Monday, January 7, 2013

welcome back, cake.



I have missed you in my life.

Amy's New Go-To Gluten-Free Chocolate Cake

Preheat oven to 375 F. Butter and flour two 8-inch pans as usual for cake.

200 g white rice flour or equivalent (potato flour, white wheat flour, etc.)
100 g ground almonds
1 c cocoa (80 g Camino brand or about 105 g Berthelet brand)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
--> combine in a medium bowl, then sift through a sieve into a larger bowl (helpful tip I picked up from GFG; cocoa powder really does clump, and almond flour as well can get clumpy).

In the KitchenAid bowl:
Cream:
1/2 soft butter
1 c sugar
Mix in:
3 c kefir, home-fermented strength (room temperature, not cold) or sour milk (3 c milk with a good splash of vinegar or lemon juice, left thicken 5 minutes)

Add dry mixture to wet. Separate into cake pans and bake 30-40 m.

Cream cheese & maple frosting (makes enough to ice two cakes; I'm a make-more-and-freeze type of cook, but if that's not practical just halve):

2 tubs cream cheese (800g total)
about 1/2 c - 1 c soft butter

Whip in the mixer.

Then whip in about 1 c maple syrup, until the texture is loose but not drippy, and just sweet enough.

Frost only when cakes are completely cool.

*Last edited January 19th after my second cake run - and for the record, Cynthia, for whom I made this cake, said upon tasting "I was prepared to be polite, but this is amazing!" (something to that effect, Cynthia, yes?). So there! You can have your GF cake and impress your glutinous friends too!

*Update as of July 28, 2013 - chocolate cake 2.0 has some significant changes and is a significant improvement! Check it out!

4 comments:

  1. Im starting to slowly see the good in gluten free cooking, but the problem is that neither Jeff nor I have a legitimate reason to buy a variety of GF flours, when we already spend money on bulk whole grain flour and regular white flour. But I am very intrigued and will probably try a little here and there, gradually.

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  2. Oh for sure, why would you go to the trouble, especially since GF baking usually requires you mix several kinds of flours? You can make this cake with the same weight of wheat flour for a simple dark chocolate cake, it's delicious!

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  3. Yo question: do you have to chill icing in the fridge before you put it on the cake, so that it firms up?

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    1. No. You do have to let the cakes cool fully before icing or the frosting will melt into the cake. If it's really drippy you added too much maple syrup. You should be able to scoop up 1/4-1/3 c, a big glob, on a frosting spatula, without it sliding off.

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