MDBD - Gluten Free Cake and Butter Cream Icing

As part of our continued experiment with gluten free baking, Zoey and I made a gluten free cake this weekend. I also experimented with a new butter cream frosting recipe.

Lets start with the cake. Our recipe came from Barefeet in the Kitchen. Now the recipe she posted was called "The Best Gluten Free White Cake"; however my cake did not turn out white. Normally to make a white cake, you only use the egg white and leave out the yolk; however her recipe called for the whole egg. Someone even commented about this in the comments section and the response was that it's supposed to be whole eggs. Apparently she has some magic skill. LOL!

It should also be noted that I once again decided not to you the xanthan gum and instead did the chia seeds. This time I measured out the same amount of chia seeds as the recipe called for in xanthan gum. I then soaked them in double that amount of boiling water for 15 minutes. The result was the gel in the picture below. I then measured out the amount that was called for in the recipe for the xanthan gum. (Hope that makes sense)

This is what was left after I measured out the tsp needed for the recipe

Our Ingredients

 Ingredients

1 1/2 cups brown rice flour
2/3 cup potato starch
1/3 cup tapioca starch
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon chia seed (or xanthan gum)
4 eggs
2 cups white sugar
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup butter, melted and cooled
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract

Instructions

 Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

Grease pans (I used a 9 x13 but the original recipe was for a round layered cake)

 Stir together the dry ingredients and set aside. 

Beat the eggs and the sugar together until creamy. 

Add half of the dry ingredients and beat again. 

 Add the buttermilk, butter, vanilla and almond extracts and beat to combine. 

Add the remaining dry ingredients and beat just until combined.
Pour batter into pans. 

Bake in the center of the oven for 35-40 minutes, until the cake is very lightly browned and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. 

Remove and let cool

Now to the icing. I have really had very little success when it comes to icing. The only one I've been able to make that I liked was the peanut butter one I made for cupcakes last year. I had pretty much given up on making frosting and was planning on using canned frosting for Zoey's birthday cake. However, last week when I did my test run on Zoey;s cake, I couldn't get the canned icing to stick to itself when I was trying to pipe stars. So I decided to take a shot at the icing recipe used by the person that made the tutorial for decorating Zoey's birthday cake. I figure that it must be able to stick. This was a Youtube video, so the link goes to the video rather than to a blog.

Our Ingredients (I forgot to take the picture until after I'd already put the butter in the bowl)

Ingredients

 5 Cups Powdered Sugar (I did not use all of it)

18 Tablespoons Unsalted Butter

2 tsp Vanilla Extract

3 Tablespoons Whole Milk

Instructions

 Blend butter for 5 minutes

With the beaters going, slowly add in 1/2 of the powdered sugar

Add the vanilla and milk until fully incorporated

Mix in the remaining powdered sugar (I kept tasting it until it was the sweetness I liked)

Once the cake cooled, I went ahead and frosted it (I added food coloring to the frosting). It held up well to the piping, but we'll have to see how it holds up when I frost the actual cake, which is 3 dimensional.

A piece of the frosted cake

As far as the cake goes, Scott and my nephew, Trey, liked it (although Trey changed his mind when he realized it was gluten free. LOL!) I described it as "earthy" and my sister and I both decided that it was because of the almond extract. If I make this cake again I think I will leave that out. 

Tiffany really liked the frosting. Scott thought that it was one of the best icings I've made (I'm not sure if that really says much. LOL!) I thought it was ok. I'm still not in love with it, but I guess it will do.