Thursday, January 31, 2013

Gluten free cakes - and Indulge

Gluten free baking can be a difficult thing to get right as anyone who has tried it would know. Whilst I am not a coeliac I have suffered from gluten intolerance and so tried to avoid it in my diet for a few years. Recently, a friend of mine found out she was gluten intolerant and so when my hubby was going to their place I offered to bake some gluten free goods.

Now last year I bought 'Indulge' by Rowie Dillon , an ex-ad agency creative, coeliac and cake-baker extraordinaire - a woman on a mission to save the world from tasteless, unattractive food and change gluten-free cooking forever. Her successful business has restored the joy in eating to allergy sufferers, making yummy food accessible to all.
 

I also purchased a bag of quinoa flour, with the expectation of cooking something from this beautiful book. I love this book..it is beautiful to look at, and inspiring as she has beautiful photos of beautiful food and what's best is that she has pastry recipes. Something most gluten free books don't have. 

For my first time I decided to go with a simple recipe, something I know most people love - chocolate, and make the Cocoa Sponge Cakes.I am sharing it below for you (although you can find it on a few places on the net). I did change the recipe slightly and I used cupcake moulds as I wanted smaller versions of these.

The Quinoa flour is an interesting touch, it smells very nutty and I love that she uses alternative flours, and there is explanations in the book as well.



Cocoa Sponge Cakes by Rowie Dillon from Indulge

1 1/2 cups quinoa flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder (gluten free)
1 tsp baking powder (gluten free)
1 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup coffee, chilled
2 tsps vanilla extract (gluten free)
2 tsp white vinegar

Icing
125g dairy free margarine (as my friend has no issue with dairy I used stock standard margarine)
1 1/4 cups icing sugar (gluten free)
1/2 tbs cocoa powder (gluten free)

  1. Preheat the oven to 190°C. Line two 12 hole cupcake tins with paper cases
  2. Mix the flour, cocoa, baking powder and sugar in a large bowl
  3. Combine the oil, coffee and vanilla in a separate bowl, then add to the dry ingredients and stir well. Add the vinegar and quickly stir to combine. Pour immediately into the paper cases
  4. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into middle comes out clean. Cool in the tin and turn out onto a wire rack for icing
  5. To make the icing, beat the margarine and sugar in a small bowl with beater until well combined. Add the cocoa powder and beat until well combined and the icing is smooth and thick. Using a palette knife (or metal spatula), spread the icing generously over the cakes

I think my oven was a little too hot as my cupcakes cracked, but all in all they tasted, fudgy, chocolatey (if that is a word) and went down a treat with everyone, not just the gluten free gal.

I have another gluten free recipe from this book that I baked and will share that with you another time. Happy Baking and I hope this is of use to some of you...Do you have any favourite gluten free recipes reader?

Note: no one paid me to write this post or share this book with you, it is just one book in my bakers shelf!

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