The Best, Bar-None, Gluten-Free Vegan Cake Extravaganza You Won't Stop Talking About

Wow, it's been a long time since I updated.  Seriously blogging fail.  The past few months have been crazy busy, but that still doesn't excuse neglecting my favourite pet project.  So, here's my attempt to get back on the wagon and keep everyone updated on delicious allergen-free eats.

It has been brought to my attention that I have yet to share my favourite gluten-free chocolate cake recipe.  This was, incidentally, the first-ever gluten-free recipe I tried.  I had googled a whole bunch of gluten-free vegan recipes without really knowing what I was getting myself into.  I don't remember why I picked this one - if it seemed the easiest, the tastiest, or what.  But I dutifully went out and bought several new ingredients I didn't understand and couldn't really pronounce, and rolled up my sleeves, and gave it a try.  I was absolutely panicked, especially after I tasted the batter - it was incredibly grainy.  But the graininess baked off (this is a common issue with rice flour batters), and the end product was heavenly.  Let me repeat that.  Heavenly.  I have frequently made this cake, for diet-restricted and non-diet restricted alike, and it has always been unbelievably beloved.  It doesn't taste like it's fake anything - it's moist and delicious and rich and decadent.  (Needless to say, it set my standard for gluten-free baking pretty high).

The original recipe is from Dreena Burton, who in addition to being a blogger is also the author of several vegan cookbooks including Eat, Drink and Be Vegan.  I've posted about one of her other recipes before.  Not all her recipes are gluten-free, but they're all vegan and mostly quite health conscious.  But I didn't know any of that info back when I first tested this recipe.  I just knew that whomever this person was, she'd invented one of the best cake recipes I'd discovered.

There are only a few specialty ingredients in this recipe, and they all lie in the gluten-free nature of the cake.  Gluten-free baking requires replacing multiple different properties of wheat flour - the bulk, the starch, and the elasticity that gluten provides.  The reason we use so much wheat flour in day-to-day life?  Because no other single flour gives all these properties.  In this particular recipe, it takes a mix of three.  Rice flour, which is fairly cheap and easy to come by, depending where you shop, provides the bulk of the flour in the recipe.  Rice flour can be found cheaply in Asian food stores, especially in bulk sections.  If you're cooking for someone with severe gluten intolerance, like Celiac disease, consider spending a bit more on rice flour in the health section of your regular or health-food store, where you can get certified gluten-free bags of flour.  Tapioca starch (which, confusingly, is also marketed as tapioca flour - they're the same thing) is used to provide starchiness.  If you've ever experienced tapioca - in tapioca pudding, as a thickener in fruit pies, or as the pearls in Bubble Tea - you've probably noticed how much delicious, thickening, chewy starch they can produce.  This is harnessed in their flour.  Tapioca flour is also quite cheap (bags are usually $3-$4).  The last ingredient, and the strangest sounding, is Xanthan Gum.  Xanthan gum is a complex sugar produced by bacteria that is commonly used as a stabilizing or thickening agent, and helps replace the elasticity of gluten.  The bad news is that it's quite expensive - a tiny bag can run up to $10.  The good news is that it's used in incredibly small quantities at a time - 1/4-1/2 tsp, usually.  The small bag I bought two years ago barely looks used. [ETA: That "small bag" lasted me almost a full four years of gluten-free baking!]

I've reposted the original recipe below so I can more clearly mark my changes and substitutions.  The recipe as written is Dreena's; the notes are mine


HEAVENLY GF VEGAN CHOCOLATE CAKE
2 cups rice flour (the original recipe calls for white rice flour, but I've substituted it partially or entirely with brown rice flour and never had a problem.  Use what you have, or what you prefer, for taste or health reasons)
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 1/2 Tbsp tapioca flour (also called tapioca starch)
1/2 tsp xanthan gum (DO NOT OMIT.  I know it looks like a small amount, but it's important)
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
1 1/3 cups unrefined sugar (I have used everything from Sucanut (for a refined-sugar free recipe) to white sugar (when I had nothing else on hand), and it's all worked.  And my general rule of thumb is to cut the sugar down in every recipe I make, so I often use a cup or less of sugar in this recipe)
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 3/4 cups vanilla soy milk (since I can't do soy, I primarily use almond milk (unsweetened plain or vanilla).  However, I've also used rice milk, when I've been concerned about nut allergies; rice milk doesn't obviously change texture when mixed with vinegar, unlike soy, almond, or real milk, but it still works fine.  If you're cooking GF but not vegan, I'm sure regular milk would work too)
2 Tbsp rice vinegar (unseasoned) (in a pinch I'm sure white or cider vinegar would work as well; but since I usually stock rice vinegar anyway, I've never tried)
2 tsp pure vanilla extract (or more.  This is a chocolate cake, more vanilla is never a bad thing)
1/4 cup organic canola oil

Mix or sift dry ingredients.  Mix together wet ingredients.  Combine.  The original recipe calls to pour into two oiled or greased 8" round cake pans, and bake at 350° for 24-28 minutes.  If you're baking cupcakes, or a thicker, longer cake, you may need to adjust your cooking time, so check after 20 and use your own instincts after that.  As for regular cakes, using a toothpick or knife and checking for it to pull out clean (or with loose crumbs) is still an effective test.

This recipe was originally designed to be a layer cake, and I've had several successful applications of that style.  Initially I used to layer it with a strawberry-maple filling, and cover with a (fairly messy and runny) coconut glaze.  I then shifted into making it into cupcakes (since I was baking for a big group), and that worked just as well, and with less effort (they were good un-iced, and even if I did decide to ice them I had only one layer to contend with).  Because this recipe is designed to be a layer cake, baked as written the cakes come out quite flat.  If you would like to make a single-layer cake, increase how much batter you add per pan, and bake longer.  (If making cupcakes, just fill your muffin tins to your normal desired height).  Most recently, I've started using coconut in my chocolate cakes.  I have a post coming soon all about icing that will include these recipes, but the cake I have pictured is layered with a double-coconut filling and both layers are topped (well, drowned) in vegan chocolate ganache.

(Geeky confession: when I am changing a recipe from a round to square or rectangular pan, I will actually do the math to figure out how much surface area is in both my original and new baking appliances, and convert the recipes by that factor.  For instance, the recipe originally fills two 8" round baking pans, or 100.5" square.  If I want to make a layer cake with two 8x8" square pans (which is what I actually own), that's 128" square; so I would multiply all my original ingredient proportions by 1.3 times.  Or if I want to make a single 9.5x13" rectangular cake, that's 123.5" square; but if I'm making a single layer I also want to up the recipe by 1.5-2 times per square inch, so the cake's thicker.  So I'd probably increase the recipe anywhere from 1.9-2.5 times.  If you're not that geeky, and want to use two 8x8" square pans, doing a 1.5 times recipe will work fine (you'll just have slightly thicker layers!).  And if you're going for a single, giant cake, a double recipe in your 9.5x13" cake pan will work just fine).

Don't believe me that this is the greatest recipe known to gluten-free kind?  Go make it, and then tell me I'm wrong!  And if it turns out I'm in the right after all, you can down your defeat in delicious, delicious chocolate!  So really, it's win-win-win.