Gluten Free King Cake

Store bought or home made? - Gluten Free King Cake
Photo by J. Stahl

In honor of Karneval, I decided King Cake was in order. Tuesday the children are celebrating at Kindergarten, so my husband and I put our heads together to get this made.  For whatever reason, baking with yeast never turns out well for me. However, my husband is able to make magic happen with yeasty goods.

So our plan was that he make the dough and bake everything while I worked on the decorating aspects. We modified the Gluten-Free King Cake recipe from Celiac Family.

Here are our modifications:

• 2 (.25 oz.) packages of active dry yeast
• 1/2 Cup warm water (100 – 110 degrees F) 
• 1/2 Cup + 2 tsp white sugar
• 1 Cup milk  (Alternatively, use Coconut, Rice or Soy Milk)
• 1/4 Cup butter (Alternatively, use dairy free butter)
• 2 eggs (can be substituted with flax-water mixture)
• 1-1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 2-1/2 Cups white rice flour (fine)
• 1 Cup potato starch
• 1/2 Cup tapioca flour
• 2 tsp guar gum (Alternatively Xanthan Gum, or Pixie Dust)

Nut Filling:

• 1 Cup packed brown sugar
• 1 TBSP cinnamon
• 1/2 Cup melted butter (or butter replacement)
• 1/2 Cup chopped walnuts

 Frosting:

• 2 Cups powdered sugar, run in the food processor and sifted again to remove lumps
  1/4 Cup fresh orange juice
  1 tsp butter, melted and cooled (or butter replacement)
  1 tsp almond extract
  2 tsp vanilla extract

 Additionally needed:

• three small sandwich-sized ziploc bags with 1/2 cup fine white sugar
• purple, yellow and green Wilton icing colors
• toothpicks and paper towels

Directions:

Mix all dry ingredients together, including yeast in your mixing bowl. Add eggs, one at a time. Add milk once the eggs are incorporated into the dough. Add the butter immediately after. You may or may not need the water depending on your weather and altitude.

Separate your dough into two balls. Roll out the dough on a large baking sheet with baking paper. Make your filling by combining all ingredients and place carefully in the middle of the dough in a long line.  Roll the dough together very carefully and pinch the sides together. Roll again very carefully while pinching the ends together so that they are on the bottom of the dough as you put the ring together.

It will look something like this:

Yeast has risen on this King Cake - Photo by A. Stahl

When both rings are done, rise carefully in the lowest temperature in your oven for an hour and a half. Remove from oven and heat the oven to 375°F/190°C.

When the oven has reached the appropriate temperature, fill an oven safe glass dish with water and place it on the bottom rack of your oven. Place one king cake inside and bake for 20 minutes. You may need to cover it halfway through with aluminum foil. (we did!)

When it comes out of the oven, it will look like this:

King Cake, finished baking - Photo by A.Stahl

 It has cracked a little, but this is fine. The icing and the sugar will cover this and no one will notice!
 Allow the cake to cool for about an hour. Allow the other cake to bake for 20 minutes while you begin making the icing and coloring the sugar in ziplock bags.

The icing is a very thin icing. For me, it is easier to decorate once I have removed it from the kitchenaid bowl and put it into a glass to more easily manipulate while pouring over the cake. I would highly recommend placing the cake back on the parchment paper as this will get very messy!

Carefully cover each cake around the ring with icing. Don't worry about being "cheap" at first. You can always fill in later with left over icing!

To make the colored sugar, simply use a toothpick to dip into the Wilton icing colors. At this juncture, you simply mix this in the plastic baggies by hand, making sure there are no lumps of dye in the sugar, and no clumps. It's easy work and you can quickly make it happen by asking your preschooler to help mix a bag or two. (wink!)

Put your colored sugar crystals into cups and distribute evenly on both cakes. There are many ways to decorate your King Cake with sprinkles or sugar crystals.  When you are finished, it will look something like this:

King Cake - photo by J. Stahl

You can transfer the cake onto a decorative plate or cake stand once the icing has quit dripping and the sugar has settled. I would recommend asking a friend or spouse to hold the pan while you use a spatula or cake knife and server to transfer it from the pan to the plate.

