No offense to all cake recipes that use gluten free flour... I must admit that I'm not a fan of using gluten free flour for cake baking. Based on the cakes that I have tasted, I am always disappointed with most cakes that are made of gluten free flour...
Despite all these disappointments, I was silly enough to buy a packet of gluten-free flour again. I was baking gluten-free apple cupcakes for a celiac friend's birthday party, assuming that this gluten free recipe is from a reputable source and might work well for me this time. Not surprising at all, it didn't. I was disappointed again that these cupcakes had a "waxy-floury" after-taste.
Despite all these disappointments, I was silly enough to buy a packet of gluten-free flour again. I was baking gluten-free apple cupcakes for a celiac friend's birthday party, assuming that this gluten free recipe is from a reputable source and might work well for me this time. Not surprising at all, it didn't. I was disappointed again that these cupcakes had a "waxy-floury" after-taste.
After expressing my disappointments to my baking colleagues, they actually feel the same too. Together, we have all agreed that we prefer to bake flourless cakes rather than using gluten free flour to bake our gluten free cakes. My celiac friend was telling me too that she prefer to use gluten-free flour in smaller proportion so that the after-taste will not obviously detectable.
Feeling clueless with more than half a kilogram of leftover gluten free flour now, I thought of checking out the White Wings Flour website to see if there is any recommendations. Then, I found a fast and easy Donna Hay's recipe which saves me from tossing this gluten-free flour in the bin. Thanks, Donna Hay! This recipe is brilliant!
Unlike most cakes that are made of gluten free flour, this melt-and-mix chocolate cake has NO after-taste at all. It is very moist and delicious with a fudgy mud-cake like texture. The cake is so moist that there is hardly any loose crumbs on its serving plate. My husband and son love this chocolate cake very much, not knowing at all that this cake is actually made of gluten-free flour. To them, this is another delicious chocolate cake that I have baked.
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| Making this super-easy cake batter - just mix all and bake! |
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| Cake tester comes out clean... the cake is cooked :D |
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| Making the icing and spread over the cake |
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| Look how moist this cake is... Yum! |
Here's the recipe from White Wings.
(with my modification and notes in blue)
Serves 8–10
Chocolate cake
250g unsalted butter, melted
3/4 cup (75g) cocoa, sifted (I used Dutch processed one)
1 1/3 cups (295g) caster sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups (180g) almond meal
(per-roasted at 160ºC fan forced for 5-7 min)
1 1/2 cups (225g) Gluten-Free self-Raising flour, sifted
(Mine is not the self-raising kind and so I added 1 tsp of baking powder for every cup of flour used)
3/4 cup (180ml) milk
Chocolate fudge icing
250g dark chocolate, broken into pieces (I used the one with 70% cocoa)
1/2 cup (125ml) single (pouring) cream
70g unsalted butter
Preheat oven to 180ºC (fan forced).
Place the butter, cocoa, sugar, eggs, almond meal, flour and milk in a bowl and whisk to combine.
Pour into a lightly greased 22cm round cake tin lined with non-stick baking paper. Bake for 1 hr or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Allow to cool in the tin completely.
To make the icing, place the chocolate, cream and butter in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and stir until melted and smooth. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool completely. Beat the cooled icing with electric beaters until thick and fluffy and spread over cake with a palette knife to serve. (I didn't whipped my icing using an electric mixer. I spread the icing over the cake when it was slightly cooled.)
Note: Using 1/2 of the recipe, I have baked my cake in 15 cm round cake tin at 180ºC (fan forced) for 45 min.
Note: Using 1/2 of the recipe, I have baked my cake in 15 cm round cake tin at 180ºC (fan forced) for 45 min.
This post is link to Roxana's Home Baking, February 2013 Chocolate Party at her blog post. Her chocolate party theme is double chocolate… As I'm using cocoa powder and dark chocolate for my chocolate cake, I'm linking up my post to her event. Cheers!
Don't forget to participate our Cook like a Star, Delia Smith blog hop event starting on 1st March 2013. This event is hosted by me, Bake for Happy Kids, Baby Sumo from Eat your heart out and Mich from Piece of Cake. Hope that you can be the trend-setter of this event. Good Luck!
I haven't baked cake with gluten free flour, this cake looks moist and rich fudge icing sounds perfect.
ReplyDeleteWow! I love this cake! Photos are amazing! I have all the ingredients to make this cake, today.
