Still, my hunger for moist cake topped with snowy sweet deliciousness could not be contained, and I resolved to address the situation ASAP. I returned home, rummaged around in the refrigerator, and came up with the perfect solution: carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.
Why do I always have surplus carrots in the house? I'm not sure - but there always seems to be at least one bag in the crisper drawer that requires urgent attention before its contents go all wilty. This is not to say I haven't cooked with them extensively since the commencement of my gluten-freedom fighting. One of my go-to weekday microwave lunches is my famous curried carrot pilaf with toasted pecans and Hunza raisins. I have also made carrot jam with great success, although that happy outcome was tempered by my disastrous Last Resort baking project several weeks later.
But since September I have not attempted an old-fashioned carrot cake. This turns out to have been an unecessary sacrifice on my part, because as I leafed through my traditional recipes - every American cookbook I own seems to contain at least one version - it quickly became clear that almost all carrot cakes are made with high-ratio batters than can (theoretically at least) be adapted to gluten-free ingredients with little or no problem. The recipe upon which I finally settled (from The Joy of Cooking) easily fit the bill for g/f conversion: it contained more liquid than sugar (if you include the liquid in the eggs and carrots, which you should); more eggs than fat (a whopping 100% more, by weight); and, if not more sugar than flour, at least close-to-equal amounts. Anyway, the formula was near enough that I had very few qualms about its likely success.
Sure enough, the finished cake was moist, flavorful, and delicious - hardly distinguishable from its gluten-rich cousins. Some individuals might feel it would benefit from the addition of chopped walnuts, or raisins, or crushed pineapple, but I eschew random bits in my cakes as unwelcome distractions. Already over 24 hours old, the cake still passes the acid test of gluten-free edibility at room temperature.
It was almost too easy.
Gluten-Free Carrot Cake
Butter a nine-inch round cake pan and line the bottom with silicon parchment. Butter that, too. Meanwhile, heat the oven to 350 deg F.
Sift and whisk together one and one-third cups of King Arthur Gluten-Free Multi-Purpose Flour (the only kind I use!); one cup of granulated sugar; one and one-half teaspoons of baking soda and one teaspoon of baking powder. For spice, add one teaspoon of ground cinnamon, one teaspoon of ground allspice, one teaspoon of ground ginger, and one-half teaspoon of freshly-grated nutmeg.
Whisk together three eggs and two-thirds of a cup of oil (I use canola) and stir that mixture into your dry ingredients.
Finally, add one and one-half cups of finely grated carrots (about eight medium-sized roots).
Note the utter lack of xanthan gum or other strange chemical additives!
Bake the cake for about forty minutes or until it's done. Cool it in the pan on a wire rack for ten minutes or so, then turn out and cool completely.
Ice the cake with your favorite cream cheese frosting - the one you learned to make in home economics (when home ec was still part of the public school curriculum, that is) will work fine. The one I use to cover the top of a nine-inch cake contains eight ounces of cream cheese; five tablespoons of butter; two tablespoons of vanilla extract; about two cups of sifted powdered sugar; and (for carrot cake) the grated zest of an orange.
The result is pure gluten-free gold.
Coming soon: I discover that the next cake recipe in The Joy of Cooking - applesauce gingerbread - also looks promising for gluten-free conversion. An additional use for Lyle's Golden Syrup and my fabulous home-made organic Granny Smith preserves!
2 comments:
Another triumph, my dear.
(For old film buffs. In what film was this first said?)
I know! I know! But I'm not telling.
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