The Daring Bakers November Challenge: Caramel Cake...the gluten-free version

'll admit I've been struggling. Struggling to maintain a gluten-free diet, struggling to figure out how to make baked goods, for which I have an inordinate lusty fondness, taste good. I've got a whole pantry of flours - minus rice flour, which, though neutral in flavor, adds a granularity that I find unpleasant in the mouth - that I've experimented with and have found, even in combination, lacking in verve and abundant in off-flavors. I don't purchase pre-made gluten-free mixes because I don't like the taste or texture of all of the ingredients. So I will continue to experiment until I find a combination that I can live with.

To those new to Cake & Commerce, allow me a brief introduction: I'm a former pastry chef, now working at a company that produces gluten-free and allergy-friendly foods. After a minor surgery nearly 4 years ago, my nutritionist put me on a gluten-free, salicylate-free diet. Nowadays I'm mostly gluten-free but have occasional lapses. I find that a gluten-free diet has improved my quality of life. But I'm sure you're bored by now, so I'll get back to my kitchen challenge and The Daring Bakers.

Right. 

Over the weekend I decided to take on two baking tasks I'd long delayed: converting Grandma's Chocolate Cake to a gluten-free version I could not only live with, but adore; and, for  The Daring Bakers' challenge,  making the ne plus ultra gluten-free version of Shuna Fish Lydon's Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Icing (recipe is here: http://blogs.kqed.org/bayareabites/2006/12/24/caramel-cake-the-recipe/ ) .

I'll be brief about the initial results: I used my new favorite ingredient, Salba, in the Grandma's recipe, and while I had a light, fluffy, even-crumbed and delicious-tasting cake, the fact that I forgot to mill the seeds first (dddrrrr) resulted in a less-than-satisfactory result. Round 2 will occur this weekend, I think.

And the Caramel Cake? Well, I learned the hard way that it is a dire mistake to use more than a 25% Quinoa flour in a gluten-free flour mix. I used 50%, and the flavor was, in a word, like the meeting of plastic and burnt leather, whatever that tastes like. Sure, it behaved beautifully. It formed into the most perfectly-shaped cake I've ever baked:

And the crumb was even and perfect. There was no tunneling or other unsightly flaws. The dark stuff on the surface is some of the extra caramel syrup, watered down with rum. I love simple syrup. Moistens a cake right up.

(Note to Shuna Fish Lydon: in response to your note that "What I mean is that getting this cake to bake is about balancing fat with acid and protein JUST RIGHT. Gluten free flours are going to have a hard time getting this cake to work. Not impossible, for nothing is impossible these days with all the chemical (natural and icky) at our fingertips, but very very tricky. One hint for the gluten free baker-- liquid Lecithen [sic] is your friend"

Evidently, Ms. Lydon, you have not worked extensively with alternative flours or alternative  baking. Getting this cake to work was a snap. I actually showed your note - and your recipe - to our in-house food scientist, who is in charge of prototyping all of our company's gluten-free products. And she found nothing at all inherent the recipe - or in the relative pH and protein contents of the ingredients - that would unbalance the recipe once converted to gluten-free. And no, liquid Lecithin does not do much for the recipe - xanthan gum, guar gum, or even ground chia or ground salba do. Emulsification isn't the issue - there's plenty of egg to help with that. Rise is. Perhaps you are thinking of vegans or the egg allergic). 

So yes, the perfect-looking cake was baked. The brown-butter icing was made (didn't exactly love the texture or mouthfeel, but I'm a picky sort) and the decorating commenced. I decided to make a porcupine cake. Not too cute, but sort of attractive in that chrysanthemum-meets-Etsy.com sort of way. Or something.

Here's another view:

How can something so pretty taste so bad? Rhetorical question, don't answer. I already know.

Days after completing this, my failure to make something tasty still fresh in my mind, I was leafing through the December '08 issue of Living Without, the excellent magazine dedicated to the food allergic and sensitive. To my joy - mediated by a little frustration at my poor timing - I found an article that listed out every one of the alternative flours out there - and how they should be used in baking (even they warned against using more than 25% Quinoa in the mix). Armed with this knowledge, I hoofed it out to the expensive fancy store where I shop and purchased some of these more neutral and less offensive-tasting (at least in baked goods) milled grains. I'm very curious to try adding a little grape flour to my gluten-free baking mix, as I've never heard of it before. And chestnut flour sounds very promising as well. Niether of these were available where I shop, so instead I focused on my nemesis, brown rice flour, and my familiar, buckwheat flour. 

And on Sunday, I ended up baking three more batches of Caramel Cake. I was not going to let the recipe own me. I was going to make one that worked AND tasted good...if it killed me.

The first batch was a fairly responsible and faithful adaptation of Shuna Fish Lydon's recipe. Creaming method. Wet-dry-wet. And then I added 1/4 cup of ground salba and Xanthan gum...which resulted in the gummiest, stickiest, worst ever dough. In the oven, the cupcakes blew up to the size of small balloons:

Within minutes, they deflated:

Here's a cross section of the crumb. 