ReplyDeletethis is wonderful deliciously done
ReplyDeleteZoe, this cake looks sensational! I love anything from Donna Hay! A new follower of your wonderful blog...and thank you so much for discovering my blog as well! Happy week! Carol
ReplyDeleteWhat a delicious looking cake - so moist and fudgy! Good to know that you like this kind of gluten free flour too!
ReplyDeleteZoe, the chocolate cake looks gorgeous...very temping look...I like the idea of gluten free as I am trying to incorporate some gluten free on my table :)
ReplyDeleteHope you are having a fun week!
This really looks good indeed. I may too use my left over gluten free flour mix!
ReplyDeleteLately love to bake with chocolate and cocoa powder. Not really border about using gluten-free flour when come to baking. Your gluten-free chocolate cake look moist! This recipe seems a keeper.
ReplyDeleteYoo! Your cake looks so moist, for sure very nice. My daughter is a chocolate lover, she will grab fast to have this cake!
ReplyDeleteI love Donna Hay's recipes and this one looks great.
ReplyDeleteI haven't used gluten free flour before but I might buy some just to make this cake. It looks delicious!
ReplyDeleteTexture looks moist and rich. Gluten free sounds so healhty and less fattening.
ReplyDeleteDrooool, this looks so fluffy and moist :)
ReplyDeleteZoe...what an amazing cake and don't you just LOVE Donna Hay?! This cake looks really fudgey and good....but it's that ganache on the top that is killing me! Wow! And a great contribution to the chocolate party this month! : )
ReplyDeleteZoe, I will definitely try this recipe cuz I' m fan of chocolate cake. Frankly speaking I haven't found my favorite recipe yet :) hope yours is the ONE :)
ReplyDeleteI never appreciate gluten free cakes either! This one definitely looks like an exception.
ReplyDeleteZoe, I haven't tried baking with gluten free flour b4 & this has saved me from wasting my money in the future! Certainly agree with you, the cake looks so moist and I like the choc icing, glossy and pretty!
ReplyDeleteI have never tried gluten free flour. I do not need to use gluten free products, so I just don't buy them.
ReplyDeleteGluten free or not this cake looks great!
I'm with you on gluten free cakes but this one looks so moist and delicious. Looking forward to your new challenge.
ReplyDeleteI love these, They really look much better from what I see in stores.
ReplyDeleteDrool drool drool... This is my kinda cake. full of chocolate. yummm
ReplyDeleteThat looks really moist and delicious. Adding almonds always helps. When I've made GF cakes, I tend not to use GF free flour per se, but make a polenta cake or an almond cake or one that only needs a small amount of flour and then use buckwheat instead.
ReplyDeletei totally get what you mean by the waxy floury taste, and I find that it helps if you mix grain flours and nut flours with starches, as i think it's the rice and tapioca and potato starch in the gluten free flours that contribute to the texture. next time, try out adding buckwheat, millet, sorghum, almond or coconut in small proportions to the other starches. I find that this usually works for me and the gluten free products, even the cakes, taste almost like normal ones, so much so that people can't tell the difference :)
ReplyDeleteOooo this looks very much like chocolate brownies! Wouldnt have been able to tell that u used gluten free flour.
ReplyDeleteZoe , maybe I should come over and bring some of my chocolate cookies in exchange to your rich , moist and chocolaty cake ? lol
ReplyDeleteBtw , why the link of the Little Thumbs up is already closed ?
Hi Anne,
DeleteLittle Thumbs Up starts on every first Tuesday of every month and ends after two weeks. If you have a pineapple related post to link, I'm happy to open up the link whenever you are ready.
I had decided to make the duration two weeks instead of 1 month is because I didn't want the host to suffer from "exhaustion" cooking the same ingredient for the whole month... I reckon 2 weeks is good enough :p
Zoe
Zoe , yikes ! I've overlooked the time frame :P Sorry :D If you could open it up for me this day ? Really appreciate it ;D Thankee loads ! xoxo
DeleteNo worries, Anne! All has been fixed!
DeleteThis looks fantastic for gluten-free!
ReplyDeleteI'll have to share this with my coworker who recently found out she's a celiac. Looks good (for having gluten-free flour)!
ReplyDeleteI love Donna Hay. A really perfect chocolate cake! :) Never used gluten free flour..
ReplyDeleteThe chocolate cake looks great! Can't even tell it's gluten free. I don't like ready made GF flour, if you blend the flour yourself, it's not bad and makes a decent cake.
ReplyDeleteThis recipe is great though.
