Apple & Almond Pudding Cake

Almond and Apple (or Pear) tart

Ingredients

• 150g butter, softened
• 80g caster sugar
• 2 med eggs
• 1 teaspoon almond extract (optional)
• 75g white or wholemeal self-raising flour
• 75g ground almonds

For apples:

• 4 dessert apples
• 25g butter
• 1 heaped tbsp granulated sugar
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon (optional)

This looks nice when done and I'm a sucker for any dessert with apple. Having only 75g flour also helps to minimise the possible downside to using gf flour. Don't forget maybe 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/4 tsp baking soda to make any plain flour into self-raising. I also added some xanthum gum.

Directions

1. Grease and line a 20cm springform cake tin
2. Peel, core and cut apples into 12 wedges. Melt 25g butter in pan and add sugar until mixture bubbles, then add apples. Sprinkle the cinnamon if using and cook on medium for 5 minutes.
3. Remove from heat and leave to cool.
4. Beat butter and caster sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.
5. Break in an egg and beat, followed by 2nd egg and almond extract, if using. Add a spoonful of the flour between the eggs to help binding
6. Scrape the mixture into the cake tin and place the apples around the top.
7. Bake at 170C for 45min until skewer comes out clean.
8. Serve warm with cream, custard or Greek yoghurt. Goes well when cold with tea.

Altogether I estimate about 275g CHO so if you can stretch it to 12 slices, then you're looking at 22g CHO. Pity it tastes so good with custard!

Lemon Trickle Cake

Another great Hugh-Fearnley Whittingstall recipe though one found in other places. This we made with Bob's Red Mill gluten-free baking flour. You can find it occasionally at Tesco or at iHerb.com (state-side but ship to ROI). It's a reliable blend of various gf flours and well worth the (slightly crazy) price.
If you're using plain baking flour, be sure to add some gf baking powder and baking soda (sodium bicarbonate).
For this quantity of flour, I used 1 tsp of baking powder and 1/2 tsp of baking soda. I also added some Xanthum gum to help with structure (about 1/2 tsp).

Ingredients (serves 10 generously)

• 175g butter, softened
• 125g caster sugar
• finely grated zest of 3 lemons
• 3 med eggs
• 175g self-raising flour
• pinch of sea salt
• splash of milk (optional)
• 80g icing sugar
• some lemon juice

Directions

1. Put butter and sugar in a large bowl and beat for 10 minutes with Kitchenaid or other electric blender - 5 min will do but 10 better.
2. Add zest and eggs, one  at a time and with a spoonful of flour in between to help binding
3. Sift remaining flour and salt into blow and fold. Add a little milk if mixture doesn't drop easily from spoon.
4. Spoon into loaf tin (I used 2lb, fitted comfortably, though non-gf might rise more) and smooth top. Don't forget to line with parchment paper.
5. Bake at 170C for 40-45 minutes.
6. When done, mix icing sugar and enough lemon juice make pliable and drizzle over cake in the loaf tin. First though, make plenty of 'holes' in the cake with a skewer to let the icing soak in well.
7. Leave into tin until cool, then turn out and slice.

By my reckoning, a decent slice weighs in at 30g CHO but go very light on the icing sugar and that can be nearer to 20g.

Moist Carrot Cake

Carrot Cake

Often, I find gluten-free cakes can tend towards being a bit dry - this definitely isn't. It's a carrot cake based on a BBC recipe. I find the BBC recipes to be really good in general and this is no exception. I've made some changes though - it's a little too oily and as usual there's too much sugar. Here's what went down well at ours!

