Donna Hay's Melt-and-Mix Gluten-free Chocolate Cake

No offense to all cake recipes that use gluten free flour... I must admit that I'm not a fan of using gluten free flour for cake baking. Based on the cakes that I have tasted, I am always disappointed with most cakes that are made of gluten free flour...

Despite all these disappointments, I was silly enough to buy a packet of gluten-free flour again. I was baking gluten-free apple cupcakes for a celiac friend's birthday party, assuming that this gluten free recipe is from a reputable source and might work well for me this time. Not surprising at all, it didn't. I was disappointed again that these cupcakes had a "waxy-floury" after-taste. 

After expressing my disappointments to my baking colleagues, they actually feel the same too. Together, we have all agreed that we prefer to bake flourless cakes rather than using gluten free flour to bake our gluten free cakes. My celiac friend was telling me too that she prefer to use gluten-free flour in smaller proportion so that the after-taste will not obviously detectable.

Feeling clueless with more than half a kilogram of leftover gluten free flour now, I thought of checking out the White Wings Flour website to see if there is any recommendations. Then, I found a fast and easy Donna Hay's recipe which saves me from tossing this gluten-free flour in the bin. Thanks, Donna Hay! This recipe is brilliant!

Unlike most cakes that are made of gluten free flour, this melt-and-mix chocolate cake has NO after-taste at all. It is very moist and delicious with a fudgy mud-cake like texture. The cake is so moist that there is hardly any loose crumbs on its serving plate. My husband and son love this chocolate cake very much, not knowing at all that this cake is actually made of gluten-free flour. To them, this is another delicious chocolate cake that I have baked.

Making this super-easy cake batter - just mix all and bake!

Cake tester comes out clean... the cake is cooked :D

Making the icing and spread over the cake

Look how moist this cake is... Yum!

Here's the recipe from White Wings.

(with my modification and notes in blue)

Serves 8–10

Chocolate cake

250g unsalted butter, melted
3/4 cup (75g) cocoa, sifted (I used Dutch processed one)
1 1/3 cups (295g) caster sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups (180g) almond meal  
(per-roasted at 160ºC fan forced for 5-7 min)
1 1/2 cups (225g) Gluten-Free self-Raising flour, sifted
(Mine is not the self-raising kind and so I added 1 tsp of baking powder for every cup of flour used)
3/4 cup (180ml) milk

Chocolate fudge icing

250g dark chocolate, broken into pieces (I used the one with 70% cocoa)
1/2 cup (125ml) single (pouring) cream
70g unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 180ºC (fan forced).

Place the butter, cocoa, sugar, eggs, almond meal, flour and milk in a bowl and whisk to combine.

Pour into a lightly greased 22cm round cake tin lined with non-stick baking paper. Bake for 1 hr or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Allow to cool in the tin completely.

To make the icing, place the chocolate, cream and butter in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and stir until melted and smooth. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool completely. Beat the cooled icing with electric beaters until thick and fluffy and spread over cake with a palette knife to serve. (I didn't whipped my icing using an electric mixer. I spread the icing over the cake when it was slightly cooled.)

Note: Using 1/2 of the recipe, I have baked my cake in 15 cm round cake tin at 180ºC (fan forced) for 45 min.

Happy Baking
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