Gluten Free Lime and Coconut Cake Recipe - Easy Dairy Free Option (2024)

FAQs

Can you over mix gluten-free cake batter? ›

However, you can actually mix a batter containing xanthan and/or guar gum to a point of diminishing returns. You can overwork the gums and end up with a stringy cake batter or rubbery cookie dough. (Having said that, doing this takes some work. Just don't take your aggressions out on a gluten-free cake batter.)

Let Your Batters & Doughs Rest

We recommend covering your batters and doughs and letting them rest for at least half an hour. Note: This will also help batters become thicker and doughs to firm up.

To bake with coconut milk, replace it 1:1 for milk in the recipe. If you need a non-dairy alternative to milk for baking, then you can substitute coconut for milk in your recipes as long as the coconut flavor won't interfere. The key is to pay attention to the type of milk or cream the original recipe calls for.

Yes, but to reduce the protein content and make it more like cake flour, you should consider replacing about 5–10% of the all-purpose flour with corn starch. If you don't, the cake will still work, but it might be a bit less tender than if you had either used cake flour or ap+cornstarch.

Xanthan gum (along with other thickeners like guar gum and arrowroot) acts like a binder in gluten-free baked goods to maintain their structure. Without it, there's a good chance that your brownies or muffin will crumble and fall apart.

2 teaspoons of baking powder per cup of gluten-free flour is necessary to ensure proper leavening. Baking soda and buttermilk can be used to leaven instead of baking powder, but 1-1/8 teaspoon of cream of tartar should be added for each 1/2 teaspoon baking soda used.

If the original recipe calls for 260 grams of all-purpose flour, substitute with 260 grams of your blend. Beat the batter more. Because gluten-free flours provide less structure than all-purpose, the batter or dough you make with them may require more beating than that which you are accustomed.

Gluten-free flour blends don't have the same elasticity as flour containing gluten so often the cakes don't rise as much or will sink after rising. To combat the flat cake problem, I add ½ tsp of bicarbonate of soda to the recipe even when using a self-raising gluten-free flour blend.

What can I substitute for milk in a cake? ›

Making your cakes with water instead of milk results in stronger, purer chocolate flavor. Water: the foundation of life, the substance that comprises 70% of our planet, and the thing that makes chocolate cakes even more chocolatey.

What's the best gluten-free flour for baking? Bob's Red Mill gluten-free 1-to-1 baking mix is my favorite gluten-free all-purpose flour blend for baking. It has a mild texture and plenty of "stick" thanks to a blend of sweet rice flour, brown rice flour, and sorghum flour, plus some starches and xanthan gum.

Brown rice flour is about as close to a 1:1 substitute for all-purpose flour as it gets since it provides structure and a “wheat-like” flavor.

Since things like cookies, cakes, muffins, quickbreads, and the like don't depend on gluten development, using gf flour makes little difference in the final product. The texture of some gf flours can be a bit grainy, due to rice flour in the mix. I've had some issues with gritty gf blends that were very unpleasant.

Unlike gluten doughs, gluten-free bread doughs should not be overworked, and doing so can sometimes make them a bit rubbery. Remember NOT TO PUNCH DOWN GLUTEN FREE DOUGHS. Second, if you are baking from scratch and adding your own xanthan or guar gum, you might have added too much.

More delicate items like cakes and pastries will become too dense if there is too much gluten development - this is where the common “do not overmix” warning comes in. Minimizing the amount of time flour is mixed with liquid helps ensure a fluffy, tender crumb. This is not an issue if you are using gluten free flour.

Ready-to-go pancake batters and muffin doughs should be delightfully fluffy—don't fear a few lumps! When overmixed, these batters become dense and heavy or liquidy and runny, or visibly slack. Undermixed biscuit and pie dough won't hold together when pressed or squished, and there will be dry, uneven scabby bits.

YOUR CAKE IS SINKING IN THE MIDDLE OR NOT RISING

You may not have used enough raising agents. I do recommend experimenting with double action baking powders. Otherwise try using 25 percent more chemical raising agents (baking soda or baking powder) if you're converting a recipe to gluten free.