Though I do make my own cakes I sometimes use mixes, both for convenience, but also sometimes to try something new.
One pack we recently used, and really enjoyed was Betty Crocker Gluten Free Devil’s Food Chocolate Cake Mix.
Despite what you see on the box, you don’t get the icing, so you need to buy that as an extra.
As well as the mix you also need:
125ml vegetable oil
250ml water
4 medium free range eggs
There are three steps:
Mix the eggs, oil, water and cake mix gently together and whisk (by hand or electric mixer) for 2-3 minutes until smooth and creamy.
Pour the cake mixture evenly into two greased cake tins.
Bake in the centre of the oven for between 23-28 minutes or until a rounded knife inserted fully into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
Once cool you can smother the cake with chocolate fudge icing.
It was rather good, and to be honest you wouldn’t know it was gluten free as it had the taste, texture and smell of a chocolate fudge cake even without the icing.
Take the same weight of two of the eggs of soft butter
Take the same weight of two of the eggs in caster sugar
Take the same weight of two of the eggs in self-raising gluten-free flour
Vanilla essence
Yellow food colouring
Red food colouring
Green food colouring
Cream the sugar and butter until you have a smooth consistency.
Beat the eggs, add some vanilla essence. I then added a little yellow food colouring to brighten the cake mixture.
Stir the eggs into the creamed butter and sugar with some of the flour, until the mixture is smooth and consistent.
Then fold in the remaining flour until it is combined with the rest of the mixture.
Spoon a third the mixture into one side of a loaf tin. Then separate the remaining mixture into two portions.
With one of the portions, add some red food colouring to the mixture and stir it carefully until you have a nice consistent coloured mixture. With the other portion use green food colouring.
You can of course use whatever colours you like.
Spoon these cake mixture portions into the loaf tin.
I then used a knife to gently swirl the three coloured mixtures together, you’re trying to achieve a swirly effect, not to combine the mix.
The bake the cake in a 180º normal oven or 160º fan oven for 30-35 minutes or until a metal skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.
Take the same weight of two of the eggs of soft butter
Take the same weight of two of the eggs in caster sugar
Take the same weight of two of the eggs in self-raising gluten-free flour
Vanilla essence
Yellow food colouring
Red food colouring
Cream the sugar and butter until you have a smooth consistency.
Beat the eggs, add some vanilla essence. I then added a little yellow food colouring to brighten the cake mixture.
Stir the eggs into the creamed butter and sugar with some of the flour, until the mixture is smooth and consistent.
Then fold in the remaining flour until it is combined with the rest of the mixture.
Spoon half the mixture into one side of a loaf tin. Then in the mixing bowl add some red food colouring to the remaining mixture and stir it carefully until you have a nice consistent coloured mixture. Spoon the rest of the cake mixture into the loaf tin.
I do use loaf tin liners in my loaf tin. Makes getting the cake out of the tin much easier.
I then used a knife to gently swirl the two coloured mixtures together, you’re trying to achieve a swirly effect, not to combine the mix.
The bake the cake in a 180º normal oven or 160º fan oven for 30-35 minutes or until a metal skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.
During the lockdown I have been making gluten free rocky road a fair bit.
In a large pan, gently melt 150g of dark chocolate, 50g of butter and 3 large spoons of Golden Syrup. The key here is gently, too harsh then the butter and chocolate will burn. Once it has melted then leave for 15 minutes. You need to leave it to cool down otherwise when you add the marshmallows they will melt.
Crush some gluten free biscuits. I usually use a 160g pack of gluten free digestives, but have used a 120g pack of Schär Viennese Biscuits as well (though these are a lot more crumbly than the digestives. You easily make your own biscuits instead. I also add 50g of gluten free chocolate rice cereal as well, foradded crunch. Then add 50g of small marshmallows.
This mixture is then stirred carefully to ensure that all the ingredients are coated in the chocolate mixture.
Spoon the mixture into either a greased lined baking tray or a foil tray. Press down into the tray and ensure that it is evenly spread.
Then sprinkle the top of the rocky road with decorations. I use small marshmallows, white chocolate stars and fudge pieces.
Chill in the fridge and then cut into squares or slices.
Take the same weight of two of the eggs of soft butter
Take the same weight of two of the eggs in caster sugar
Take the same weight of two of the eggs in self-raising gluten-free flour
Vanilla essence
Cream the sugar and butter until you have a smooth consistency.
Beat the eggs, add some vanilla essence.
Stir the eggs into the creamed butter and sugar with some of the flour, until the mixture is smooth and consistent.
Then fold in the remaining flour until it is combined with the rest of the mixture.
Spoon into a loaf tin and bake in a 180º normal oven or 160º fan oven for 35 minutes or until a metal skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.
I do use loaf tin liners in my loaf tin. Makes getting the cake out of the tin much easier.
Cool and then serve in slices.
I used some yellow food colouring in the recipe, as we like to eat bright cakes….
To make a Maderia Cake version of this recipe, add the grated zest of one lemon to the egg mixture as you add the vanilla essence. Add 50g of ground almonds when you add the flour.
3 standard eggs
Take the same weight of two of the eggs of soft butter.
Take the same weight of two of the eggs in caster sugar
Take the same weight of two of the eggs in self-raising gluten-free flour.
Two large spoons of cocoa powder.
Vanilla essence.
Cream the sugar and butter until you have a smooth consistency.
Beat the eggs, add some vanilla essence.
Stir the eggs into the creamed butter and sugar with some of the flour and the cocoa, until the mixture is smooth and consistent.
Then fold in the remaining flour until it is combined with the rest of the mixture.
Spoon into a loaf tin and bake in a 180º normal oven or 160º fan oven for 35 minutes or until a metal skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.
I do use loaf tin liners in my loaf tin. Makes getting the cake out of the tin much easier.
This is a simple recipe for gluten-free biscuits. You could of course use the same recipe with regular flour.
They are quick to make and quick to bake.
Ingredients
1 standard egg.
Take the same weight of the egg in cold butter.
Twice the same weight of the egg in plain gluten-free flour.
Same weight of the egg of sugar.
Vanilla essence.
Take the flour, and add the cold butter, cut into small cubes. Combine the butter and flour by rubbing the butter into the flour, until there are no lumps and the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
Then stir in the sugar.
Add the egg and vanillla essence combine until the biscuit dough is smooth.
How you could take spoonfuls onto a banking sheet, but what I do is wrap the dough in cling film and cool in the fridge for a fair few hours. This firms up the dough, so then you can roll it into a 2cm roll of dough and then slice it into 1cm rounds.
These rounds can the be placed onto a baking sheet or tray.
One tip I have is to crunch up and screw the baking parchment into a ball and then unscrew it. This means it lies flat on the baking tray. The biscuits will spread to about twice their original size, so leave plenty of space around each
Bake in a pre-heated oven, at 180 degrees for about six minutes until the edges are brown.
No I did not make this cake, but I saw it in the window at Patisserie La Reine in Broadmead in Bristol. I like the book form they have used, and have not gone for a simple closed book, it actually looks like an open book too. They have managed to catch the character of the sorting hat, though does a hat even have character? My only thought was why did they choose that colour?
Last year my daughter and I baked my wife a birthday cake. As my daughter is coeliac, it was gluten free. This was a great success.
For my daughter’s birthday I decided to bake her a cake. Last time we baked five different coloured cakes using Dr. Oetker’s Colouring Gel.
This time I decided to go with seven layers and used colouring gel from Aldi, which worked just as well as Dr. Oetker’s giving us bright strong colours.
Recipe
Take one egg and put this on your balance scale.
Weigh out an egg weight of caster sugar.
Same weight of soft butter.
Cream the sugar and butter.
Before adding the egg, weigh out an egg weight of Gluten Free self-raising flour, then add two eggs to the butter and sugar mixture and add some vanilla essence. Now add the colouring gel, we added a fair bit to have a strong colour.
We had a
Red cake using red colouring gel.
Blue cake using blue colouring gel.
Pink cake using pink colouring gel.
Orange cake using yellow colouring gel with a hint of red gel.
Violet cake using red and blue gels.
Green cake using blue and yellow gels.
Yellow cake using just the yellow colouring gel.
Mix the egg, gel, essence into the creamed sugar and butter.
Then fold in the flour, until the mixture is smooth.
You could add a little milk if you want to have a smoother batter.
The cake mixture was spread into a lined six inch cake tin and baked at 180℃ for about 15 minutes.
The cakes were left to cool and then the cake was built with a whipped cream and strawberry jam filling.
This is where things started to go wrong, as the cake was built it appeared to be stable and then it all started to slide apart. I managed to stabilise the cake with a wooden skewer, but lots of the cream had splurged out the sides. So I then tried to fix things by using a palette knife to spread the cream on the sides of the cake. This did not work and the cake looked a real mess…
I did dust the cake with icing sugar and then we presented the cake with flaming indoor fireworks. I was unable to cut the seven layers as single slice, so we took off the top four layers and put that on a separate plate and cut that into slices.
Though it looked messy, it was very light and very tasty.
Before adding the egg, weigh out an egg weight of Gluten Free self-raising flour, then add the egg to the butter and sugar mixture and add some vanilla essence. Now add the colouring gel, we added a fair bit to have a strong colour.
We had a
Red cake using red colouring gel.
Blue cake using blue colouring gel.
Pink cake using pink colouring gel.
Orange cake using strong yellow colouring gel with a hint of red gel.
Violet cake using red and blue gels.
Mix the egg, gel, essence into the creamed sugar and butter.
Then fold in the flour, until the mixture is smooth.
You could add a little milk if you want to have a smoother batter.
The cake mixture was spread into a six inch cake tin and baked at 180℃ for about 15 minutes.
The cakes were left to cool and then the cake was built with a whipped cream and strawberry jam filling, dusted with icing sugar and served with sugar flowers.
