Can I Make A Gluten-Free Honey Cake With Dates And Apples?

Our answer

NIgella's Honey Cake With Dates and Apples is a damp cake that is moistened with cooked apples and sweetened with honey and chopped dates. It also uses a mixture of ground almonds (almond meal or almond flour) and plain (all-purpose) flour and this combination helps the cake to stay moist for a few days.

This type of cake could probably be made using a gluten-free plain flour blend or all-purpose baking blend. The texture of a gluten-free version of this cake will never be exactly the same as a cake made with wheat flour and it is likely to be slightly more crumbly when you cut it. We would also recommend using the paper cake pan liner, as Nigella does, as this makes it easier to remove the cake from the springform pan and also to handle the cake if you are gifting it. We suspect that it might be a good idea to make a small change in the ratios of almonds and flour, to offset the slightly more absorbent nature of gluten-free flours. Possibly 100g (1 cup) ground almonds and 150g (scant 1 1/4 cups) plain flour blend. The baking time and temperature should be the same. However, we would emphasise that we have not tried this cake in gluten-free form ourselves, so are unable to guarantee the results.