Chocolate christmas cake - gluten free flour and dairy/dairy-free taste test

Taste testing the next day (will do another in a week to see how it changes with time)

The cakes were coded by putting different types of nuts on top. For the testing we didn’t know that flour or fat were used in each. We considered taste and texture.

We took them in random order.

Mr Taster’s form	Taste	Texture
1	Dark sweet maybe touch too much choc Consistent after-taste	Mouth – micro crumble to course paste ‘cake’ disintegrates in mouth to leave fruit
2	Mostly fruit Less character in cake Choc has disappeared	Fine paste Falls apart in hand
3	Lighter sweetness Choc comes in middle after about 15secs	Mouth – crumbles to a sort of treacle in mouth and continues to stick to the fruit
4	mid to dark sweet mostly fruit choc not intrusive needs cream to cut depth	Falls apart in hand Mouth crumble to fine paste (pudding)
5	Little character Consistent sweet Minimal chocolate	Micro fine paste. Holds in hand – just
6	Cake almost lost in fruit	apart in hand Micro fine paste

My form	Taste	Texture
1	Too much chocolate and slightly pasty taste Sugar levels good	Disintegrates – maybe better with age? Very clear lumps of fruit – took some chewing Hard to cut, fell apart
2	Odd taste when first in mouth and fruit seemed tougher Less chocolate taste	More crumbly than 4 to cut Lighter feel at first than 4
3	Liked taste better than 4	Falls apart even more but feels good in mouth
4	Ok, not very exciting	Cut easier but did use bread knife. Slice stayed intact when lifting. Slightly pasty mouth feel
5	Powdery and cloying at the same time. Fruit doesn’t seem part of cake Chocolate flavour about right after a moment	Holds better when cut for first slice but crumbled when trying to eat
6	Even textured paste. High nose taste	Fell apart, can’t even pick up a piece

In general I think this should have more cake and less fruit. If making again I would increase the eggs, and perhaps chops half of the fruit to give more cohesion.

We both like number three best.

I had a nerve-wracking moment when I couldn’t find my code list. It was on the book rest I had used to hold the magazine!

Turns out we both like the one made with my own flour mix, which was about one third tapioca and two-thirds urid. We preferred the butter version.

I think Pure margarine, as a soft margarine, isn’t really suitable for this type of cake. I have been recommended another type of Kosher dairy-free margarine for cooking but it is difficult to buy unless you get it mail-order from Ocado. I did buy some Cookeen yesterday, and will be running comparisons with that.

In general we like the cake flavour and texture made with my flour best, then the Bob's Red Mill flour, then the Doves Farm flour. In general I haven’t been impressed with the Doves Farm mix for anything other than batter recipes, such as pancakes and choux. It does also work in the cupcakes I used for the wedding tower, but there are also a lot of almonds and yogurt in that cake recipe.

Number	Nut topping	Flour	Fat
1	Almond and hazelnut	My flour	Pure
2	Hazelnut and Pistachio	Bob's Red Mill (lavidafood.com)	Pure
3	Pistachio	Own flour	Butter
4	Hazelnut	Bob's Red Mill	Butter
5	Pistachio and almond	Doves Farm	Butter
6	Almond	Doves Farm	Pure

The really surprising outcome is how much the type of flour affects how much you can taste the chocolate. In some cakes it had too much chocolate flavour and in others you might not have known there was chocolate in it at all. This is despite all the recipes being made with identical ingredients, method and cooking apart from the fats and flours on test.

The nuts were only on top so that the cakes could be told apart. They were not taken into consideration when testing the cake.