Gluten free chocolate cake

Chocolate cake, ganache, whipped cream, and peaches!

 Here is a recipe for a gluten free chocolate cake that is delicious and moist and doesn’t dry out for a few days!

My spouse’s grandmother has been gluten-free for a couple years now, and one of the tips she gave me recently was to use Bob’s Red Mill’s 1 for 1 Gluten Free flour blend. I have used their other all-purpose GF mix in the past and didn’t like it as much, possibly because of the use of bean flour, but the 1 for 1 mix is made of different flours.

This is not a paid advertisement for Bob's Red Mill, nor do they know who I am (though Bob Moore did get his seminary degree through my Alma Mater!) I just love their products.

The idea behind 1 for 1 is that you can adapt a normal (gluten-containing) recipe to be gluten free, just by using this mix instead of wheat flour, and it should turn out well. It is the same idea as the Better Batter and Cup for Cup mixes, but I have not ever used those blends, so I can’t attest to how good those are.

This recipe is nearly identical to Pioneer Woman’s recipe for strawberry Nutella cake . The differences are the use of a gluten-free flour blend, that this recipe only makes one layer of cake instead of two, and I added an extra egg which helps keep the cake from crumbling.

Gluten free chocolate cake

Adapted from Pioneer Woman

Ingredients

1 stick of butter (8 tablespoons)

2 heaping tablespoons cocoa powder

½ cup boiling water

1 cup gluten-free flour mix (Bob’s Red Mill 1 for 1 flour blend is what I have tested this recipe with)

1 cup granulated sugar

A pinch of salt

¼ cup buttermilk

2 eggs

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon vanilla extract or spiced rum

Makes one layer. For a double-layer cake, double all ingredients and use two cake pans.

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease a round 9” cake pan, and line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper that is lightly greased (The first time I made this recipe the cake fell apart but when I made it again with the parchment paper it helped prevent this).

Parchment paper is really helpful for preventing GF baked goods from sticking 

Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat. Once melted, add the cocoa powder and stir until smooth. Add the boiling water and stir again. Turn off the heat and set the cocoa mix aside.

Here is the melted butter, cocoa powder, and boiling water all mixed together

Mix the buttermilk, baking soda, eggs, and vanilla or rum together in a small bowl or mixing cup (I ran out of vanilla extract and used some amber rum that I had on hand and it added a nice flavor to the cake. Use what flavoring you prefer).  Set aside.

Buttermilk, baking soda, eggs, flavoring mixed together

Mix the sugar, GF flour, and salt together in a large bowl. 

The dry ingredients whisked together

Slowly add the cocoa mixture to the flour mixture and stir until smooth.

At the beginning of mixing... 

And after mixing a while the batter turns to a dough-like consistency

Pour in the buttermilk mixture and mix until all ingredients are well incorporated.

Buttermilk mixture just added

 Batter after everything has been well mixed

Pour the batter into the greased cake pan, and then bake for 17-27 minutes (I live at 7200 feet and needed 26 minutes) testing for doneness. 

Before baking

Let the cake cool in the pan for about 5 minutes before sliding a butter knife around the edges of the cake, and then carefully turn the cake onto a wire rack to cool completely before proceeding to decorating the cake.

After baking. You can see marks where I stuck a fork in to test if it had baked long enough

The pan is probably too hot to touch at this point, so use hot pads to flip the cake, or wait until the pan is cool enough to touch safely. I like to put the cake rack upside down on top of the pan, and then carefully invert the two together. Tough to describe and tougher to photograph by yourself!

Don't forget to remove the parchment paper

Now decorate the cake however you like! Use Nutella like in Pioneer Woman's recipe, or buttercream frosting, or with a layer of ganache, then whipped cream, then fruit as in my pictures. I have made this twice with a layer of ganache and then a thick layer of whipped cream. I have made it with both chopped peaches macerated in a little sugar (shown below), and with sliced strawberries and pitted cherries (last picture). Use any fruit that sounds good!

With peaches

~artsy photo~ with strawberries and cherries!

*allergy note: this cake could be made dairy free by swapping butter for margarine, and the buttermilk for soy or almond milk with a teaspoon of lemon juice added a few minutes before mixing it with the other ingredients.

Molten Chocolate Lava Cake, Gluten Free

You can see here why it is called "molten" and "lava" since a little batter spills out of the finished cake.

We don't typically do a lot to celebrate Valentine's Day at my household. It can be a fun holiday, if you are seeing someone; but it can be painful if you are single, or a hassle if you're not, or both either way. I suppose it just seems strange when a holiday insists that you must be romantic in a certain way on a certain day, especially a holiday named for a Roman martyr. Valentine's Day is nice excuse for chocolate and a date night, though.