Since we had two cakes, one of them is for us to have today during lunch.  Here is how the filling looks when you cut a slice out.

King Cake filling - photo by J. Stahl

Enjoy!!

Slice of King Cake - photo by J. Stahl

Coconut Cake - Gluten free version

Sadly, this is not a recipe I can boast of being GAPS or Paleo/Primal, but it is one that I can praise my good thinking skills on trying, and really enjoy. I've not had a coconut cake like this in years and really needed a treat for myself.

I was poking around the internet after pinning on pinterest a recipe for Coconut Poke Cake, which I am unsure if I can make gluten free or not. But, it made me think about coconut cake, which sent me in search of a recipe, and whether or not you can make cake flour gluten free, then whether or not you can freeze coconut cake or not. That became "I can do this!" and I cracked my first coconut since living overseas in the Caribbean, processed the coconut, let it stand in the fridge for three days before doing more and VOILÁ! I made coconut cake!

Look at it! Is it not glorious?  It is absolutely stinking wonderful!


I do want to let you know that if you have to make this dairy free, it will work - though I have not made this particular cake, I was making a TON of cakes dairy free last year, and it's totally possible with this recipe.  What you do need to keep in mind is that the cake might not rise as much and it may either cook faster, or need a little longer to get completely done.  It just will depend on your butter and your milk substitutes and oven temperatures.  My oven tends to run hot, so I have to keep an eye on everything, especially if I use the fan function rather than top-bottom heat.


  One thing you will find with me is that I view recipes as suggestions unless they are otherwise obvious that you cannot deviate - so you'll find a lot of kitchen chemistry in my recipes that are regular gluten free recipes. I'm still learning Paleo and GAPS, so I'm less likely to play around until I'm sure how it will turn out.

Without further ado, here are the recipes I used, and the tweaks I invented for my cake today.

I based today's recipe off of the recipe for Fresh Coconut Cake by Anna Williams at Epicurious and I found that my glass jar that holds my gluten free flour mix was mysteriously empty, so I went ahead and made new flour mix. I use something that's between Bette Hagman's All Purpose Flour Mix and Carol Fenster's General Baking Mix #1, which can be found here at CSA Celiacs Helping Celiacs.

I couldn't remember the weight measurement of an American stick of butter, so I double checked this site so I was sure not to mess that up. I used the formula at this site with my gluten free flour mix to make it into cake flour. Yes, I really did sift that stuff six times!  I added 1 teaspoon (no more than that!) of guar gum to the entire batter to ensure that it would not have a crumbly texture, but a true glutenous type cake result. If you are baking using UK measurements or EU measurements, you will need this guide for the recipe here today.

   I made a rather valiant attempt at seven minute icing (same recipe on the first link) and it just did not come out and I threw a royal tantrum (mostly tired from this being an all day production and also super hungry!) and sent myself to my room.

I do mean it by this being an all day production. I started at 11am and did not finish this cake until after 8pm.  I felt like this Pixar Chess Player during the entire production:

When I was done being all sullen and upset, I went and made a tweaked version of Wilton's Buttercream Icing.  By tweaked, I mean that I used only 200g of icing sugar, and about 4 tablespoons (I really don't measure this icing any more!) of butter that I'd cut up in tiny bits, and a good splash of milk (no idea how much - I go by sight and texture) and about a cup of dessicated coconut. (again with the guesswork!)  The result was a spreadable mess of icing, without too much trouble.

I refused to ice the whole cake, which you will see below, but it really did pay off in NOT doing so. We cut rather small pieces and will be following these directions to freeze away some of the cake. I'll call my father in law tomorrow and offer him a slice or two before we do that though.  I have more cake to make tomorrow for a birthday party at kindergarten on Thursday morning, and another on Monday. I have a feeling we will end up with a surplus of frozen cupcakes come Monday, but this could be a blessing in disguise.


Leftovers of the cake as it stands tonight:

I hope that you too will feel brave enough to try something like this and enjoy it as we've enjoyed this cake tonight, knowing that you can absolutely have something this wonderful while being gluten free!