If you have been following my blog for a while, you will know that I love making desserts. More than eating them! Yes, it’s true! I feel a great excitement just thinking and planning dessert recipes! And before my Paleo and AIP life, I used to be famous in our friends’ circle as the ‘Dessert queen’ 🙂
I always enjoyed baking cakes and when the kids were younger, I liked to try and bake a new cake every year for their birthdays. I still try to do that now except that I try to make it gluten free and refined sugar free! Since I am very sensitive to eggs, I am unable to sample these cakes that I bake …but the entire thing from searching on pinterest for inspiration to planning to actually implementing the cakes also just gives me a sugar rush. LOL! Now isn’t that a good way to get the sugar without the actual sugar!
So last weekend I got a chance to make a new dessert as we had a family over for dinner. I started planning the menu a day in advance but I started planning the dessert 3 days in advance! I was looking for a non chocolate dessert since my husband doesn’t do well with chocolate. So I thought of a fruit based dessert. Then as I was browsing through pinterest, the image of a lemon cake caught my interest! It was simple yet so refreshingly gorgeous! And luckily it was also gluten free! However it had white sugar and so I had to modify the recipe a bit as I wanted to use only maple syrup. Since the liquid sweetener messed up the consistency of the batter somewhat I had to tweak the quantity of the flour. The glaze in the recipe was also made of confectioner’s sugar and so I decided to make a maple lemon glaze which again turned out great!
The cake came out looking great and the family and our dinner company enjoyed it ! I served it with plain vanilla ice cream and it was a great dessert as I saw my husband helping himself to a second serving!
You can use any gluten free blend but make sure it has xanthan gum. Usually Bob’s Red Mill, Pilsbury and King Arthur Measure for Measure work in the same manner.
Take the coconut milk out of the can and thaw to room temperature before measuring. You can also use any other non dairy milk like almond milk.
I have not tried this recipe using cassava flour to make it grain free. My guess is that it will work as long as you add a bit of xanthan gum to the flour. But I do have some good news to share. I did experiment with a grain free and AIP version and it came out pretty good! I just need to make some small changes and I think very soon I will have an AIP version of this cake too! So stay tuned!
- 1¾ cups gluten free flour blend (I used Bob's Red Mill; see Notes)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ⅛ teaspoon sea salt
- 1 cup grass fed butter, melted
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup maple syrup
- ½ cup coconut milk (see notes)
- 1 tsp organic lemon zest (from one large lemon)
- 2 tbsp lemon juice (from one large lemon)
- 2 tbsp arrowroot starch
- 1 tbsp maple syrup
- 2-3 teaspoons lemon juice depending on how thick you want your glaze
- Preheat the oven to 350º F. Grease a 9 inch loaf pan and keep aside.
- In a large tray or parchment paper, add the dry ingredients and mix well.
- In a large mixing bowl (or the bowl of a stand mixer), add the wet ingredients and mix using attachment until creamy.
- Slowly add the dry ingredients into the mixer or the bowl and mix for 1 minute until well blended but do not overmix for too long.
- Spoon the batter into the greased loaf pan.
- Bake for about 40-45 minutes until golden brown on the edges and base and done in the center. Check doneness with the toothpick test.
- Remove from the oven to a cooling rack and let cool for 30 minutes.
- Mix all ingredients in a small bowl using a whisk. Drizzle this over the cake just before serving.
Take the coconut milk out of the can and thaw to room temperature before measuring. You can also use any other non dairy milk like almond milk.
I tried the lemon maple gf cake. It never got done even after baking an extra 20 minutes. It tasted good but has a pudding center
Hmm not sure why that happened? Which gluten free blend did you use?