The Ugliest Cake I Ever Did Make

I love, love, LOVE to bake! Thanksgiving provides me with an especially exciting challenge: both of my inlaws are diabetic, and up until recently my dad required gluten-free. (True side story: the first time I ever met my future inlaws was a Thanksgiving meal, way before Bill and I were dating. He invited some friends who had nowhere to go to his parents'. My parents were in Louisiana that year and I was alone, so I went. Bill failed to inform me that his parents required sugar-free, and I ever so naively brought with me a huge batch of sugary pumpkin pie bread. My (future) mother in law was so kind about it, but I was mortified!).

But I digress. This year, Thanksgiving was special because it so happened my mom's birthday fell on Thursday, as it does every few years. I love Thanksgiving on her birthday because I am so very thankful for her. I decided I wanted to make a sugar-free red velvet cake for our Thanksgiving/birthday celebration.

I gotta tell you, I sampled the batter while mixing and I was really worried it was going to taste like plain old flour, only red. I was totally under-impressed with the batter. And the cake itself (with sugar-free frosting from scratch) turned out to be the flat-out UGLIEST cake I have ever had the fortune to create:

Interestingly, and not quite coincidentally, I'm sure, it was the very first cake I've ever made from scratch and not from a box...hmmm...I'm sure this cake could be prettied up with some sparkly red sugar decorating the top, but that would kind of defeat my sugar-free purpose.

My stepson summed it up correctly upon tasting it when he giddily proclaimed: "Wendy! That horrid cake you made tastes really good!". Hahaha, we all had a good laugh at that. And he was right: despite its terribly homely appearance and my fears over the bland batter, it ended up tasting pretty darn good. Not bad for my first try...

Incidentally, I also made a sugar-free pumpkin pie, and I want to share the recipe with you. Me, I can't stand pumpkin pie so I don't eat it, but Bill and everyone else says it tastes just like a "regular" pumpkin pie. So if you're looking for something sugar-free that tastes as good as the sugary version, this is your recipe!