10 Sugar-Free Cakes & Desserts for Baby's First Birthday

Baby J is turning one! It’s so hard to believe that this year has gone by so quickly! I’ve been looking up sugar-free cakes and other desserts for his first birthday, with a little help from my friend Mandi. It turns out that there are lots of recipes for sugar-free cakes. There are fewer for naturally sweetened desserts (no “fake sugar”). And trying to find a lactose-free frosting further complicates matters. (Baby J had a tendency to get tummy aches from dairy early on, so I don’t want to assault his stomach with a lot of milk on his special day!) I may try this recipe for whipped cream made from coconut milk.

Here are links to ten of the recipes for sugar-free cakes and desserts I was able to find. A couple of them have dairy (cream cheese is a popular choice for a sugar-free frosting that still looks good). All of them are relatively healthy, sweetened by fruit or honey rather than sugar.

10 Sugar-Free Cakes & Desserts for Baby’s First Birthday

Baby Smash Banana Cake

Mandi used a recipe similar to this one from Fit Mama Real Food for her son’s first birthday party. She said it has a strong banana smell and is very moist–perfect for a baby who already loves bananas! It has a cream cheese frosting.
Healthy Carrot Cake

Carrot cake traditionally has cream cheese frosting, and this delicious sugar-free cake recipe is no different. However, the frosting could potentially be replaced by the whipped coconut cream I mentioned earlier. And for a baby’s first cake, those nuts on top have to go! 🙂
I love that this cake is sweetened partly by dates!
Healthy Chocolate Cake

Yes, the moisture comes from shredded zucchini. But zucchini isn’t noticeable in cakes or breads when cooked in plenty of lovely spice. One year old is the magic number for being able to eat honey, right? 🙂 Here’s the recipe from BalticMaid.
Persimmon Mini Bundt Cakes

This is the right time of year to start looking around in the woods down South for persimmons, although most of them are probably pretty sour still. This recipe packs them into mini cakes for lots of flavor. (Look through the page–it’s full of low-calorie dessert ideas.)
Snickerdoodle Blondies

Another of the sugar-free recipes on the page I linked to above is for Snickerdoodle Blondies, sweetened only lightly with applesauce. I really want to try this for a snack for J, even if I don’t use it for a birthday food!
Watermelon “Cake”

Minus the nuts, this recipe is a super-cute idea for a baby’s first birthday celebration treat! Baby J loves watermelon, so he would think this “sugar-free cake” was a lot of fun!
Carob Pudding Cake

Dairy free AND sugar free! Also oil-free and nut-free…interesting! And if you can’t find carob powder, you can always use cacao powder! (If you think Baby is ready for that chocolate flavor…we tried a month or so ago with Baby J and he was pretty doubtful. Which I do NOT understand at all!) 🙂
Apple Cupcakes

Lots of honey makes these dense cupcakes sweet. The cinnamon frosting is even made with honey. (Keep looking through the Paleo Cupboard website for more ideas!)
Baked Apples

Baby desserts don’t have to look like cake…Happy Healthy Mama’s recipe has just three ingredients:5-6 medium apples, peeled and cut into chunks

2 tablespoons butter or coconut oil, melted

1 teaspoon cinnamon.
Fancy Sugar-Free Birthday Cake

Baby J will not be getting anything quite this fancy, mostly because I have great doubts about my ability to swirl anything. However, I had to add this cake to this list because it is actually a real, party-worthy sugar-free birthday cake.