting batter and fillings, and decorating the cakes.

Each mold is a two-piece silicone mold that seals together. I had never had luck with the silicone bakeware. I know there are lots of people who swear by their silicone bakeware and love its non-stick properties. Every time I had used silicone bakeware, my food ended up sticking even worse than it would have on a non-greased baking pan.

To be honest, I had very little faith in these molds. Adam and I understood that our fantasies of cute little monster-shaped cakes could very well be the next post on Cake Wrecks. We were so pleased when our little monster cakes simply popped out of their molds with that “warm oven glow”.

We kept decorating simple by mixing some gel food coloring into some canned vanilla frosting and putting on a few candy eyes. Later I inserted some candles into the top of each monster.

I know they’re not perfect, but I love the bright colors and variety. Even though there are only four different molds, each monster is different and has its own expression. It’s amazing what a couple of candy eyes will do!