The Perfect Gluten Free German Apple Cake Recipe - Fearless Dining (2024)

FAQs

Why is my gluten-free cake hard? ›

Adding more liquid than stated in the recipe may be necessary in order to rehydrate gluten-free flour. Add the liquid a tablespoon at a time until the mixture reaches dropping consistency. Baking the cake for an extra 5–10 minutes may be necessary, due to the extra liquid content.

Gluten-free baked goods often benefit from extra liquid to hydrate the flour blends, eliminate grittiness, and achieve a less dense or dry texture. However, it's very important to drive off this extra moisture during baking, or you'll wind up with a gummy texture.

YOUR CAKE IS SINKING IN THE MIDDLE OR NOT RISING

You may not have used enough raising agents. I do recommend experimenting with double action baking powders. Otherwise try using 25 percent more chemical raising agents (baking soda or baking powder) if you're converting a recipe to gluten free.

Gluten's elasticity allows batters and doughs to trap air released by leavening agents (yeast, baking powder, or baking soda), which is how they're able to rise. Without this protein, gluten-free baked goods have the potential to be grainy, dense, and crumbly, but they don't have to be!

Moisture – for some reason gluten-free cakes tend to get a little dry. Any gluten-free cake will dry out super-fast and get hard on the outside if it's not properly refrigerated and covered. I swear by always using buttermilk and adding a little more fat into the batter to compensate for the dryness.

Add extra liquid: Gluten-free flours tend to absorb more liquid than regular flour, so you may need to add more liquid to your recipes to compensate. This can help to keep your baked goods moist and prevent them from becoming dry and crumbly.

Let Your Batters & Doughs Rest

We recommend covering your batters and doughs and letting them rest for at least half an hour. Note: This will also help batters become thicker and doughs to firm up.

Fat tenderizes the gluten. Examples of fat are butter, margarine, hydrogenated vegetable shortening, or oil. Leavening agents are added to most shortened cakes to make the cakes rise and become porous and light. Examples are baking powder or baking soda and sour milk.

Gluten-free goods tend to brown faster and take longer to cook through. So they need to be baked at a slightly lower temperature, for a slightly longer time. Every recipe is different, but in general, try lowering the temperature by 25 degrees and baking the item for 15 minutes longer.

2 teaspoons of baking powder per cup of gluten-free flour is necessary to ensure proper leavening. Baking soda and buttermilk can be used to leaven instead of baking powder, but 1-1/8 teaspoon of cream of tartar should be added for each 1/2 teaspoon baking soda used.

Which gluten-free flour is best for cakes? ›

Sorghum flour: great for cakes

Because sorghum is often processed on shared equipment with wheat products, you need to be careful about finding a product that is certified gluten free. Sorghum flour is a great option for cookies and cakes, but it is best combined with other gluten free flours because it is so heavy.

However, you can actually mix a batter containing xanthan and/or guar gum to a point of diminishing returns. You can overwork the gums and end up with a stringy cake batter or rubbery cookie dough. (Having said that, doing this takes some work. Just don't take your aggressions out on a gluten-free cake batter.)

So, in order to prevent your gluten free bakes from crumbling away to nothing, you need to replace the gluten with an alternative binder – and in most cases, that binder will be XANTHAN GUM.

If the gluten free flour you are using doesn't contain xanthan gum, then you'll want to include it in your list of recipe ingredients. Even more so if you're making cake, muffins, bread and pizza crust, as these recipes typically rely on the structure gluten provides.

Something that is often added to gluten free products is xanthan gum. This ingredient has an ability to trap air which allows gluten free cakes and breads to rise properly and have a light and airy texture. It is also added to doughs such as pastry doughs so that they can be rolled and stretched without breaking.

The trick here is to mix gluten free flour mixture with a bit of an almond flour, which works wonders at keeping cakes moist and fluffy for days, mostly because of its high fat content.

More mixing produces a tougher colloid. As many gluten-free recipes use xanthan gum as a binder, this will indeed be a problem with overmixing. If you are using a pre-made gluten free flour, you have to read the ingredients. If these are pure starches only, you can't overmix.

This can be avoided by setting the right temperature. Cake becomes hard when the temperature set is incorrect or less. Try baking a cake between 180 degrees to 220 degrees, depending on the type of cake and if it still happens, then you should reduce the quantity of the batter.

Let Your Batters & Doughs Rest

We recommend covering your batters and doughs and letting them rest for at least half an hour. Note: This will also help batters become thicker and doughs to firm up.