This month in honor of Valentine’s Day we’d like to share with our viewers a fabulous, relatively easy-to-make chocolate cake. I personally believe that everyone should have a great chocolate cake recipe in their “recipe box” – it’s perfect for birthdays, special parties and other celebrations…or in this case to share a piece of decadence with your Valentine!

Techniques & Tips You Will Learn:

• Choosing the right GF flour
• Making the Cake
• Making the Icing
• Tips for our high altitude subscribers

Choosing the Right GF Flour

Several years ago, our pantry and freezer were full of assorted gf flours and binders – rice (brown & white) flour, rice bran, potato flour, tapioca flour/starch, xanthan gum and guar gum, just to name a few! We spent a lot of time trying to achieve the right combination of flours to create a great substitution for regular “all-purpose” flour. I must confess, our results were less than desirable. One day we decided to try the flour used in Gluten Free Pantry’s Country French Bread Flour Mix. The results were perfect! Immediately we abandoned our efforts to play food chemist and filled our canisters with the Gluten Free Pantry’s Country French Bread Flour Mix flour. Many people have said that they would prefer to mix their own because it is too expensive to buy a mix. I believe the opposite to be true. Instead of buying 4 bags of various flours and binders, I only have to buy one and it even comes in a 5 lb. bag. This flour works great for nearly all baked goods as well as for general cooking use (thickening gravies, sauces, breading and more). These cakes fortunately do not require a lot of flour however, we still had the best success with The Gluten Free Pantry’s Country French Bread Flour Mix.

Making the Cake

The cake we will be making this month is a rich and moist chocolate cake. The thing I like most about this cake is that it is relatively easy to make – as far as homemade cakes go. Some cake recipes require beating and folding in egg whites, melting chocolate in a double boiler, etc. This one is basically combining the dry ingredients, combining the wet ingredients and then mixing them together! The real key to this recipe is the buttermilk and oil. This gives the cake that wonderful moist texture, contrary to many other gluten-free baked items.

Let’s begin:

Ingredients for Dark Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Frosting:

(Makes (2) 9-inch round layers)

• 1-3/4 cup gf flour, plus more for dusting
• 2 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup freshly brewed coffee

For the frosting:

• 6 oz. semi-sweet gf chocolate, coarsely chopped
• 2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup plus 1 Tablespoon powdered sugar, sifted
• 2 teaspoons freshly brewed coffee

*see notes above in choosing the right gf flour.

Let’s make the cake:

Step 1:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly butter (2) 9-inch baking pans. Cut out 2 circles of parchment paper to fit on the bottom of pans. Set the circles in the bottom of the baking pans and lightly coat the top of each with butter. Dust the pans with gf flour (tapping out any excess flour) and set aside.

Step 2:

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle, mix the gf flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt and low speed.

Step 3:

In a medium bowl, whisk the buttermilk, oil, eggs and vanilla.

Step 4:

Slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients in the mixer. Mix until just incorporated. Slowly add the hot coffee to the mixture and beat until fully incorporated.

Step 5:

Pour the batter into the prepared baking pans. Bake for 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let the cakes cool in the pans for 30 minutes, then invert onto a rack and let cool completely.

Now for the frosting:

Step 1:

Step 2:

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle, beat the butter at medium speed until pale and fluffy.

Step 3:

Add the egg yolk and vanilla and continue to beat for about 1 minute. At low speed, slowly beat in the powdered sugar until incorporated. Beat in the 2 teaspoons coffee and the cooled melted chocolate until just combined.

Step 4:

Set one cake on a platter with the flat side facing up. Spread with about 1/3 of the frosting.

Step 5:

Set the second cake layer on top, rounded side up, and spread remaining frosting over the top and sides of cake. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour before serving.

Tips for our high altitude subscribers:

I happen to live at above 6000 feet above sea level and sometimes this poses some challenges when it comes to baking. Here are some tips that helped produce the perfect cake:

• Reduce the sugar slightly – maybe by 1 tablespoon (in the cake batter)
• Reduce the amount of coffee by ¼ cup (in the cake batter)
• Increase the oven temperature by 20 degrees.

Of course, if you don’t live at a high altitude there is no need to make adjustments to this recipe. Just follow the directions as stated above.

Enjoy!

- Chef Jessica