Gluten Free Prosperity Cakes

Yes I've been busy and was excited about developing and tweaking three recipes using the popular Mandarin Oranges to usher in Chinese New Year. Gong Xi Fa Cai!

And when the festive ends, I'd just replace the Mandarins with the Sunkists!


1. Gluten Free Mandarin Pudding Cake

Gluten Free Mandarin Pudding Cake is sinfully rich and flavorful

A bite of this brings you to a different place. It is richly dense and moist, and mandarin orangey flavorful with a layered taste of pure aromatic sweetness with a bitter undertone. This stays with you for a while... The recipe uses whole fruit puree, almond meal and agave. Expect a bit of a drop at the centre but no worries, its thoroughly cooked. Cutting it could be a bit of a challenge, so use a warm serrated knife. It keeps moist for days with or without refrigerated in an air-tight container too.

You don't need frosting however you may eat it the way it is or you may want to go with butterscotch sauce and/or with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream. Up to you.

Gluten Free Mandarin Pudding Cake is 8"/20cm diameter and comes in a white box labelled la mere, sold at RM108.

Approximate weight with frosting 1 to 1.2kg

2.  Gluten Free Mandarin Orange Infused Cake

A very, very moist, very, very soft cake, like butter cake full of Mandarin orange juice.  Pure juice from real fruits. The juice is just infused into a hotly baked cake. 

Gluten Free Mandarin Orange Infused Cake

As may be expected, there's a slight drop in the centre because its a heavy cake with milk and juice and further infused fruit juice, not essences or extracts.

Enjoy!

Gluten Free Mandarin Orange Infused Cake is 9"/22cm diameter and comes in a white box labelled la mere, sold at RM118.

Approximate weight 1kg.







3.  Gluten Free Mandarin Orange Butter Cake

Gluten Free Mandarin Orange Butter Cake comes with
Vanilla Buttercream or Buttercream with Mandarin Orange Juice

A butter cake based flavored with juices from Mandarin oranges. It is moist and rich and goes very well with just Vanilla Buttercream frosting. However, if you prefer an orangey full taste all round, then go with the one with the fruit juice.

Gluten Free Mandarin Orange Butter Cake is 9"/23cm diameter and comes in a white box labelled la mere, sold at RM138.

Approximate weight with frosting 1 to 1.2kg

Gluten Free Lemon Butter Cake

A Slice of Gluten Free Lemon Cake

Gluten Free Lemon Butter Cake frosted with Vanilla Buttercream or Buttercream Frosting with Lemon Juice

Its been a while when I did nothing but to experiment with a simple yet challenging recipe. I must say here that having to be the only person who does the creation, experimenting, shopping, weighing, baking and frosting is quite a task. I sometimes wonder what the *$#@ am I doing. And the expletives cannot be more appropriate when I did the Gluten Free Lemon Butter Cake. I thought it would be simple enough to just reduce the milk and then replace them with lemon juice following the Moist Gluten Free Butter Cake. Boy was I wrong. After like 20 trials and errors, I think I finally got it. And have been baking this ever since. This cake is often requested and it lined second to the Gluten Free Gluten Free Chocolatey Cake. Compared to the butter cake, the earthiness of the cake is masked by a touch of the lemon juice.  Don't get me wrong about 'a touch of', you can be sure it is a lemon-ey cake. Not only that, it is also moist.


FLOUR MIX :            Whisk together                               OTHER INGREDIENTS :

Sorghum flour            1 cup / 120g                                    Butter                     250g

Tapioca starch            1 cup / 120g                                   Cane Sugar            180g

Almond meal            ½ cup / 60g                                      Eggs                        3 eggs

Xanthan gum            1 tsp                                                  Buttermilk              60ml

Baking powder            2.5 tsp                                           Vanilla extract       1 tsp

Baking soda             half tsp                                              2 Medium Lemons     45ml juice / zest from 2

METHOD

1.              Preheat oven to 180c degrees. Line base of a 9”/23cm pan.

2.              Weigh sugar and add lemon zest, mix. Set aside.

3.              Break eggs in a bowl and add the vanilla extract. Do NOT whisk. Leave aside.

4.              Beat butter and sugar/zest till light and fluffly, from low to medium speed for about 4 - 5 minutes.

5.              Add the egg mixture in 3 batches, Add a tablespoon or 2 of the flour mix if needed but make sure the batter does curdle at this point and the eggs completely mixed with the batter.

6.              Add flour mix in 3 or 4 batches, add buttermilk (flour, stop, milk, stop, flour, stop....sequence)

7.              Add lemon juice (45ml or 3 tbsp)

8.             Pour batter into ready pan, bake for 40 to 43 minutes.

Gluten Free Lemon Butter Cake with frosting comes in a white box labelled la mere, sold at RM133.

Approximate weight with frosting 1 to 1.2kg

The 

Gluten-Free Chocolatey Cake

Gluten Free Chocolatey Cake with Ganache

A baker friend advised me that I must have a chocolate cake in my repertoire because it is a popularly requested. You see, I've only made chocolate brownies and ganache and that's because I like them sinfully rich. But doing a cake..not sure when was the last time I did one, if I ever did.

I know I'll be looking for the same kind of richness as my moist butter cake. I remember feasting one of the most delicious choc cakes which is not very sweet, it was moist, rich and very strong. I looked up my Notes and went straight for Uncle John's recipe. He does the batter all by hand, and is quite precise about weights and measurements. Unc John also suffers no fools, can be impatient but he is one of the most generous and giving person I know.