The structure is all wrong - too gummy. The gumminess created a net-like structure that, when full of steam, blew up like a balloon. And deflated like one as the cupcakes cooled. Additionally, the salba (or the Xanthan) caused the dough to be excessively moist, and no amount of baking would have made the cupcake hold its shape. Stupid hydroscopic ingredients!

For the next go-round, I started making changes. I had run out of butter so I used sunflower oil instead. And because I was using sunflower oil, I could no longer cream the fats and sugars. I changed the mixing method entirely from a creaming method to a wet-to-dry method, something I do when I make Grandma's Chocolate Cake. I lowered the gums, increased the acids, and came up with this:

Better, but not perfect.

The next batch I lowered the gums further, increased the acids, and continued with the sunflower oil. The results? Nearly perfect, except for the deep-dark color, which is probably best for a chocolate cake. Because I was impatient, I went the cupcake route:

There still is a less-than-ideal crumb structure, but it still tasted great. Here are a couple pictures of the finished cake and cupcake:

Here's the recipe I developed based on the original idea by Shuna Fish Lydon:

Cake & Commerce's Gluten-Free Caramel Cake

Make in advance Caramel syrup:

1/2 C Brown Sugar

1/4 C Agave Syrup

1   C  Granulated White Sugar

Cook to approximately 320-250 degrees or until just smoking. To that add about 3/4 C hot water - gradually, as it will SPUTTER all over and can be dangerous. Stir and allow to cool to room temp. You'll use this as a flavoring in your cake.

Preheat oven to 350 F and prepare cake pans or cupcake pans.

Dry ingredients - Combine:

3/4 C Brown Rice Flour

3/4 C Buckwheat Flour

1/4 C Garbanzo Bean Flour

1/4 C Tapioca Flour

1    t  Xanthan Gum

1/2 t Baking Powder

1/2 t Baking Soda

1/2 t salt, fine

Place dry ingredients in bowl of mixer with paddle attachment. Make sure dry ingredients are evenly combined.

To the dry ingredients, add all at once, the wet ingredients:

1/3 C Sunflower Oil

1/3 C Caramel Syrup

1/4 C Buttermilk

1    C Milk

1    t vanilla extract

2  ea Eggs

Mix at lowest speed until ingredients are completely combined. Mix for a few more minutes. Pour into prepared pan OR cupcake liners. Bake for about 15 minutes, or baked through. Longer if baking a cake.

Makes approximately 2 ea 9" cakes OR 15-18 cupcakes.

Ice as desired (see Shuna Fish Lydon's icing recipe, or if you prefer chocolate, Grandma's Chocolate Cake Icing.

__________________________________________________

So there was also an optional challenge for the Daring Bakers this month - Golden Vanilla Bean Caramels from Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich. Since I'm a sucker for any kind of caramel (In culinary school, in 1997, I once wrote an homage to burnt caramel) and have yet to make them at home, I gave it a try. It was, with the help of an inexpensive Wilton candy thermometer, ridiculously easy. First, the results:

Stupid me. I brought the caramels to the hard crack stage (hence the sharp-looking but sweet-tasting edges) - a few degrees hotter than I should have.  So instead of being soft and unctuous they were hard and chewy. They reminded me of Nips, the creme-filled suckers my grandmother used to love. One of the peculiar ingredients in the recipe was Golden Syrup, a cane-sugar based syrup (an invert sugar) that both reduces the chances that you are going to cause the crystallization of your candy by your mishandling of the sugar and adds a certain flavor to it. Since I was too lazy to go out and buy some, I made my own using agave syrup and brown sugar. And the caramels were still delicious. And the recipe worked, though I did not analyze brix before making the substitution. I don't own a refractometer.

Since the caramel was hard, I didn't incorporate it into the cake. I ate all of it, almost every last bit, over ten days. And what a ten days it was!

I'm still picking shards of caramel off my dog. Ooops.

I redid the caramels, stopped the cooking at soft crack, and had the most wonderful results:

and with a little wax paper, they dressed up real purty!

_____________________________________________________________________

The Recipe, from Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich, Artisan Press, Copyright 2007, ISBN: 978-1579652111

Golden Vanilla Bean Caramels

- makes eighty-one 1-inch caramels -

Ingredients

1 cup golden syrup 
2 cups sugar 
3/8 teaspoon fine sea salt 
2 cups heavy cream 
1 1/2 teaspoons pure ground vanilla beans, purchased or ground in a coffee or spice grinders, or 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into chunks, softened

Equipment

A 9-inch square baking pan 
Candy thermometer

Procedure

1. Line the bottom and sides of the baking pan with aluminum foil and grease the foil. Combine the golden syrup, sugar, and salt in a heavy 3-quart saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring with a silicone spatula or wooden spoon, until the mixture begins to simmer around the edges. Wash the sugar and syrup from the sides of the pan with a pastry brush dipped in water. Coverer and cook for about 3 minutes. (Meanwhile, rinse the spatula or spoon before using it again later.) Uncover the pan and wash down the sides once more. Attach the candy thermometer to the pan, without letting it touch the bottom of the pan, and cook, uncovered (without stirring) until the mixture reaches 305°F. Meanwhile, combine the cream and ground vanilla beans (not the extract) in a small saucepan and heal until tiny bubbles form around the edges of the pan. Turn off the heat and cover the pan to keep the cream hot.

