Gluten Free Egg Free Cake
I never thought that this would happen. First I never thought I would want it to happen, but then the possibility of making it happen was infinitesimal.
Behold: the gluten free, egg free butter cake.
No gluten, no egg, all taste
I can’t imagine how hard it must be to be gluten free, but to have multiple allergies, especially to eggs, means that the delicacy of a spongey, vanillary, buttery cake is off the menu forever. So sad, because this simple type of cake can be one of life’s true joys… Unknown and unsavoured…. Until now.
I’m all set to make a wedding cake next week for my best ski buddy Andrew’s twin sister Kate, and her man of a staggering ten years, Andrew. Nice to keep the names simple.
Only the mother of the groom is Gluten free. Oh, and egg free. Poor lady!
Kadri to the rescue. Or so I hoped. I have shied away from gluten-free bakery for an incredibly long time not least because of the crazy flours involved and the fact that vegetable gum is de rigueur. With more ingredients in a cake than in an Indian curry, it’s not surprising that someone who doesn’t have a gluten problem would choose not to explore this most difficult of baking challenges. Well, no more!
I started with some scary Google searching. The availability (or lack) of recipes did not fill me with joy. Frankly they all looked terrible. And I know this because I tried quite a few! Here are three of my attempts.
Gluten free failures
It would be fair to say that these baked items neither had the appearance, texture, or taste of cake. Dense, tasting like uncooked grains and oil, or spongy but unpalatable bland, all were terrible.
After four attempted recipes, I was beginning to worry. I had already purchased and tried gluten-free flour from Orgran, and something made by that company called “No Egg”. The No Egg it is pretty interesting. It is entirely unlike egg. So the name is fairly accurate. I gave up on it, in favour of a gluten free, egg free pound cake recipe I’d seen on Pinterest which was notable in it having a crumb that actually looked like cake. It has a billion ingredients, but at this point I was feeling a little desperate.
The original gluten free egg free cake recipe is here, and it’s also dairy free for those who are further cursed with allergies.
Let me get this out right now. THANK YOU AARESS LAWLESS, gluten free baking goddess. My mother of the groom isn’t dairy free so I could use milk and butter but I have no doubt that this Aaress’ recipe is one of the very few edible gluten free egg free cakes on the internet.
Right from the get go I knew this recipe was a goer, not least because the batter looked exactly like real pound cake mixture.
A great looking cake mix!
After the oily, gel like goop of the previous recipes, this was a major step in the right direction. I made a 1/4 recipe and was ecstatic with the results. It was spongy, fragrant and most importantly, tasted like a real cake. Jackpot!
A full recipe made a high, 15 cm cake which, though it took much longer to bake than a Victoria Sponge of the same size, had the texture and aroma of its gluten charged, eggy counterpart.
We have a winner!
Spongy 10cm results
I made a 15cm cake with one mix of batter, and then two 10cm cakes with a half mix. In the 15cm cake I used gum traganth as I didn’t have any xanthan gum on hand. Gum traganth works fine but xanthan is far superior. Look at the crumb on this baby! It tastes amazing warm and would make a wonderful winter dessert with fruit coulis or warm vanillary apple sauce and clotted cream.
Superb crumb!
Kate and Andrew are having a “naked cake” for their wedding… And now I have a gluten free egg free cake recipe which will give them a little mother-of-the-groom-friendly cake on the side. So I layered the 15cm cake up, to check the flavour and the look.
Looking good!
This little beauty will definitely do. I think the gluten free wedding goers are going to be pretty happy. Because there’s no dairy restriction for the wedding guests, I used vanilla buttercream in the filling, along with blackcurrant jam. If you needed to make a dairy free buttercream, you could substitute a well flavoured non dairy spread, for example Nuttelex for the butter.
Here’s my adaptation from Aaress Lawless’ gluten free egg free cake recipe. I wish I knew what the secret was to this cake. Gluten free flour mixes have vegetable gums to help the binding process that the gluten protein would normally take care of. But the eggs? There is a whole lot of protein in egg white, which isn’t being replaced by anything much. Some egg free cake recipes seem to suggest that more baking powder is fine as a substitute but egg isn’t really a leavening agent. I think the extra xanthan gum in the recipe below might be the key as it certainly works better than gum traganth (which is lucky because the latter is very expensive). I also think the extra cellulose in the apple purée must also be doing some good. The vanilla and almond flavourings are a definite bonus, and the old Betty Crocker “Sunshine cake” mix of orange and lemon zest and almond essence is delicious too.
Gluten free, egg free butter cake
ingredients
1 tsp white vinegar
mixing
Have a slice. You’re welcome.
I wish you all the happiness in the world with this cake. Enjoy yourself… At last!
Awwww, thank you so much for your kind words! I just came across your post and I’m SO GLAD that it came out for you!
I haven’t figured out the secret either (!), but I suspect it lies in the applesauce & apple cider vinegar, plus the recipe has more baking powder than usual. The baking powder keep it light, plus it’s VITAL to always alternate the wet / dry. (I’ve gotten lazy and skipped that before with some recipes and they’ve turned out to be bricks!)
I think the xanthan is really good too. I’ve used it to make my Matcha teacakes, which do have egg in them, but the addition of xanthan makes a really billowy mixture when it’s beaten on high speed, almost like a proper egg sponge.
Anyway thanks so much because it’s nice to be a cake girl who can cater for poor peeps with allergies! And I’ll even be making your recipe again for myself. Yummy!
Good point about the Xanthan gum! I agree — that’s a wonder for gluten free baking.
YAY – I’m so glad that others are able to enjoy it. I definitely have to give credit to God on that recipe and all the rest on my site — I spend lots of time praying in the kitchen and staring at ingredients trying to figure out the right combos!