Making A Foolproof Gluten Free Cake

Life without gluten can be full of obstacles and variations, but that shouldn't mean you have to settle for something less.

Take cake for an example. Gluten-free cakes will never be as good as the wheat ones, right? WRONG! I myself am not gluten intolerant, but I do know what it's like to have to give something up because it's not healthy and try to find an alternative. I don't like to settle for something less; for me taste is a very close second to healthy.

My biggest goal in producing gluten-free recipes is "foolproof-ness." Cake was a big one, and I was eager to try it. This was right about the time that I was really getting into my little coconut flour frenzy and trying to come up with as many recipes as possible for the product. Cake was something I hadn't tried yet, but I was ready to start experimenting.

The first thing was ideas. I wanted to do a yellow and chocolate cake, but decided on the chocolate first. I found a chocolate cake recipe I liked, and began the long process of taking it apart, adding, taking away, testing, testing, testing. By the time I was done it was a totally different recipe. It was by far the longest time I ever spent developing a recipe; even longer then my Coconut Flour Brownies. I tried, and tried again. Each time there always seemed to be something wrong with it. The biggest issue was the dryness. It always seemed too dry. The more I experimented, the more the amount of eggs grew. Soon they had reached a rather alarming amount, but by that time I finally had the perfect gluten free chocolate cake.

It was moist, fluffy, chocolaty, and perfectly foolproof. Many times I've made them for company dessert (many with little kids by the way) and unless I told them they were gluten free they would've never known or suspected and would've just kept on happily wolfing it down.

No, no, seriously. It's really that good. If you make it, follow the recipe exactly and please don't change a thing and then tell me it doesn't work. It really does work. The eggs are the most important part, and they definitely cannot be changed.

While you're mixing the eggs and butter together, don't panic if the butter separates into little sesame seed shapes. That's normal, and doesn't bother anything at all. I also recommend having the butter still just a tad bit cold, not near melting point.

This recipe can be made as a 2, 8 inch layer cake, a 9 inch layer cake, or cupcakes. I like to use a buttercream frosting for this cake but pretty much anything that goes with chocolate will be good on this.

If any of you try the recipe, please feel free to let me know how you liked it. :)

Gluten Free Coconut Flour Chocolate Cake

Prepared by Sarah Shilhavy, Photo by Jeremiah Shilhavy

• 1 cup butter - softened
• 1 2/3 cups sugar (white or brown, I recommend the whole sugar)
• 10 eggs (at room temperature)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups coconut flour
• 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/3 cups whole milk or half n' half
• Coconut oil

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 9 inch or 8 inch layer pans with coconut oil and dust with cocoa powder.

In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine butter and sugar, and beat together for about 2 minutes. Add eggs in one at a time and beat high speed for about 3 minutes. Add in the vanilla while beating the eggs and butter mixture. In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients together and add alternately with the milk to the butter mixture. Beat batter for about five minutes on high speed. Spoon batter into the two prepared cake pans and smoothen out tops.

Bake in preheated oven for 30-35 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into the center of cake comes out clean. Place pans on wire rack and cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans. Cool cakes completely before frosting. Use your favorite frosting to frost the cake.

Peppermint Chocolate cake variation: add 1 teaspoon peppermint extract to batter before pouring into pans and mix well. Frost cake with peppermint frosting or frosting of your choice.

Cupcakes: Make recipe as directed but spoon batter into muffin cups and bake for about 26-30 minutes. Frost after cupcakes have cooled completely. Makes about 24 cupcakes.

Enjoy everyone!

Sarah Shilhavy

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