I did some adjustments and here it is :

Ingredients :
•300g gluten-free flour mix (120g sorghum flour, 120g tapioca starch, 60g almond meal, 1tsp xanthan gum)
•60g unsweetened cocoa powder
•2.5 tsp gluten-free baking powder
•1/2 tsp gluten-free baking soda
•300g organic cane sugar
•250g butter
•4 free-range eggs, whisk lightly
•1 tsp gluten-free vanilla essence
•300ml filtered water

Method :
•preheat oven to 160c, grease a 10" square or round pan.
•sieve and whisk all the dry ingredients together, put aside
•beat butter and sugar till light and fluffy
•add eggs in 3 portions, making sure they are well beaten each time
•add vanilla essence
•add flour mix and water in 3 batches, just lightly mix
•bake for 40 to 45 minutes

Enjoy!

Gluten Free Chocolatey Cake with frosting comes in a white box labelled la mere, sold at RM163.
Approximately 1 to 1.2kg

Moist Gluten-Free Butter Cake

Moist Gluten Free Butter Cake with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

It took me like 20 minutes from start to tossing the pan in the oven. Yes, getting confident there and afterall this would be my 12th attempt. Fingers crossed, I hope I will continue to yield the same result for all the cakes I'd be doing. 

As much as it is moist and fluffy and buttery, still taste is rather personal.  This cake is at its rawest as in you can really taste the difference from a normal flour cake. It has an earthy colour and taste, like saying it tastes like it looks. And I really like the earthiness. I should call it "Moist Gluten Free Earth Cake"...I hope you like it too.

Flour Mix :                                                            Other Ingredients :

Sorghum flour            1 cup / 120g                             Butter                              250g

Tapioca starch          1 cup / 120g                             Organic Cane Sugar       180g

Almond meal            ½ cup / 60g                              Eggs                        2 whole + 2 egg whites

Xanthan gum            1 tsp                                        Fresh milk                       100ml

Baking powder        3 tsp                                        Pure Vanilla extract         1 tsp

*Preheat oven to 180*C. Grease 2 8" pans.

*Whisk together the flours until thoroughly mixed. Set aside.

*Lightly whisk the eggs together with the vanilla extract.

*Starting from low to medium speed, beat butter and sugar till light and fluffly, about 2-3 minutes.

*Add the egg mixture in 3 batches. Make sure they are thoroughly mixed into the butter batter  (I beat on high for app 30 sec in the last mix)

*Add flour mix with milk in 3 or 4 batches.

*Pour batter into ready pan, bake for 35 to 45 minutes

Buttercream Frosting :

half cup (100g) brown sugar                               3/4 cup (170g) butter

2 large egg whites                                               half tsp pure vanilla extract

*Fill half a pot with water, and put it to boil.

*Get a pan which can sit over this pot nicely, and put the sugar and the egg whites in.

*Place this pan on top of the pot once the water boils, and whisk immediately (immediately so that the egg white won't start to cook!) 

*Use your fingers to check if sugar is completely dissolved. Once ready, remove from the pot.

*Continue to whisk rigorously and the batter should get thicker.

*Add butter in 3 batches, and whisk till the batter gets heavy or till you get the right consistency.

*Frost on completely cool down cake.

Truth is, I got the flour mix recipe from "Gluten-Free Goddess" blog and the rest of the ingredients is through trial and error based on my traditional butter cake version. When I research recipes on line, I was assured that the basic gluten-free flour mix can be used with normal cake recipes, this means you just replace the flour or self-raising flour. I did this but all times failed until I adjusted the gf flour weight and quantity of eggs. 

However, I cannot for the life of me, remember where I got the buttercream recipe. I like it because it comes out really smooth and silky and yes, buttery.

Moist Gluten Free Butter Cake with frosting comes in a white box labelled la mere, sold at RM123.
Approximate weight with frosting 1 to 1.2kg

I found it!

Moist, soft and buttery with just the right sweetness. My idea of a perfect butter cake. And most of the commercial cakes I find are just too sweet and lacking the buttery flavour i desire. So my children, Zane, Summer and I bake our own cakes. And we've done this for many years.

I then decided to venture into an unknown territory of gluten-free cakes. After several failed attempts, like 10, I think I found the recipe for that desired cake.

When I baked the cake for The Big Blue Marble Montessori Playschool's graduation and 24th birthday cake, you cannot imagine how nervous I was coz the cake is to feed 80 adults and children. I did 3 layers and I took some of the batter from each layer to do cupcakes so I could test them for taste and texture. The cup cakes tasted fine but am not sure if the guests feel the same.

I couldn't sleep the night before the event. I was worried about so many things and most of all, was the cake cooked through, will it turn out as fine as the cup cakes version. Will there'd be a melt down of the sugar figurines...finally slept at 3 and woke up at 6 on the day of the event.

Today, on Sunday November the 25th, the cake was finally launched. When it was rolled out, it wowed the crowd coz of the dome shape and the 2-D logo and the 3-d figurines .(No, i didn't do the crafting part. They were done by Shing of Shing Cakery) I was praying for a double wow. Because once you cut a wow cake, the inside matters.

The cake was rolled back to me and I was to cut and pack for the guests. I focused on cutting and Summer, later my nephew, Euverne and much later my sister, Julie helped pack them. All this time I didn't do what I thought were crucial - I didn't cut a piece to taste. I didn't take a photo of the inside cake. Yes I kicked myself for these.

As I'm writing this, I consoled myself with the fact that, the cake indeed was well received and I saw some guests going for more packs after they were done with one.

For this first post, I give you the cake and a picture of the cake's cup cake version. The cake was still moist even after 4 days. And I will continue to increase my repertoire of gluten-free cakes and desserts. Will keep you posted.

If you were there at the event and you tried my cake, I'll be happy to hear from you.

Lastly, this venture and cake is dedicated to my dearly departed son, Jon Gan, and the launch venue was apt as The Big Blue Marble was founded by my husband and I when he was 3.

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