Nazneen
Zoe, I have never tried gluten-free flour. This cake looks fab! I suppose we can use ordinary flour to bake it too, right?
ReplyDeleteHi Phong Hong,
DeleteGluten does toughen overall cake texture. I'm guessing that the gluten in our ordinary flour might toughen the cake texture in this recipe and not too sure if the cake will be as good as the gluten free one.
Zoe
I've seen this chocolate cake recipe in so many other blogs and I'm so tempted to try this out. You make it look so yummeh! I'd rather go flourless than using GF flour too. Can't find GF flour around here and most probably, it is expensive because going GF is not a big thing here.
ReplyDeleteYin
Gluten free certainly does not take away from look or flavour :D
ReplyDeleteCheers
Choc Chip Uru
The cake looks nice and dense and the fudge frosting looks fabulous!
ReplyDeleteYUM! This chocolatey cake looks so heavenly with chocolate fudge icing! HEAVENLY! I'm not a huge fan of gluten free flour as you've said it does has that waxy-floury" after-taste. I even bought a gluten free cookbook just to try out some baking recipes but I was quite disappointed by the results. But I LOVE Donna Hay's recipes so I'm sure this is a winner recipe . I might be trying this recipe soon as I've some gluten free flour in my pantry . Another awesome reason to bake a chocolate cake! YOUPI! Thanks for sharing this recipe! Have a wonderful weekend Zoe . ;)
ReplyDeleteI have not tried gluten free chocolate cake before. I can't see the difference from the photo. Looks delicious.
ReplyDeleteOMG that looks so tempting, Zoe ur chocolate cake looks awesome, drooling here.
ReplyDeleteI want to thank superb formula. I simply caused it to be also it sampled wonderful: -)
ReplyDeleteExcellent weblog along with dessert quality recipes personally in case you are curious.
I have a blog with cake recipes myself if you are interested. You can find it at http://recipes-for-food.com/
This cake look and sound great! No weird aftertaste? I feel like this recipe is something we should all keep in our arsenal.
ReplyDeleteHi Zoe,
ReplyDeleteYour cake looks so moist and chocolaty! I have never baked with gluten free flour before! Lots of recipes from Donna Hay bookmarked, but never got round to try any of them yet!
Wow! Your pictures are stunning and so is your story telling :) I have to make this chocolate cake for my husband!
ReplyDeleteWow!! This cake is super moist! I can't resist anything chocolate ;)
ReplyDeletewow that cake looks great, moist but not too dense. and best of all, sounds really simple and no-faff! have to give this a go !
ReplyDeleteHi Zoe! Patti from Comfy Cuisine! Thanks for stopping by. Looking forward to your posts!
ReplyDeleteZoe this cake look heavenly, love so much!!!
ReplyDeleteThat looks just amazing. And your photographs are gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteZoe, tell you honestly, I don't believe in gluten free bakes. For me, if I wanna bake something, I go for all fat, all creamy and everything sinfully goodness. But if you say this is a great gluten free recipe, then it's worth a try.. your cake looks moist enough to tempt me! If you don't tell about the gluten free thingy, I'd think this is one sinfully yummy choc cake! Yumz..
ReplyDeleteHi Zoe!! =) nice to be here again!
ReplyDeleteNice cake u have there! Really looks so devilish with the icing, woohoooo so I bet u will buy more gluten free flour soon?!! Hehehehehe
I totally agree with you on the gluten free cakes - they are always so dry and crumbly and tasteless (or taste bad!). Your cake looks superb! Very moist and fugdy indeed. I actually prefer making my brownies "flourless" (I use ground almonds instead which makes them super-gooey!), but I would definitely give this recipe a try for a gluten free friend!
ReplyDeleteHi Hazel,
DeleteI agree with you that flourless cakes seems better than using GF flour but this recipe is an exception :D
Zoe
Hi Zoe,
ReplyDeleteA prefect and lovely gluten free chocolate cake.
It looks so moist and fudgy.
It would be even nicer if i could have this with a glass of cold milk..lol
mui
i love Donna Hay and this chocolate cake looks like a winner! i have little experience baking gluten free, will have to follow the directions when i make it. ohh, and that ganache, yum!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing and participating to this month chocolate party
hi zoe, i've never seen gluten free flour here but dun mind trying it if happen to see them one day. From the picture, the cake do look moist and fudgy:)
ReplyDeleteYum...melt in your mouth chocolate cake!!! I'm your newest follower! Thanks for stopping by my blog! =)
ReplyDelete