Gluten Free Cakes

My Mother’s cousin came for lunch a couple of weeks ago. She is coeliac and so of course I made a gluten free lunch. I made a quiche with ham, spinach and feta in it and instead of using a pastry base, I used cooked brown rice mixed with an egg which I pre-baked. The recipe was in Taste magazine a few months ago. We had it with a baby spinach, cherry tomato and boccocini salad.

For pudding I wanted to make a gluten free cake, but not the obvious lemon and almond or orange and almond. I searched through my recipe box and actually found a number of recipes that, while not specifically marked gluten free, more or less were. My only concern was the ones with baking powder in them – I wasn’t sure whether normal baking powder is gluten free or not. So I ended up making these chocolate and ginger gluten free cakes. They actually had no flour substitute in them – simply butter, eggs and chocolate with sliced crystallised ginger sprinkled over the top. They were lovely moist little cakes and very quick and easy to prepare. We ate them with natural yoghurt.

Chocolate and Ginger Gluten Free Cakes (Julie Le Clerc)

150g butter
300g dark chocolate
3 eggs
1/3 c sugar
1 tsp vanilla
½ c crystallised ginger

• Melt butter and chocolate together
• Beat eggs, sugar and vanilla together until thick, then stir in the chocolate mixture
• Spoon into cupcake cases and sprinkle sliced crystallised ginger over each cake
• Bake at 160c for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean