Don’t you hate a recipe that tells you to use any old Gluten-Free Flour? I really do. Especially when it comes to Vanilla Cake.
Vanilla cake did not come easily to me when I started this crazy business of a vegan and gluten free bakery. It took over 2 years to perfect it. The attempts that were made during that time were, well… meh. Not good enough for me to waste my calories on. And not the quality I wanted to hand out our customers. Everything we make at Karma Baker has got to be amazing and worth it. If it’s only “good for Gf and vegan”, I’ve failed. I don’t want anyone to say that. I want each person’s reaction to be, ” Wow! that’s so good!”
So, we had no vanilla cake at the bakery for a while. We were a wholesale-only bakery at the time, so it wasn’t a big deal. But each time I’d revisit vanilla cake, it was instigated by a desperate request that sounded like…,”Oh please make me a vanilla cake for my son – it’s his favorite and there’s just nothing out there.” These are the words I cannot resist – I have no will power against a desperate mom pleading for baked goods for her kid. There – that’s my kryptonite… please don’t use it against me !
In attempting a new recipe I start with the basics – I go to the best cookbooks and bloggers and amazing chefs for a place to start. I like to start with tried & true sources like, The Fannie Farmer Cookbook – old-school genius! I’m sure everyone does this. But since I always have to fudge it a little bit more than most, these recipes are always just starting points for me. I use the best base recipe -take away ingredients and add in my vegan bag-o-tricks to see what I get.
What I’ve discovered after trying all of these recipes, was that the flour blend was not right. I’ve heard many recipe bloggers and Gluten-Free companies saying that it doesn’t matter what flour you use. In fact, my most-biggest-most-annoying-worst-pet-peeve, is when a recipe calls for “any all-purpose Gluten free flour”. Ugh!!! Not so! There are too many flour-flavors going on and too many texture issues. Every flour has a totally unique quality. The truth of the matter is, when it comes to GF baking, it IS the BLEND that makes it work.
So after making one vanilla cake after another, with the wrong blends, I ended up with cakes that were too brown, too corn-y, and quite a few that were too gummy & sticky… I finally used my own flour blend and some calling-on-the baking spirit guides for assistance, and Karma Baker’s Vanilla cake was born!
Now, in my recipe, you “may” use any GF flour blend you like – but I swear ours will make this recipe work. It’s the only one that will get you the results you really want.
Buy Our Organic Gluten Free flour here…
Excited??!! Me too here it is…
Moist
Vanilla-infused
Perfectly sweet
Fluffy
Easy to make
Tender
Perfectly sweet
& SO delicious
Karma Baker’s Ultimate Vanilla Cake
Ingredients
- 1 cup Evaporated Cane Juice
- 1/2 cup Coconut Oil Melted before measuring
- 1/4 cup Organic Applesauce (unsweetened)
- 3 cups Celine’s Organic Gluten Free flour
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1 1/2 TBL Aluminum Free Baking Powder
- 1 1/2 cups Organic Soy Milk rice or almond work nicely too
- 2 tsp Good quality Madagascar Vanilla Tahitain vanilla is very nice too
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350
- Line baking pans with parchment circles or line your your cupcake pans with baking cups.
- Add in Celine’s Organic Gluten Free flour, salt and baking powder. Mix on low until combined and then slowly add in Rice milk and vanilla. Mix on medium speed for 2 minutes. Pour batter into prepared pans. Fill muffin cups 2/3rds full.
- Bake cakes for 40-50 minutes
- Bake cupcakes for 25-30 min
