Gluten Free Cake Attempt #1

We're sure we aren't the only ones to notice that more and more folks and friends are requiring a gluten free diet recently. It's not something that we've be advised to take on or that we have any interest in trying but as we tend to bake for friends and family, this dietary restriction has been hindering our ability to bring joy and treats to a wider group of taste testers. We've augmented simple recipes to cut out gluten. Cheesecakes are an easy one because you just have to use gluten free graham crackers and we tell you, it tastes the same. It's no big deal, there is no compromise there. But, when it comes to more traditionally gluten based recipes, we've been chickens and shied away.

Now, we have a good friend Jamira who is getting married. She is a super sweet girl and we can't be more excited for her. She has been working out the details for her big day and has hit a snag when it comes to the major tradition of cutting and sharing the cake with her groom: she can't eat gluten. It has been decided that the venue will provide the guests with a "normal" cake while she and her groom will share a gluten free version that she will have to acquire. That's where we come in. 

Jamira has known us long enough to know that we care about what we bake and how it tastes. She has also tasted some of the treats that skipped the gluten necessity. She asked if we might be willing to attempt something like this and Sara showed her the picture below of a cake that we made for a dear friend's milestone birthday.  

  

We are willing to take on the challenge and pressure of baking for such an important event when the person is so important to us and we feel that we can fulfill a need. This is one of those cases. We don't bake for money, we bake because we love it. This time, it took a lot of research too.

There are a lot of different mixes and flour combinations out there to mimic the flavor and texture of traditional wheat flour. The reviews and comments around the web led us to believe that it all comes down to personal preference. Some people like bean flour substitutes, some people hate them...with a passion. There are myriad combinations of rice flours and others that you can buy and mix. That seemed a bit overwhelming for our first attempt. We decided to try out the King Arthur Gluten Free Flour mix and chocolate cake recipe on their website. It got a lot of good reviews and seemed appropriate for what we were attempting.

We found most of what we needed at Whole Foods. They have a big Gluten Free section and that's where we bought the King Arthur mix. It was about $11 for this much flour. Not so impressive but let's see what it can do.

Another major ingredient is Xanthan Gum. It's not major in that a lot is used. It's just major in that it's what is needed for the gluten texture. It's a very very fine powder but it packs an important punch. The only thing that we didn't find at Whole Foods that we were hoping to, was the King Arthur "Cake Enhancer" product. We don't know if it would do much good, but it was suggested and we'd like to try it.

We split the batter into two pans to make a layer cake. It looks and feels a little dense when done.

You can see by how the crumbs came off, there is some "cakieness" to it but it is not at all fluffy.

Then we went with our go-to frosting. It's a white chocolate french buttercream and it's our favorite!

 

When it all came together it looked like a cake, it smelled like a cake, it tasted like a cake...errr ding dong. We think that it must be a cake. Jamira was really happy with the taste test. She had not one, but two giant pieces. We'd be happier if it had a fluffier texture. It may be the inexperience and naiveté about gluten free goods talking but we're gonna try it again and see what we get. Next time, we might try the cake enhancer. We've also heard really great things about Pamela's Pancake and Baking Mix. 

Till next time...

Birthday Baking: Kristine 11/24

Erin and I are working on the same movie production and even for the same department.  We are however, on different sides of town.  There are a couple people that work in our department with dietary restrictions. Kristine, who we have known for a few years now,  does not eat dairy or gluten. She also tried to stay away from processed sugars but come on, it's her birthday!

With a lot of people developing food allergies, there are more and more tasty foods and recipes available.  We decided to go with a Gluten Free, Dairy Free Cheesecake.  Dairy free cheesecake??  Yes it can be done, with Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese.  Tofutti makes all kinds of dairy free products, we personally like the Tofutti Cuties ice cream sandwiches.  We also used Dairy Free Margarine and Gluten Free Graham Crackers.

