Foodie Friday

Also titled "My First Gluten Free Baking Disaster."

Also titled "Go Ahead and Laugh."

We met Benjy's parents for a picnic at a state park about an hour and a half from here on last Saturday. It is one way for grandparents/grandkids to have some bonding time when none of us have time to make the four and a half hour trip for a longer stay. We each bring our own main dish, then bring something to share. Benjy's mom brought her famous sour cream pound cake, which is one of my all-time favorite desserts...that I can no longer eat due to the massive amounts of gluten in it. I mean, this cake has sold for nearly $200 at bake auctions b/c it has such a reputation.

Anyway, Sunday, I decided I was going to try to make it gluten free. It's a simple recipe, so the only thing I really had to substitute was the flour. I also added 1 tsp of baking powder since the whole grain gluten free flour would be heavy and not really rise (I do this all the time when baking with alternative grains). I wisely put a cookie sheet under the pan, since the pan seemed kinda full to me. 10 minutes into the 80 minute baking time, I looked in the oven, and it looked like a veritable volcano. The batter was frothing out over the cake pan, onto the cookie sheet, and was ready to overflow the cookie sheet. I quickly slid yet another cookie sheet on the lower rack and began frantically scooping batter out of the cookie sheet. The batter just kept rising and rising over the cake pan. This went on for about 40 minutes. I went and scooped out the cookie sheet every few minutes. Finally, about the 40 minute mark, the whole thing fell so that the cake was about an inch high (I didn't expect it to be it's usual spectacular 6 inches high, but I thought it would at least stay the height of the batter!) 80 minutes came and went, and the cake was still batter, so I left it in another 20 minutes, and it did finally finish baking. Don't think I wasn't tempted just to take it out and throw the whole thing in the garbage, but (a) it was a Pampered Chef springform pan that I did not want to replace, (b) I wanted a piece of that cake, doggone it, and (c) there were two sticks of organic butter, 6 organic eggs, 1 cup of organic whole yoghurt, and 3 cups of very expensive gluten free baking mix in it...I at least wanted SOMETHING to show for all those expensive ingredients!

Oh the mess. I should have taken a picture. My cake pan was covered in baked-on, half-burnt, half-gooey cake batter. The cookie sheet under the pan was a lost cause. I threw that away. I was able to salvage the bottom cookie sheet that only caught a small amount of the batter, but I had to soak it overnight to get the charcoal like substance off of it (did NOT want to throw that away, as it is my only stainless steel sheet).

The good news is that the cake was absolutely delicious. It tasted a little more whole-grainy than the original cake, which is made with white flour, but it was fabulous. The texture was moist and heavy just like the original cake. The crumb wasn't as fine...more coarse like a cornbread than fine and dense like a pound cake. I'll definitely make it again, but next time, I'll find a bigger pan and leave out the extra baking powder. Note to self: read the ingredients on the box of the GF baking mix before adding extra ingredients. The baking mix had baking powder AND baking soda in it. Oopsy.