Gluten-free Cake

[Beth Wilson]

I have been volunteered to make a cake for someone who is Gluten intolerant. Ok, it is the Inlaws and it is for their 50th anniversary party. (No pressure on me at all! Yeah, right!)

This is new to me and I tried a mix from the local health food store (bought the last one!) and made it. It was ok, after I added vanilla and a better cocoa to it to bump up the flavour but I wasn't wowed about the mix.

Is there anyone who can offer advice, recommend a mix or suggest a good cookbook? I checked a few sights on gluten free stuff but it seems that the ones that seemed most promising require subscriptions in order to see more of their recipes & techniques and since this is for an anniversary I am not prepared to subscribe.

Any suggestions would be appreciated as I would like to impress the in-laws and the other members of the family that seem to have developed this problem. The pressure is on, as the date is September 19th!

[CanadianBakin']

This is a link to a White Gluten Free Cake in recipegullet. I haven't tried it but it would probably be a great place to start.

[chefpeon]

I think the thing you have to realize is that you can't compare a gluten free cake to a cake that has regular wheat flour in it. It's just never going to be as good or the same. It's kind of an apples to oranges kind of thing.

Perhaps you should try making a flourless chocolate cake? They are excellent tasting and easy to make.

Edited September 8, 2009 by chefpeon (log)

[Beth Wilson]

Flourless Cake! Duh!

I have never made one before but have wanted to try it out, because they always look so decadent! I am guilty of expecting the gluten free mixes to be like a regular cake so I guess I will have to get my mind around something I am not embarrassed to say I made it.

I will try the gullet recipe & a flourless cake and get some opinions from the neighbours.

Thanks for the suggestions

[SaltySnack]

Betty Crocker has just released gluten free cake mixes. I've only tried the vanilla, and no, it's not a regular cake like you think of it and only enough for one layer, but to someone who is gluten free, any kind of baked good, when you can't have them is just delicious. After getting used to the heaviness of the vanilla cake, I actually really like it. Just like anything, your tastebuds adapt to the taste of gluten free baked goods and your in-laws who are gluten free may think whatever you fix is much better than you who are used to cakes made with flour think.

But in any case, I think a chocolate flourless cake is a great idea.

[Kim Shook]

We were thrilled with this cake! It was a Martha Stewart recipe that I tried out on Mother's Day this year for a niece who is newly gluten intolerant. She was so thrilled and said that it was the best gluten free cake that she'd had - including one from a very expensive bakery and begged to take the leftovers home. Here's a picture:

(I used one of those giant cupcake pans)

[stuartlikesstrudel]

Flourless orange cake is another tasty option... the taste is a little "grown up" because you use the whole oranges (including pith/rind) so there's a slight edge of bitterness to it. It's a good non-chocolate option (many would question why you'd want non-chocolate but it's good to know!).

You can find many versions by googling, here's one for example :

http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/14822/flourless+orange+cake

[prasantrin]

Once prolific poster Lorna Yee developed a gluten-free lemon raspberry cake recipe. She has pretty high standards with regards to her baking, so I would assume it's a good recipe.

Edited September 9, 2009 by prasantrin (log)

[Alessia]

Hi, I tried this recipe a couple of times for a friend's son who is allergic to gluten - I used it just like a regular sponge cake:

200 g eggs

150 g egg yolks

200 g sugar

50 g honey

50 g melted butter

250 g potato starch

vanilla pod

Sorry, I only use metrics measurements

Edited September 9, 2009 by Alessia (log)

[bethanyhoffman]

A few months ago I did a lot of research on gluten free baking books; three seem to come out on top in terms of reviews:

1. Easy Gluten Free Baking, by Elizabeth Barbone

2. Gluten Free Baking Classics, by Annalise Roberts

3. Gluten free Baking, Rebecca Reilly

I have all three and most products are excellent; in my opinion (as someone who eats plenty of regular baked goods), the recipes from these 3 books taste perfectly 'normal.' (1) features the most 'all american' type baking (waffles, twinkies, roll-out sugar cookies); (3) is the most 'gourmet' (black forest cake, french apple tart, florentines), and (2) is in the middle, but there is a fair bit of overlap as well (e.g., all three have recipes for chocolate chip cookies, blueberry muffins, and basic chocolate and vanilla cakes). I find the Barbone book to be the easiest to bake from, and the most reliable so far, but all three have yielded big successes for me.

[Beth Wilson]

Just found out the other cake they have someone making will be a lemon mousse regular cake so I am thinking the chocolate or vanilla will be the way to go. I am partial to any kind of cake as long as it is flavourful and moist.

I will try finding some of the special flours at our local grocer, and make my attempts at some of these cakes this weekend. You sure need a lot of flours to bake this way.

Thanks for the help on this, I was pleasantly surprised with the variety of glueten free recipes out there. Who knew!

Beth