We invited my friend Kim and her hubby for coffee and cake after seeing Cloud Atlas at the TIFF film festival. I was hoping to have a great discussion about the film (and there was a lot to discuss) but unfortunately, they hated the film so instead of prolonging their misery, I served coffee and cake.
I started the recipe and was committed to it when I realized I didn’t have quite enough GF Flour, so I improvised and added the remainder as finely ground corn meal. It added a very nice texture to the cake and no body threw it back at me!
Original recipe can be found here.
Gluten Free Honey & Ginger Cake
Ingredients:
- 3 oz liquid honey
- 6 oz gluten-free flour
- 2 oz of fine cornmeal (just run regular cornmeal through a coffee grinder to get a fine powder)
- 1 tsp gluten-free baking powder
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp allspice
- 3 oz of sugar
- 1/2 tsp orange essence
- 1/2 tsp lemon essence
- 4 oz butter
- 1 egg (the cake was very crumbly, I might add another egg next time)
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 oz finely grated fresh ginger
Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (170°C).
- Sift the flour, baking powder and spices into a large bowl and add the sugar and zest. Rub the butter in (you can do this in a food processor with plastic blades)
- Warm the honey slightly, and beat it with the egg. Mix into the flour mixture.
- Mix the baking soda with 3 tbsps of water until dissolved, then process it into the flour mixture.
- Stir in the finely minced ginger pour into a greased or lined 8″ square pan.
- Bake for about 50 minutes (mine was ready in about 40 minutes). Cool it in the pan for about 10 minutes then turn it onto a cooling rack until cold.
I garnished the cake with additional warmed honey, fresh figs cut into quarters, honey walnuts, slices of candied ginger and edible rose petals.
Hi, thanks for visiting my site. I’ve been roving through yours and enjoying myself. 🙂 Anyway, this one looks delicious. Re the crumbles…I find that GF flours/meals tend to be thirsty in different amounts. Some do require more milk, water, or eggs.
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Thanks Claire, I don’t bake much with GF so that’s a very handy tip, thank you.
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You’re welcome. And just to add: I’ve had the experience of using brown rice flour, some of which had come from one store while the second came from another. Each required different amounts of liquid! I guess the point is that the standards for gf flours are not set in stone the way they are for wheat flours. 🙂
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Thanks Claire, I had no idea, that info will come in handy, for sure.
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Just from the photo Eva I’d never have guessed it was gluten-free… it looks surprisingly… er… “un-gluten-free”, and seems to have a very cakey texture. I love ginger cake (I think it might be one of my favourite cakes actually… bet the honey is a lovely touch.
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Thank you kindly Charles, it was a very nice cakey texture, and the warmed honey was amazing on it; I too adore the warm spices in a dessert.
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I’m going to have to make this when we have my best friend and her boyfriend over for dinner again. She’s recently gone gluten free and this will be perfect! 🙂
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Thanks Kristy, I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!
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I love the decor Eva! Beautiful! Too bad your friends didn’t enjoy the film.
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Thanks Minnie. I’m having a really hard time commenting on your blog from my iPhone 4S not sure why.
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eva! I love the garnishes especially the figs. The cake looks so delicious- i am craving it now and definitely do not have enough honey in house to make it so shame on you! LOL!
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Thanks Jessica, I love the warm spices particularly when it’s so darn blistering cold out! Our furnace is on regularly now, and I’ve pulled out the leather gloves too!
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Very upscale presentation. You are sooooo creative!!!!! Did not know baking powder contains gluten, must check label. I guess the rose petals came from your garden..
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Hi Norma, I only found out about the baking powder by accident when I was buying other GF ingredients at my local health food store and I saw GF baking powder. The edible rose petals came from a Mexican grocer in Wisconsin when we visited Paul and T in the summer.
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Does anyone ever throw anything back at your place? I think not. The warm honey, walnuts and figs take this over the top for me! Where do you get your edible rose petals?
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Thank you kindly Barb; no, no one thrown anything back at me, yet! I got the rose petals in a Mexican grocer in Wisconsin in the summer. If either of us remember, I can give you some on Saturday.
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Super cool. I’ll try to remember….very kind of you. Really looking forward to catching up!
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A delicious cake Eva! I’ve made something similar and garnished it with ginger pieces but I like the sound of yours better! 🙂
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Jo Lorraine, yes I remember your Armenian Nutmeg Cake and you had garnished it with the edible rose petals; I had searched hi and low for the rose petals and only found them in the summer in Wisconsin of all places!
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I love the flavors in this cake.. and especially love what you’ve adorned it with.. edible rose petals?? Where does one find these? How pretty it all looks! I haven’t read the book but will look for it!
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Hi Smidge, I love the warm spices too. I bought the edible rose petals from a Mexican grocer in Wisconsin when we were there in the summer.
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Eva, your cake sounds magnificent…and your garnishes are so elegant! I’ve started to read Cloud Atlas twice, but couldn’t get into it…did you enjoy the film?
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I wondered about the book, Liz, the film was great! Very engaging; I’d love your thoughts if you see it.
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Your cake looks lovely. I saw a couple of movies at TIFF too, but fortunately I enjoyed them both. That’s what I love about it – you never really know what to expect!
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I’ve been rather fortunate with TIFF movies over the years, I think I only saw one a couple of years ago that was a bust.
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Oh, Eva, this looks terrific! I’m especially impressed by all the lovely additions here…orange essence, fresh fig, candied ginger and, hold for it, ‘edible rose petals’ – WOW!! :). It’s funny, I like to purposely add a little cornmeal here and there… I find it behaves like millet in baking – contributing just the right amount of crunch. What did you use for your gluten-free flour? (was it a store bought mix?).
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Hi Kelly, thank you kindly. I don’t have enough GF experience so I just bought the Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free flour. It worked out very well. The cornmeal was a nice texture, pleasantly surprising!
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It looks delicious, Eva. A perfect autumn cake. The cornmeal addition sounds very unusual, but I have also had moments like you: I was in the middle of a cake preparation and realised I had not enough flour. Some experiments were good, some bad, but yours sounds like a big success.
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Thank you kindly Sissi, it was one if those weeks as it was the second recipe I was missing an ingredient for. Sigh.
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Very beautiful and appetizing presentation, Eva. The cake looks delish.
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Thanks Angie.
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Lots of good ingredients in here (I’m a sucker for gingery, spicy things) and garnished beautifully.
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Thanks Sharyn, I do love the warmly spiced goodies too.
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That looks incredible especially with the decor 😀
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
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Thanks CCU, I thought you were at camp?
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What a beautiful looking cake, Eva and it’s so pretty the way you’ve plated it. That was clever improvising too. And there’s no way I would have thrown this at you! xx
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Thanks Charlie.
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Eva, this looks so inviting with the addition of the warm honey and figs on top. Yum! too bad they didn’t like the movie though.
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Thanks Maureen. Congrats on being selected for that promo! How exciting.
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