Near as Dammit

For some reason lost to the mists of time, every month I receive via snail mail the current edition of Bon Appetit magazine. To my knowledge I have never paid for a subscription or counted myself among the publication's loyal readers, but there it is. Like clockwork, it appears in my mailbox and I dutifully flip through its pages to see what's new and exciting in the wonderful world of culinary advertising.

This month's issue, however, contained destructions for a dessert that made me sit up alertly in my favorite toile-upholstered armchair: Sticky Toffee and Banana Pudding.

Of course, the words 'sticky' and 'toffee' are likely to grab anybody's attention, particularly a gluten-freedom fighter such as myself, cruelly deprived of the goodies taken for granted by other, more fortunate souls. Additionally, seeing a recipe for bananas reminded me that I still had in my fruit bowl (even after using pounds' and pounds' worth in my preserving projects) five or six rapidly over-ripening organic beauties surplus to jam and chutney-making requirements.

So I decided to take a quick break from conserving and address myself to some baking. Just for a change, you understand.

The question of the hour, of course, was how well the recipe (let's not kid ourselves, it was really for banana cake with caramel sauce) would hold up to gluten-free ingredients. I remembered Jeff Potter's dictum for high-ratio cakes and decided to apply it in this case, thinking it would be a good mental exercise for clearing away my conserve-related cobwebs.

A high-ratio cake (as you no doubt recall) has the following characteristics:

• more sugar than flour (by weight)
• more eggs than fat (ditto)
• more liquid than sugar (ditto ditto)

I previously proved through the production of an excellent gluten-free pumpkin cake that the happy by-product of high-ratio baking is the ability to do without xanthan gum and other horrid additives in one's tea-time sweets. Would the same hold true for gateau de banane, I wondered?

I visited the USDA National Nutrient Database for some much-needed data on the moisture and sugar content of bananas and made the following calculations, based upon the recipe's ingredients list:

• sugar: 189 g (133 g granulated sugar + 56 g in the bananas)
• flour: 250 g
• fat: 170 g
• eggs: 66 g
• liquid: 200 g (58 g in the eggs, 112 g in the bananas, 30 g in rum, vanilla, etc.)

Hmmm. Clearly, I did not have a high ratio mixture in the strictest sense, but I was about half-way there. I definitely had more liquid than sugar, and although I did not have more sugar than flour, the two were reasonably close. Where I really fell down was in the eggs-to-fat-ratio, oh well.

I decided to give it a try anyway - my bananas were getting browner by the minute and I was not about to make more jam out of them when I still had pears, pineapples, limes, and Meyer lemons with which to deal.

I did a straight substitution of King Arthur Multi-Purpose Gluten-Free blend for the unbleached all-purpose flour called for by the recipe and set to work. I did not like the look of the toffee topping offered by the tipsters at Conde Naste (1.5 cups of heavy cream? really?)  and used instead the butterscotch sauce I always employ in such circumstances. 

The result was squidgy and delicious straight from the oven, especially when doused with a liberal dollop of luscious butterscotch. The most important finding was that the spirit (if not the letter) of high-ratio baking is sufficient to keep the xanthan imperative at bay. However, I think some tweaking of the recipe might improve its gluten-free deliciousness, using the above ratios as a guide (an extra egg, perhaps? less flour? Also, the cake was crying out for some chopped dates in the batter - an element without which I have never seen a proper sticky toffee pudding - and which I happen to have as a byproduct of my chutney-making).

I shall get to work this weekend and report my findings in due course.

Meanwhile, here is a recipe for the best butterscotch sauce in the world, courtesy of my go-to gal for such delicacies, Delia Smith.

Butterscotch Sauce

In a saucepan, slowly melt together 2 oz butter, 3 oz soft brown sugar, 2 oz granulated sugar, and 5 fl oz of Lyle's Golden Syrup. If, tragically, your supermarket's shipment of this wonderful indulgence is delayed by gales in the North Atlantic, dark (or light) corn syrup makes an excellent substitute.

Stir often and do not let the mixture boil! Once it has all dissolved and is liquidly lovely, cook on low heat for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat.

Gradually stir in 4 fl oz of whipping cream and a few drops of vanilla, and stir for another few minutes until the sauce is utterly smooth and gorgeous. You should probably taste some to make sure it's done.

This sauce is stunning when poured over warm cake of any description (especially banana, I have discovered); ice cream; or apple snow. If you keep it in a jar in the refrigerator, it will be good for weeks and weeks and weeks.

Coming soon: the perils of pectin