Gluten Free Pumpkin Cake

I had the day off today and was wandering a little aimlessly when I discovered that my finicky oven was functioning again. Wanting to take advantage of the opportunity, I set to baking.

I was given a number of GF (gluten-free) cookbooks for my birthday and had purchased the many flours and ingredients required. GF baking is very tricky because you must not use wheat, barley or rye. The chemistry completely changes when gluten is removed and the results are often poor substitutes for the real thing. However, I heard that it was possible to bake tasty GF things.

I started with Pumpkin-Pecan Bundt Cake from The Gluten Free Gourmet Makes Dessert by Bette Hagman. To duplicate the taste and texture of wheat based baking, Hagman uses combinations of flours and xantham gum. This cake used a mix of garbanzo and fava bean flour, sorghum flour, tapioca flour and cornstarch.

I followed the recipe pretty closely. I didn't use dried orange peel and substituted walnuts for pecans. I also used coconut milk instead of cow milk.

The batter had a normal consistency and the cake baked well. The texture was perfect, moist and springy. I didn't put the glaze on the cake and without it, the cake is not very sweet. Great for afternoon tea.

I also made a batch of carrot cupcakes from the same book. The cupcakes used rice flour, potato starch, tapioca flour and soy flour. They are similar to the cake and not too sweet. I'm very pleased with Hagman's recipes and can't wait to try her cinnamon rolls come Christmas.