Gluten Free Homemade Cake - Any Flavor

I am not a cake lover. I have never really enjoyed cake. I used to not enjoy anything chocolate. It wasn't until about 15 years ago that I even enjoyed chocolate ice cream or brownies. This is weird to me but as I talked with my Bunko friends, they all say that as they have gotten older, they like darker and darker chocolate. 

So, I guess I am not alone in this. I HATED dark chocolate when I did have chocolate and now, the darker the better. 

With my new health issues coming forth, I can't eat any wheat, oats, barley or anything with gluten in it. I have had weird diets before and this one isn't that hard until I go to a fast food place or to a "dinner" of some kind where there aren't menu options and they are only serving breaded items etc.

Today, I had house guests and after breakfast we were discussing my new food options and he told me he had a great cake recipe that had no wheat in it or flour of any grain. I couldn't imagine a cake with NO grain flour in it. 

He then wrote down the recipe and I figured while he was still at  my house I had better make it so that if I had any questions, I could ask him for help. 


 Gluten Free Cake (Possibly brownies as well)

1/2 lb or two cubes butter. 
9 oz Ghiradelli chocolate chips (3/4 of 12 oz bag) 
(I used a 9 oz bag of dark chocolate I had instead. You can use butterscotch, mint, white, etc) 
5-6 eggs
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 Tbs Coca powder
Flavorings of choice

First use a double boiler or a small sauce pan inside a larger sauce pan putting water in the bottom pan. Let the water in the lower pan get to a boil and put the butter and the chocolate chips into the upper pan. keep the water at a low boil as if it is higher, some of the water may bubble into the upper pan. The steam from the water heats the upper pan melting the chocolate at a low temperature keeping it from drying or burning. 

While the chocolate is melting, use some butter and butter your cake pan. I used a pie pan because that is what he told me he used. Later, he went to the car and brought in the pan he used after I told him the pie pan wasn't good because the top fell as there was no support on the sides and I think a cake pan would be better. When you see his pan at the bottom, it is a cake pan, not a pie pan but it tasted great no matter the pan. 
 
After the pan is buttered, dust it with powdered sugar so that the cake won't stick when it is done. 

Next, in a mixing bowl, mix 5 large or 6 medium eggs with 1/2 cup powdered sugar. If you want the cake to be chocolate, add the coca powder now. If you want it to be a different flavor or you want to add mint or some other flavoring, add it into the egg mixture now. I added four drops of mint and about 6 drops of almond extract. I could barely taste the mint but could taste the almond but the coca and the dark chocolate I used instead of the chocolate chips made it VERY chocolaty so if you want it to be VERY chocolaty and have some other flavor, you will need to add more than four drops of mint. 

If you are using white chocolate chips or butterscotch chips etc, you may not want to add any coca or flavorings. There are so many options and after tasting it, I have thought of several things I want to try but I will share those once I try it. 

Once the chocolate is melted, mix it into the egg mixture using a wire whisk. Once it is mixed well, pour it into your cake or muffin pans. If you are doing a cake, tamp it on the counter to get all the large air bubbles out just as you would a cake. 

This is the unusual part. You must put the round cake pan into a larger baking dish and fill the larger baking dish with boiling or hot water (I used the boiling water from the double boiler and added some hot tap water.)

It will look like the round pan is floating in the middle of the other pan. Don't fill it so full you can't move the other pan but enough that the bottom of the round cake pan is in the water quite a bit. Carefully put the pan into a preheated oven at 350 degrees on the middle rack. 

Set the timer for 40 minutes. At forty minutes, check the cake. If the middle is sunk and looks wet, set it for five more. If it is looking done like the top of a cake, take a fork and put it into the center of the cake. If it comes out clean, the cake is done. If it is gooey, put it on for five more minutes. 

My cake took exactly 50 minutes. The fork came out clean and it wasn't over cooked but held together quite well except on the edges where they were not supported underneath. Use a cake pan, not a pie pan.

Once it is out of the oven, if you can take it out of the water without trouble, do that. If you can't, I drained some of the water off or you could use a turkey baster to get the water out far enough that you could pull out the center cake pan. 

Once it is out of the water, I let it sit for about 3-4 minutes and then I turned it upside down onto my hand and then put it on a wire rack to cool. If I had used a cake pan and not a pie pan, it would have been perfect. 

I thought it would need frosting because it looked like a cake. However, it is moist and almost fudge creamy or cheesecake texture because of the eggs. Due to it having eggs in it, after it cooled and we enjoyed a few pieces, I put it in the fridge and would have frozen some but I gave more than half of it to my friend leaving town and to some other friends that came over and my sister that came over. All four said they wanted the recipe! 

I told them I would blog about it so they could get it off here. 

I am going to try white chocolate and raspberry flavoring and drizzle it with raspberry syrup and put a mint leaf with fresh raspberries on it as well as some mint flavored melted chocolate and drizzle that over it as well. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. Because there are several in my family that can't have gluten at the moment, missing out on the pumpkin, pecan and other pies on thanksgiving will be a hard thing not to eat. So, I intend to make this and take it to the family dinner for us to enjoy.

I went to a church Christmas dinner tonight and they had a carrot type cake with caramel drizzle for dessert and everyone was raving about it. I couldn't eat it but had NO problem with that as I knew when I arrived home, I had a wonderful creamy chocolate cake to eat. There isn't much left but I plan on trying several different things. I was thinking if I used a square pan and cut it into little squares or used mini muffin cups and then froze them and then dipped them into chocolate, they would be good or putting a nut in the bottom of the cup before baking it or heath bar crunch etc. I am excited to find out what I can do with it. 

The edges tasted like brownies so I think if I used a "muffin top" pan or a individual brownie pan, it may be more brownie like or perhaps if I add just a bit more powdered sugar it may be more like a brownie. 

I think this is going to be one of my new favorite desserts.These are the pans he uses and he wanted me to see it is more of a decorative round cake pan. I can see why a cake pan is better. If you look at my cake, you can see that the weight of the top edges were too much and they cracked the cake where there was no lower support.

I will have to do some updates with what I find and how the girls like it. They haven't been home at the same time I have so they haven't had a chance to try it yet. I'll let you know....

I am grateful for friends that come just when I would be needing what they have to share! Rather weird he had his cake pans in his car with him from out of state.