It’s never fun to be diagnosed with a wheat allergy. It’s especially not fun when you have aspirations of being an amatuer cake decorator. I spent many hours before being gluten-free making elaborate cakes for friends and family. Cakes like the ones in this post. I was sad to leave all those very reliable ingredients behind when I stopped making fun birthday cakes. No more wheat that works every time. No more chemical food colorings that become the exact color you imagine. No more icing made with powders and chemical extracts.
Since that time, I’ve spent years playing around with cake recipes. I’ve made so many from Pinterest posts and bloggers, each one of them totally edible but yet, not exactly what I was looking for.
See, I want a cake like a box cake mix. You know, the ones you make when you first move out of the house and you have no idea that the ingredients are the cheapest available and will soon affect your gut so badly you won’t be able to eat wheat anymore. Oh, not you? Was that just me?
I wanted a cake that was soft and tender. That tasted of vanilla and well, cake … not beans or sorghum or buckwheat. I wanted it to be neutral. Like wheat.
I also wanted a cake that could support itself in the center while it’s baking – and cooling. This is a common issue with gluten-free cakes as they don’t have the protein structure to withstand the weight of the ingredients themselves. The sides rise well because they climb up the cake pan but the closer you get to the center, the less height the cake has. In the past I’ve filled this valley with icing because, well … icing. It makes everything better, but I’m at the point that I just want a real, strong, yet tender, recipe that I can go to every.single.time.
It took me a bunch of tries to get this one right and even now I will probably continue to make this recipe a few more times just to confirm that it’s reliable in all kinds of humidity and applications. I will post edits if I discover any, but I wanted to get it out there for others who may not have found their perfect cake yet.
This is it. The perfect yellow cake. If anyone makes this and has any issues with it, please leave a comment. I really would like this be a go-to cake for everyone who misses those box cakes in the store. Also, for those who miss the beautifully-decorated, bright-colored icing, I think I’ve found that too! This icing is colored with Color Kitchen’s natural food-based colors. They came out vibrant and delicious! Heads up, coloring with natural colors is not cheap but because of allergies and the chemical repercussions of food colorings, I wouldn’t recommend using anything else.
One more thing I wanted to add is that this cake has staying power too! A typical gluten-free cake will become dry and crumbly within a day or two. Not this one! Even by day four the cake remained moist although it was bit more dense by that point. It was nothing a tall glass of raw milk couldn’t help fix.
A couple notes on this recipe:
• I have not given any substitutions for anything in this particular recipe because it’s so tricky to get to be wonderful. I would suggest sticking with these weights and ingredients for the best outcome.
• If you’re using yogurt instead of sour cream, make sure it has fat in it. Fat free just will not work the same way.
• I listed the ingredients for this recipe in the order that they are used, not in quantity amounts. I feel it’s easier when looking at the recipe to prepare them that way.
• I don’t mention this much but I would suggest when you’re baking, and even cooking, you measure out all your ingredients before beginning the recipe. This ensures you have everything gathered and no mistakes will be made.
• For the frosting, I used a basic buttercream recipe and filled the center with lemon curd.
- *This cake is best made using weights, not measurements. Weights may differ if you use a different gluten-free flour mix.
- 450 grams cane sugar
- 230 grams butter, soft
- 4 large eggs
- 350 grams King Arthur Measure for Measure GF Flour
- 3 Tbls. Psyllium husk, finely ground
- 1 tsp. salt
- 2 ½ tsp. baking powder
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 1 Tbls. Vanilla
- 230 grams sour cream or full-fat yogurt
- ½ cup milk
- Preheat oven to 350˚.
- Prepare cake pan(s) by cutting parchment to fit the bottom of the pan and coating the sides well with cooking spray (from healthy oils such as avocado or coconut.)
- In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until creamy.
- Add eggs and mix well.
- Combine flour, psyllium husk, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Set aside.
- Combine yogurt (or sour cream), vanilla and milk.
- With mixer running, add ⅓ of the dry mixture and mix until well-incorporated.
- With mixer running, add half the milk mixture and mix well.
- Continue alternating additions of the dry and wet ingredients, ending with dry ingredients.
- Pour batter into pans and spread to make flat.
- Bake 2 round pans for about 40-45 minutes, a 9” x 13” pan for about 50 minutes, or until set in the center and a toothpick comes out clean.
- Cool completely before frosting.