• 120g light muscovado sugar - I reduced this a lot (from 175g) and plenty sweet
• 125ml sunflower oil - rapeseed oil would be lighter & I reduced from 175ml
• 3 large eggs , lightly beaten 
• 140g grated carrots (about 3 medium, though you can squeeze in a little more) 
• 100g raisins grated 
• zest of 1 large orange 
• 175g self-raising flour - I used Dove's Farm GF plain white and wholemeal flours. I added a tsp of baking powder as raising agent. I mostly used the wholemeal and it gave a nice colour.
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda 
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon (you might want a little less though it does lower glucose levels!)
• ½ tsp grated nutmeg (freshly grated will give you the best flavour)

For the icing you can go with cream cheese or the following:

• 120g icing sugar 
• 1½-2 tbsp orange juice

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4/fan 160C. Oil and line the base and sides of an 18cm square cake tin with baking parchment.
2. Tip the sugar into a large mixing bowl, pour in the oil and add the eggs. Lightly mix with a wooden spoon. Stir in the grated carrots, raisins and orange rind. 
3. Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda and spices, then sift into the bowl. Lightly mix all the ingredients - when everything is evenly amalgamated stop mixing. The mixture will be fairly soft and almost runny. 
4. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 40- 45 minutes, until it feels firm and springy when you press it in the centre. Cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then turn it out, peel off the paper and cool on a wire rack. (You can freeze the cake at this point.) 
5. Beat together the frosting ingredients in a small bowl until smooth - you want the icing about as runny as single cream. Set the cake on a serving plate and boldly drizzle the icing back and forth in diagonal lines over the top, letting it drip down the sides.

One of the best received and easy cakes we've made in a while. Estimating the carbs is a little tricky but I think 20g CHO per slice was our best guesstimate, with 15 slices in the above recipe - well worth it!

Flourless Chocolate Cake

Okay, the recipe name isn't appetising sounding but this is a pretty decent full-on chocolate cake - and it doesn't need flour!

Ingredients
450g dark chocolate
1 cup organic light brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup organic white cane sugar
3/4 cup very hot strong coffee (or espresso)
220g butter, room temperature, cut into pieces
200g (or more) raspberries (I used frozen ones)
2 tbsp unsweetened organic cocoa powder
8 large eggs, at room temperature
1 tbsp bourbon vanilla extract


Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 180C (fan oven). Prepare a 9 or 10-inch springform pan by lining the bottom with buttered parchment. You may find you need to wrap the edges in tin-foil if the middle turns out wet while the sides are brown.
2. Break up the dark chocolate into pieces pulse until the chocolate breaks up into small bits. Add the sugar. Pulse until the chocolate and sugar turns into an even, sandy grain.
   I reduced the sugar measure above by about 1/4 cup only since the chocolate can bitter.
3. Pour the hot water or coffee slowly into the feed tube as you pulse again. Pulse until the chocolate is melted.
4. Add the butter pieces and the cocoa powder, and pulse to combine. 
5. Add the eggs and vanilla, and process till smooth. The batter will be liquid and creamy.
6. Pour the batter into the lined springform pan.
7. Bake at 180C for about 65 minutes, though use a skewer to check as it can take perhaps 15min longer.
8. Place the cake pan on a wire rack to cool. The cake will deflate. Don't worry!
9. When the cake is completely cooled, cover, and chill it for three hours (up to eight hours) until serving. Release the cake from the pan. Slice and serve.

Be sure to take from fridge an hour before eating as it brings out the taste better.

Carb Count

This can be tricky depending on the % cocoa in the chocolate that you use. For example, 70% dark chocolate has about 30g CHO per 100g chocolate. 80-85% cocoa has about 22g CHO and 90% cocoa has 14g CHO. And with 450g in this cake, that's the difference between 135g and 63g. Figuring it out for say 80% cocoa gives a total of around 400g CHO. On the up side though, you'll easily get 25 slices from this cake, yielding 16g CHO per slice.

This can be an expensive cake - the chocolate alone can weigh in at around €10. I had fresh raspberries on hand but went with the frozen ones straight from the freezer and they worked really well though the more the better. All-in-all, you're around €15 for the cake.

Also, watch for saturated fats - there's about 370g of saturated fats in here or about 15g per slice.

Still, it's reasonably easy to make and no flour!!

Taste?

Went down well with all here, especially with the raspberries. Delicious with a cup of tea. Doesn't look spectacular to the eyes, but it's very luxurious.