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Gluten Free Egg Free Cake

I never thought that this would happen. First I never thought I would want it to happen, but then the possibility of making it happen was infinitesimal.

Behold: the gluten free, egg free butter cake.

No gluten, no egg, all taste

I can’t imagine how hard it must be to be gluten free, but to have multiple allergies, especially to eggs, means that the delicacy of a spongey, vanillary, buttery cake is off the menu forever. So sad, because this simple type of cake can be one of life’s true joys… Unknown and unsavoured…. Until now.

I’m all set to make a wedding cake next week for my best ski buddy Andrew’s twin sister Kate, and her man of a staggering ten years, Andrew. Nice to keep the names simple.

Only the mother of the groom is Gluten free. Oh, and egg free. Poor lady!

Kadri to the rescue. Or so I hoped. I have shied away from gluten-free bakery for an incredibly long time not least because of the crazy flours involved and the fact that vegetable gum is de rigueur. With more ingredients in a cake than in an Indian curry, it’s not surprising that someone who doesn’t have a gluten problem would choose not to explore this most difficult of baking challenges. Well, no more!

I started with some scary Google searching. The availability (or lack) of recipes did not fill me with joy. Frankly they all looked terrible. And I know this because I tried quite a few! Here are three of my attempts.

Gluten free failures

It would be fair to say that these baked items neither had the appearance, texture, or taste of cake. Dense, tasting like uncooked grains and oil, or spongy but unpalatable bland, all were terrible.

After four attempted recipes, I was beginning to worry. I had already purchased and tried gluten-free flour from Orgran, and something made by that company called “No Egg”. The No Egg it is pretty interesting. It is entirely unlike egg. So the name is fairly accurate. I gave up on it, in favour of a gluten free, egg free pound cake recipe I’d seen on Pinterest which was notable in it having a crumb that actually looked like cake. It has a billion ingredients, but at this point I was feeling a little desperate.

The original gluten free egg free cake recipe is here, and it’s also dairy free for those who are further cursed with allergies.

Let me get this out right now. THANK YOU AARESS LAWLESS, gluten free baking goddess. My mother of the groom isn’t dairy free so I could use milk and butter but I have no doubt that this Aaress’ recipe is one of the very few edible gluten free egg free cakes on the internet.

Right from the get go I knew this recipe was a goer, not least because the batter looked exactly like real pound cake mixture.

A great looking cake mix!

After the oily, gel like goop of the previous recipes, this was a major step in the right direction. I made a 1/4 recipe and was ecstatic with the results. It was spongy, fragrant and most importantly, tasted like a real cake. Jackpot!

A full recipe made a high, 15 cm cake which, though it took much longer to bake than a Victoria Sponge of the same size, had the texture and aroma of its gluten charged, eggy counterpart.

We have a winner!

Spongy 10cm results

I made a 15cm cake with one mix of batter, and then two 10cm cakes with a half mix. In the 15cm cake I used gum traganth as I didn’t have any xanthan gum on hand. Gum traganth works fine but xanthan is far superior. Look at the crumb on this baby! It tastes amazing warm and would make a wonderful winter dessert with fruit coulis or warm vanillary apple sauce and clotted cream.

Superb crumb!

Kate and Andrew are having a “naked cake” for their wedding… And now I have a gluten free egg free cake recipe which will give them a little mother-of-the-groom-friendly cake on the side. So I layered the 15cm cake up, to check the flavour and the look.

Looking good!

This little beauty will definitely do. I think the gluten free wedding goers are going to be pretty happy. Because there’s no dairy restriction for the wedding guests, I used vanilla buttercream in the filling, along with blackcurrant jam. If you needed to make a dairy free buttercream, you could substitute a well flavoured non dairy spread, for example Nuttelex for the butter.

Here’s my adaptation from Aaress Lawless’ gluten free egg free cake recipe. I wish I knew what the secret was to this cake. Gluten free flour mixes have vegetable gums to help the binding process that the gluten protein would normally take care of. But the eggs? There is a whole lot of protein in egg white, which isn’t being replaced by anything much. Some egg free cake recipes seem to suggest that more baking powder is fine as a substitute but egg isn’t really a leavening agent. I think the extra xanthan gum in the recipe below might be the key as it certainly works better than gum traganth (which is lucky because the latter is very expensive). I also think the extra cellulose in the apple purée must also be doing some good. The vanilla and almond flavourings are a definite bonus, and the old Betty Crocker “Sunshine cake” mix of orange and lemon zest and almond essence is delicious too.

Gluten free, egg free butter cake

Makes one 7.5cm high 15 cm cake. If you don’t have this size pan, try a 20cm pan and reduce the baking time by about 10 minutes. Half a recipe makes two 10cm round cakes, perfect for a little layered treat! Bake them for 40 minutes.

ingredients

1 cup milk (dairy free it by using rice milk)
1 tsp white vinegar

270g gluten free flour mix (I used Orgran)

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp xanthan gum (this is readily available in speciality cake or health food stores)

175g unsalted butter (dairy free it by using well flavoured non dairy spread)

220g sugar

1 tsp vanilla (or lemon or orange zest or essence)

1 tsp almond essence

30 g puréed apple (one apple makes about 60g; peel, core, chop and cook til very soft with a tbsp of water, then mash or blend)

1 tbsp sunflower oil

2 tbsp water

2 tsp baking powder, extra

mixing

Combine the milk and vinegar, set aside to curdle.

Combine the flour, salt baking powder and gum and mix well. Set aside.

Cream the butter and sugar with the essences until light and fluffy. Mix the oil, water and extra baking powder, and tip this and the apple into the curdled milk.

Add 1/3 of the milk mixture to the butter mixture, beating well, followed by 1/3 of the flour mixture. Repeat until all incorporated.

Spread into a deep (at least 8.5cm deep) 15cm round pan which has been lined with bake paper or sprayed with non stick spray and dusted all over with the gluten free flour mix. Bake at 175 degrees C for 1 hour and 55 minutes. Note the cake will be a deep golden brown and may still “whisper” a bit at the end of the baking time, also note that the traditional skewer test won’t work with this cake!

Split into four if you like and decorate if desired when cold, or serve warm with some warm apple purée and a dollop of cream.

Have a slice. You’re welcome.

I wish you all the happiness in the world with this cake. Enjoy yourself… At last!

I’ll be making it for myself again too, even though I don’t need to be gluten free or eggless.

egg free

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