By and large, my way of tackling gluten-free baking is simply to exclude flour altogether. And the cakes that result make no apologies for the omission – they stand proudly in their own right and have more than earned their places in my cooking repertoire, as they should in yours.
Chocolate cakes in particular lend themselves to flourless variations – giving a melting, fudgy and damply rich texture. Both my Flourless Chocolate Brownies With Hot Chocolate Sauce and Flourless Chocolate Lime Cake With Margarita Cream are perfect for dessert – their luxuriousness being just the thing for an after-dinner treat. Likewise my Chocolate Olive Oil Cake which, despite having originally been made with a gluten and dairy intolerant dinner guest in mind, I am now proud to serve to all and sundry, especially with some fresh berries and cream alongside.
Another of my dinner party fallbacks is Chocolate Meringue Truffle Cake – very rich and very decadent – and very much gluten-free by virtue of its chewy marshmallowy meringue base.
Nutella Cake takes advantage of the richness of the cocoa and hazelnut spread that gives it its name to produce a moist but very easy-to-make gluten-free treat. And how about Chocolate Cloud Cake – a damp fallen centre filled with softly whipped orange scented cream – to make your cares float away?
Citrus flavours rightfully take centre-stage with my Clementine Cake, whose wonderful dense dampness is provided by ground almonds. Likewise Lemon Polenta Cake – which, incidentally, can be made dairy-free as well as gluten-free by substituting 150ml light and mild olive oil for the 200g of butter. Just be sure to check that your baking powder is gluten-free, please. Citrus and almonds are joined by rubied rubble in my Pomegranate Jewel Cake and even the humble apple gets a look in with Apple and Almond Cake, which tastes so buttery it is hard to believe it is in fact as dairy-free as it is gluten-free.
Dried fruit and spices make for a exquisitely squidgy and festive Gorgeously Golden Fruit Cake – a fresh, gluten-free alternative to the traditional Christmas Cake. And there’s also my Christmas-Spiced Chocolate Cake – think Chocolate Cloud Cake but with a seasonal twist. Though this cake is most definitely for life, not just for Christmas.
However much people have eaten, there is always, I've noticed, room for a brownie. This is a different kind of a brownie, most definitely for party-pudding, melting, fudgy and damply rich. I compound…
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This is a favourite from a time, far in the distant past, when I went in for dinner parties! My late sister Thomasina brought it into my life about 40 years ago, and I still love it. Don't worry about…
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It's astonishing how buttery this cake tastes, given that there is not a gram of butter in it. The flour is replaced with ground almonds — and cooked, cooled, pureed fruit provides moistness and flavo…
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This is another of my maternal grandmother's recipes. I've changed it a bit, not least substituting dark rum for her juice and zest of an orange and a slug or two of Grand Marnier. It's not that I did…
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On days when I want the warmth of the hearth rather than the hurly burly of the city streets I stay in and read cookery books, and this recipe comes from just the sort of book that gives most succour,…
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I love a fallen chocolate cake, and have found most everyone else does too. The cakes are so called because they are compact and flourless and, when cooling out of the oven, their rich centres drop an…
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There is something about a flourless chocolate cake that makes it so divinely easy to eat. And, when you have friends round, it's good to know this will make everyone happy, gluten-free people include…
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This is the fruity blonde sister to that brunette temptress, my chocolate fruit cake from Nigella Christmas. It delivers, as promised, a cake of apricot-pear-and-ginger goldenness and goodness, so squ…
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Although I first came up with this recipe because I had someone coming for supper who — genuinely — couldn't eat wheat or dairy, it is so meltingly good, I now make it all the time for those whose lif…
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This, an adaption of Claudia Roden's magnificent orange and almond cake, is a wonderfully damp, dense and aromatic flourless cake: it tastes like one of those sponges you drench, while cooling, with s…
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Not only is this one of the easiest cakes to make, it happens — joyously — to be one of the most delicious. My household is totally addicted! Please don't feel obliged to rush out and buy a bottle of…
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Many cultures use food that resembles money — lentils for coins, saffron for gold — in celebratory meals, to invoke a wish for prosperity and good fortune ahead, and this fragrant, light, flourless al…
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This cake is a sort of Anglo-Italian amalgam. The flat, plain disc is reminiscent of the confections that sit geometrically arranged in patisserie windows in Italy; the sharp, syrupy sogginess borrows…
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As you can see by looking at my Gluten-free Cakes my way of tackling gluten-free-baking is simply to exclude flour altogether but, inspired by 'The How Can It Be Gluten Free Cookbook' I have embarked…
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I long thought that carrot cake was an American invention, until I found out that an early version was made by Venetian Jews in the original ghetto. This modest disc is very different from the gargant…
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I am a woman of my word, and I promised a gluten-free banana bread. Here, finally, it is. I took my time with it, because I wanted to get it right. I’m not interested in anything that is ‘good for glu…
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