2. When the sugar mixture reaches 305°F, turn off the heat and stir in the butter chunks. Gradually stir in the hot cream; it will bubble up and steam dramatically, so be careful. Turn the burner back on and adjust it so that the mixture boils energetically but not violently. Stir until any thickened syrup at the bottom of the pan is dissolved and the mixture is smooth. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally, to about 245°F. Then cook, stirring constantly, to 260°f for soft, chewy caramels or 265°F; for firmer chewy caramels.

3. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract, if using it. Pour the caramel into the lined pan. Let set for 4 to 5 hours, or overnight until firm.

4. Lift the pan liner from the pan and invert the sheet of caramel onto a sheet of parchment paper. Peel off the liner. Cut the caramels with an oiled knife, Wrap each caramel individually in wax paper or cellophane.

Variations

Fleur de Sel Caramels: Extra salt, in the form of fleur de seI or another coarse flaked salt, brings out the flavor of the caramel and offers a little ying to the yang. Add an extra scant 1/4 teaspoon of coarse sea salt to the recipe. Or, to keep the salt crunchy, let the caramel cool and firm. Then sprinkle with two pinches of flaky salt and press it in. Invert, remove the pan liner, sprinkle with more salt. Then cut and wrap the caramels in wax paper or cellophane.

Nutmeg and Vanilla Bean Caramels: Add 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg to the cream before you heat it.

Cardamom Caramels: Omit the vanilla. Add 1/2 teaspoon slightly crushed cardamom seeds (from about 15 cardamom pods) to the cream before heating it. Strain the cream when you add it to the caramel; discard the seeds.

Caramel Sauce: Stop cooking any caramel recipe or variation when it reaches 225°F or, for a sauce that thickens like hot fudge over ice cream, 228°F. Pour it into a sauceboat to serve or into a heatproof jar for storage. The sauce can be stored in the refrigerator for ages and reheated gently in the microwave or a saucepan just until hot and flowing before use. You can stir in rum or brandy to taste. If the sauce is too thick or stiff to serve over ice cream, it can always be thinned with a little water or cream. Or, if you like a sauce that thickens more over ice cream, simmer it for a few minutes longer.

__________________________________________

One last note: this month's challenge brought to The Daring Bakers by the following: presented as this month's challenge by the folks here: 

Dolores of Culinary Curiosity,  http://culinarycuriosity.blogspot.com/, 

Alex of Blondie and Brownie, : http://blondieandbrownie.blogspot.com/

Jenny of Foray into Food  http://forayintofood.blogspot.com/

Comments

[allison]

Wow! I love your postings. I'm glad the cake finally worked out for you. I loved reading the different things you tried and seeing the results.
Your pictures are great--I love the porcupine decorating.

[bex]

I love reading gf experimentation. I do a little from time to time. Thanks for the information and your porcupine cake looks adorable.

[Argus (Jy)]

Wow, this is fantastic. You're truly diligent. I too love the hedgehog look of the frosted cake.

[Feng]

I had similar problems with my gluten-free texture but didn't have time to experiment...your finding are really helpful, I now know what to do next time! I love your decoration too, it's really inspirational :o)
____________________________________________

Feng:

Glad to help! I am happy to share my findings. And luckily for me, when I hit a wall, I have an in-house food scientist to turn to. Thanks for your comments!

-Linsey

[claire]

Wow...I'm impressed with all your research for this cake! You're right...the first one is BEAUTIFUL! Too bad it didn't taste that way. Your last version's crumb is just perfect. Nice job!

_________________________________

Thanks Claire -- I still feel like there's a little more work to do on it - I want to try versions without guar/xanthan.

[Dolores]

A cross between plastic and burnt leather... how vivid. I'm sorry it didn't work for you though you're right; it LOOKS perfect. Very retro-80's punk with the icing. Thanks for baking with us.

____________________________

Hi Dolores!

Thanks for visiting - I appreciate your comments. Actually, I finally did get the cake to work, with really delicious results (below the photo I feature the recipe that worked). I'll be skipping the December challenge, but am looking forward to January!

Best,

Linsey

[Your sister]

those caramels look good! I think I might try and make them and give them out as christmas gifts. But I need your agave/brown sugar golden syrup measurements.

[nora]

You truly are a brave soul.
It was great reading your blog.