Erin complied a few recipes. The gluten free graham cracker crust recipe came from about.com. It called for the Kinnikinnick brand graham crackers. Also, 1/2 cup of butter but since butter contains dairy, we chose the Earth Balance butter substitute. This was just the beginning of unfamiliar ingredients. The crackers looked like and felt like card board. After crumbling them up though, the consistency wasn't such a big deal. The butter though was a lot of oil. There probably should have been less of it for this use.

We baked the crust like you would a normal cheese cake and it came out not as stiff as regular crust would The vegan butter was a lot more moist that a regular crust mixture.  It came out looking like a cookie though.

The filling looked exactly like regular cheese cake.  The recipe is from Vegweb. We adjusted this recipe as well since Kristine is not a vegan and we were just avoiding the dairy, we used real eggs. We added the raspberry puree like we did for the cheesecakes on Mother's Day.

It seems that this recipe was for a regular pie pan and not a springform pan because the cheesecake mixture did not get anywhere close to filling the pan. We'll double it if there's a next time.

So, it turned out that we own a cheap-o spring form pan. I believe it was purchased at Target many moons ago. A tip for baking cheesecakes is to use a water bath. We've never done this because it seems a bit excessive as we've always been happy with the way our cakes come out. We didn't do it this time and it was a good thing too as it would have destroyed the cake in our cheap-o pan that isn't liquid tight. We learned this as the excess oil leaked out of the pan and onto the bottom of our oven. Oops!

The crust ended up coming out a little bit hard, cracker like.  We are not sure if that has to do with the oils (or the leakage of it) or the lack of gluten. Kristine said she was very happy with it, so it was perfect for the occasion.

Everyone (regular foodies as well,) enjoyed the cheesecake. We were a bit surprised that everyone wanted to try it but even happier that everyone liked it. This is the only creation that Sara hasn't been able to taste because it was all gone.  

Lessons learned:  Dairy free cheesecake is pretty tasty.  We'll use a pan under all pies and treats that call for a lot of oil or fluids.  Raspberries are always a yummy addition, and double this recipe if you have a spring form pan.

Flourless Chocolate Cake 4/8

This recipe came about for a couple of reasons.  1) Erin has a couple of co-workers that are on gluten free diets and have been wanting to try our creations.  2) I was on a strict diet a few years ago where I couldn't eat wheat and I didn't find wheat free food that tasted that good.  At lot of gluten free recipes use lots of specialized flours and sweeteners so we thought we would eliminate the extra ingredients (that we probably won't use again) and go with Flourless Chocolate Cake.

I have to admit to my addiction to Baking/Food Blogs.  I love looking at the pictures, reading the recipes, and witty commentary.  It is helpful to plan what we are going to make next.  I have come across a few recipes for Flourless Chocolate Cake and they looked so good.  The recipe from Gluten Free Goddess looked both simple and yummy.

The consistency of the batter was like a thick soup.  Being that this cake has no flour, this is more like Chocolate Souffle than Cake with all the eggs (8 in all).

The whole cake raised up pretty high as you can see but it did settle down nicely.

Because the recipe called for Strong Hot Coffee, the cake came out tasting kinda like a mocha.  The gluten free people at Erin's work liked it and because it is so rich the pieces went a long way.

Lessons learned: Hot coffee and food processor equal melted chocolate in a jiffy.  Although this has a long bake and chill time it is a pretty easy recipe over all.


On an unrelated side note....  Erin and I baked this weekend for a close friend's birthday.  Usually we are a good team when it comes to tag teaming a recipe however we kinda goofed on our first attempt at making dark chocolate cupcakes.  When mixing the recipe, we thought the other had measured and included the sugar. Neither of us did.  Instead of yummy cupcakes we had lumpy tasteless rocks.  Those of course, went straight into the trash and a new batch was made.  A definite lesson learned:  Forgetting the sugar doesn't mean sugar free and still good.  Baking is about chemistry. Both in the baking and in the teamwork.