Gluten Free – Dairy Free- Lemon and Lime Cake

Originally, I wanted to make a yoghurt icing for this cake but everywhere I read online was not impressed with 'dairy-free' margarine/butter. So, I decided to just use icing sugar and soya yoghurt knowing full well that it is full of water and probably wouldn't work!

Long story short - it didn't work, I strained the yoghurt - it ALL went through.. I used the 'thicker' stuff.. it did NOTHING when I added the icing.. except go a horrible grey colour.. I will figure it out. But for this, I stuck with simple, yet effective, lemon icing. :)

Preheat the oven to 180°C and line two 8 inch baking tins with baking powder. 

Ingredients

250g dairy-free margarine

250g caster sugar

4 eggs

250g plain gluten free flour

½ tsp. gluten-free baking powder

2 tbsp. full fat soya milk

2 tbsp. lemon & lime juice

Zest of a lemon & lime

•        Add the margarine, sugar and zest to a bowl – beat it with a paddle mixer until the mix is well combined.

•        Add the eggs one by one, it may look a little curdled but don’t panic it will look better once the flour is added.

•        Sift in the flour and baking powder – mix on low to combine.

•        Then add the milk and juices.

•        Bake in a pre-heated oven for 20 minutes.

Sugar Syrup

50g caster sugar

50ml water

1 tsp. lemon & lime juice

•        Boil the sugar and water on a low heat until all the sugar is dissolved.

•        Remove from the heat and stir in the juices.

•        While the cakes are still warm, skewer some holes into the cake and pour the sugar syrup over them.

Icing

250g icing sugar

Lemon juice

•        Sift the icing sugar into a bowl and add the lemon juice tsp. by tsp. until the mixture is a ‘droppable’ consistency.

•        Pour the icing into the centre of the cake and let it pour over the edges. 

•        If you made the cake in two tins, add some icing to sandwich the sponges together. 

♥ ♥

Wendy

XO

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Gluten Free Chocolate Cupcakes

On the 2nd of September I finally graduated from University College Dublin with a Bachelors Degree in Human Nutrition - *Insert Happy Dance*. 

With this in mind, I was asked to make the class a graduation cake. My first choice was 'my' sweet and salty chocolate cake. You can follow the recipe here. If you read that post, you will know that I froze half of the icing for future use. Big fail, it split and turned to goo. So I replaced that icing with the chocolate ganache below and it worked! 

Anyway, on to this post... gluten free cupcakes! Unfortunately the entire cake is not gluten free but I did recreate the cake into a cupcake for a couple of the girls in my class. They worked out way better than I expected and I'm excited to try out more gluten free recipes!

For the cupcakes, preheat the oven to 180°C and line a 12 hole bun tin with paper cases.

Graduation Cake 

Waiting for Salted Caramel..

 Chocolate Cupcakes

Cupcake Ingredients

50g butter

115g soft light brown sugar

2 eggs

115g gluten free flour

½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

25g cocoa powder

125ml soured cream 

• add the butter, sugar, eggs, flour, bicarb and cocoa powder to a large bowl and whisk until smooth.
• fold in the soured cream and spoon the mixture into the cases. 
• bake in a preheated oven for 20 minutes.
• leave them to completely on a wire rack before icing them. 

Chocolate Icing

225g butter 

285g plain chocolate

2 tbsp golden syrup

240ml double cream 

• melt the butter, chocolate and golden syrup in a glass bowl over a pot of shimmering water.
• once melted, add the cream and mix to combine. 
• remove from the heat and allow to cool. it takes about 20-30 minutes for the icing to set and thicken.

Decorate

• to decorate the cake - follow the steps as per the sweet and salty chocolate cake!
• for the cupcakes - remove a small middle from each cupcake (I use an apple corer) and spoon in some salted caramel.
• finally, top with the chocolate icing and enjoy :) 

♥ ♥

Wendy

XO

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