adapted gluten free blueberry streusel cake

June 24, 2009

Today I’m making dinner for my dad. It’s Father’s Day on our own time, and we chose an evening that we could linger over great wine and food, allowing the conversation to meander where it might. Nevermind the puppy biting at our ankles (and a little tid-bit about that here). Long, warm summer evenings only come once a year and every one of them must be celebrated!

So in planning my menu for this evening I came across a delicious-looking blueberry streusel cake in Gourmet Magazine‘s current issue. Talk about YUM! The blueberries anchor the cake at the bottom, all oozey and gooey, and the streusel topping is about two-thirds of the overall height of the cake. With the well-stocked GF pantry I keep, I knew I’d be able to whip up something delicious, AND totally gluten free. I also thought it would be a good way to show the process of converting a traditional recipe to a GF recipe.

Here’s where that left me:

Blueberry Streusel Cake
Serves 6

For Streusel Topping
[ here the recipe called for 1 cup all-purpose flour. the first four dry ingredients below are my substitutions.]

1/2 cup almond meal
1/4 cup arrowroot starch
1/4 cup brown rice flour
1/2 t xanthan gum
1 T plus 1 t packed dark brown sugar
1 T plus 1 t granulated sugar
3/4 t cinnamon
1/2 stick cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces

For Cake
[again, you'll note the all-purpose flour substitution in the first four ingredients]

1/4 cup quinoa flour (or substitute GF oat flour if you can’t find quinoa)
1/2 cup brown rice flour
1/4 cup potato starch
1 t xanthan gum
1 t baking powder
1/4 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1/2 cup sour cream
3/4 t GF vanilla extract
1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1/2 lb blueberries (about 3 1/4 cups)

Accompaniment: Sweetened whipped cream

Preheat oven to 350°F with rack in middle. Line bottom and sides of pan with foil, leaving an overhang on 2 sides. Butter bottom and sides of pan, then dust with rice flour, knocking out excess.

Make streusel topping: Stir together flours, xanthan gum, sugars, cinnamon, and a pinch of salt in a large bowl. Blend in butter with your fingertips or a pastry blender until mixture forms large clumps.

Make cake: Whisk together flours, xanthan gum, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. Stir together sour cream and vanilla in a small bowl. Beat together butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add egg and beat until well blended. At low speed, mix in flour mixture in 3 batches, alternating with sour cream mixture and mixing until just combined. Gently fold in blueberries. Spoon batter into pan, smoothing top. Crumble half of topping evenly over batter. Bake 25 minutes, then remove from oven and crumble remaining topping evenly over cake. Bake until a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean, about 25 minutes more. Cool in pan 10 minutes. Lift out cake using foil and cool completely on rack.

…

What have we learned? A well-chosen combination of GF flours will make any traditional recipe one worth keeping in your recipe books! My rule of thumb is to keep the porportions roughly one-third starch to two-thirds other flours. Now go! Play! Mix! And if you mess up the results are rarely so bad that you can’t enjoy them with a generous dollop of whipped cream on top.

Filed under: recipes,the science of it