Which was part of the inspiration for making a gluten-free chocolate lava cake. I keep seeing glutenous chocolate recipes everywhere on the Internet because it is February. I used to make this recipe a fair bit, because it is quick, easy, and delicious, yet seems quite fancy. So I adapted it to be gluten-free. It can also be made totally dairy-free if you use coconut oil instead of butter. Both are delicious.

This is a pretty fantastic dessert, and just in time for Valentine's Day, whether you celebrate it or not!

Molten Chocolate Lava Cake, Gluten Free

Adapted from Brandielle's recipe

Also, the Pioneer Woman made the original recipe with a bunch of step-by-step photos a few years ago, if you are so inclined.

Serves 2 (can easily double or triple)

4 ounces dark chocolate

¼ cup butter or coconut oil (½ a stick)

½ cup powdered sugar

½ cup gf flour, such as sorghum

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 425 F.

Melt the chocolate and butter together by microwaving in a microwave-safe bowl in 20 second increments. Stir between microwaving, until the contents of the bowl are completely melted. Allow the mixture to cool for 3-5 minutes.

Add the sugar, flour, eggs, and vanilla, and whisk until the mixture is smooth. Spoon the batter into two well-greased ramekins. Bake for 13-14 minutes, or until soft in the middle, but not liquid.

Remove the ramekins from the oven, and let cool for a few minutes. Invert the ramekins onto a plate. The cake should have a bit of gooey batter in the middle, hence the “molten” and “lava” in the title. Eat and enjoy!

Stirring the melted chocolate and butter/coconut oil

Stirring in the flour, sugar, vanilla, and eggs. It is important to let the chocolate cool off a bit before adding in the eggs, so that they don't congeal or cook.

The batter prior to baking.

After baking.

Inverted.

Delicious chocolate middle! It is like having chocolate sauce on your cake, but without the extra work.

Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes!

I had the idea for a cake recipe that combined Guinness (or some other stout) with chocolate about six months ago, but only recently got around to tinkering with a recipe. I have heard of beer bread, and even beer ice cream, so why not a cake? It turns out I am not the first person to come up with the idea, but I gave it my own rendition.

I have to say I am very happy with the results. Aside from the fact that I usually have bad luck with baked goods because dangit, I only measure precisely when I'm in the lab, (where I have the assistance of micropipettes), but also because the stout adds a complexity to the chocolate that I'm pretty sure even non-drinkers would like. It also makes a good leavening agent!

No making of pictures today, but here is the recipe!

**Adapted from this recipe

1 cup of stout
2 sticks of butter
3/4 cup of cocoa powder

2 cups flour
1 3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 tablespoon baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

2 eggs
Rounded 1/2 cup of cream cheese

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Whisk in the cocoa powder, and add stout. Let the mixture cool.

Blend flour, sugar, baking soda, salt together and blend.

In a large bowl, beat eggs and cream cheese together. (an electric mixer would have made this step much easier!) When blended, add the stout/ chocolate mixture to the eggs about a quarter cup at a time, and blend, continuing this step until the eggs are tempered.
Add the flour mixture and stir until well-mixed.

Fill cupcake liners about 2/3 full. Bake about 13-18 minutes. ( I suspect my old oven runs hotter than most, as most cupcake recipes recommend 350 for 22-25 minutes. Experiment with timing).

Yields approx. 18 cupcakes.

I mixed up a quick buttercream icing, which was good, but not amazing, use your favorite icing recipe.

I want to remake this recipe as a layer cake with ganache filling and a better-tasting buttercream frosting. It would be fantastic!

Almond cake and fruit compote

I know I promised you a tagine in my last post, but the busted water heater kitchen-leak also soaked the notes I took which had measured amounts of everything I did for that recipe *sigh*. I will try to figure out my amounts in the next couple weeks.

So as soon as we got the water-heater replaced, out car broke :( It was fixed pretty easily, but because of complications this week (read: soaked kitchen and walking due to a broken car) there has been a lot of eating-out this week.

But I did do one thing: I baked this almond cake. I think you should too, it was actually pretty easy and didn't take very long. And I feel justified in the fact that we ate this cake for dinner, because I walked to work (twice!) and to the store and mechanics on Friday. It evens out, really!

I followed the recipe from the Smitten Kitchen blog almost exactly, so go here for the recipe. The only difference besides my lack of the pretty almond decorations was that I added some vanilla extract.

It turned out beautifully!

The compote, which I made while the cake was baking, was totally made up on the spot. But I liked it.

So pretty much, cut up 3-4 strawberries, add a 1/3 cup of blueberries (mine were frozen) 1/3 cup of peaches (frozen as well) and heat over medium while stirring!

I also added a tablespoon of honey and a tablespoon of sugar, as well as a sprinkle of ginger.

After about 10 minutes of cooking, I mashed everything together. This is not the first time I have wished for an immersion blender.

But then I decided that I liked the compote better when a little chunky!

Make this cake, you will not be disappointed if you like almonds... or cake.