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.

BBC Good Food Chocolate Fruitcake p151 Dec 2010 magazine bbcgoodfood.com

Original recipe calls for butter and self-raising flour. I have had a look at the recipe and decided to make six different versions for comparison.

Flour swaps

I was going to test Doves Farm, my own mix and chestnut puree. I drove to a large supermarket thinking they would be bound to have chestnut puree seeing as they had converted the entire store to Christmas shopping. Couldn't find it, staff couldn’t find it, computer at customer services said there were 19 tins but it didn’t know where they would be. I gave up. Instead I tried a flour I was given recently called Bob’s Red Mill all purpose baking flour. I have seen it in lots of US recipes. A UK supplier has started stocking it and sent me some bags to test (lavidafood.com). I was tempted to try grated sweet potato, as that has worked well in recipes before, but I decided six recipes at once was quite sufficient.

I divided the full recipe into three as there were three eggs. Using double the ingredients gave me the six cakes.

I also used raisins instead of current as I don’t have currents. I used cranberries and blueberries instead of sour cherries and mixed peel. Peel always has sulphites in it I and I try to avoid these. I had meant to put some citrus zest in to balance the flavour but decided not to as I ran out of energy. Once I know what flour and fat mix works I can worry about tweaking the flavour if needed.

Ingredients

65g fat (either butter or Pure margarine)

65g dark brown soft sugar

35g dark chocolate

25ml rum (it asked for brandy but I had rum available)

1/3 tsp vanilla

160g raisins (should have been half currants)

50g cranberries

50g blueberries

........

65g flour (Doves Farm, Bob's Red Mill, or 40g urid lentil and 25g tapioca)

1 tsp baking powder

35g ground almonds

1tsp cocoa

1/3 tsp mixed spice

.........

1 egg, beaten with fork

Method

Place first group of ingredients in saucepan and heat gently until chocolate and fat have melted.

Stir in egg when mix is cool enough not to scramble the egg

Sift / whisk third group of ingredients together and stir into mix.

Place in greased and lined tin and bake. Original recipe calls for 150C /130C fan / gas2 for about 1.5 hrs. I set my oven to 35 minutes for the first check as I have small cakes and the adjustable tins which cook more speedily.

In order to tell which cake was which when finished I put varying types of nuts on the top of the batter and, here is the important bit, made a note of which was which.

As I was using a Silverwood Multisize Foldaway cake pan lining it was a bit awkward. I found that if I cut nine strips of non-stick baking parchment the width of the tin I could place one each way into the tin with the edges sticking up. I then took another piece the same size, greased it, wrapped it around my hand, and putting my hand into the small cake tin, let it spring open into place.

They are in the oven, not quite done at 35minutes. Will post results of taste tests later this week.

Wedding Cake

At last, a chance to try a formal wedding cake. My nephew John is getting married in May, so the three months recommended maturing time for a traditional fruit cake means that now is the time to get started. I am making a small gluten- free cake to match their three tier normal version.

I have booked on a cake decorating course at Evesham College, which starts this evening. I need a seven inch cake for the course, so this weekend I made two seven inch cakes and two mini loaf cakes. The later - well, it would be stupid not to test the recipe, and Rod looked crestfallen when I suggested planning not having any batter unfortunately left over so no immediate consumption cakes.

I used the wedding cake recipe in my ancient Cordon Bleu book, Baking 1. It seemed a lot less interesting than the fruit cakes I normally make, but it turned out to be scrumptious. There is a tiny amount of cocoa powder in it and it makes the cake have a lovely warm flavour. I didn't photograph the batter but I will post pictures of my adventures in icing.

recipe for two seven inch round cakes - ancient book so in Imperial

1 lb sultanas

1 lb currants

11 oz raisins

3 oz glace cherries, halved

2 oz blanched and shredded almonds

3 oz candied peel

4 fl oz brandy - I used more as the fruit seemed dry

1/3 tsp cinnamon

1/3 nutmeg, grated

11 oz butter

1/3 tbsp cocoa

grated rind 1/3 lemon and orange

11 oz caster sugar

1/3 tbsp black treacle

6 eggs

15 oz flours: 8 oz almond

4 oz tapioca

4 oz urid lentil

1/2 tsp baking powder ( I added this as my mixer is dead so I didn't beat the butter and sugar until fluffy- figured this would add a touch of lightness to the batter)

soak fruit in brandy 24 hours, stirring occasionally

mix dry ingredients and stir one third into the fruit to coat. This is supposed to help keep the fruit evenly dispersed through the cake

cream butter until soft, add sugar and rind and beat until light and fluffy.

add treacle and eggs one at a time, beating between each addition.

Stir in half the remaining flour and stir

Add fruit and stir

Add rest of flour and mix until even.

Bake in tins which are lined with three or four layers of greaseproof paper to help the cake cook evenly. Smooth over the top, and then lightly smear the top with water. I use my fingers for this. This helps keep the top from burning on cakes that cook for a long time. If the top does seem to be getting too brown whilst the middle is under cooked put some layers of greaseproof paper over the top. As I have a fan oven these blow off, so I put a cooling rack on top to hold things in place. I didnt need this for these small cakes.

150 degrees C in a fan oven

The two seven inch tins I cooked for about two and a half hours . The two mini loaf testers I cooked for about forty minutes. Test with a skewer or knife to see that they are cooked through. Cool in the tins. Wrap and store for three months, soaking extra booze in every few weeks if wanted.

Eat the mini cakes with gusto straight away.