Three tier chocolate cake

Junior Masterchef has taken hold at the Q household with my youngest two sons keen to get into the kitchen. We decided to let them try the Donna Hay 4 tier chocolate cake recipe which can be found here. Does it work making it gluten and egg free? Oh yes!!

We simply substitued gluten-free flour (I used Aldi's gluten free plain flour) and Orgran No-Egg instead of the eggs. We also doubled the recipe and cooked it in a rectangular tin as I didn't have the cake tin sizes recommended in the recipe. I cut the cake into 3 evenly spaced pieces and we made a 3 tier bar cake. We didn't double the icing mixture as we thought it would be enough. The consistency of this cake was like mud cake and the chocolate cream cheese icing was so nice! It was a definite winner here. You just need to make sure that you use icing mixture that does not contain wheat starch (Aldi fit the bill again here).

Chocolate Pudding

I found this recipe in the comments section of another blog and have managed to 'Aussiefy' it. It seemed to work (with a guess about how much chocolate to use) so here it is:

Ingredients:

2.5 cups milk

3 tablespoons cornflour (corn cornflour that is, not wheaten cornflour - I've never understood how they can get away with calling wheat cornflour!)

1 teaspoon vanilla

250 grams chocolate (I used cooking chocolate)

Method:

Mix the cornflour with the milk and vanilla and heat in a large saucepan until boiling. Keep simmering for about 1 minute.

Stir in chocolate and keep heating on low heat until the chocolate has melted into the mixture.

Chill until cool.

Option: For a mocha pudding also add 1 teaspoon instant coffee powder with the chocolate

I made this pudding into a pie by making half of the 'base' recipe of the chocolate caramel slice post and cooking it in a 20 cm square dish for 20 minutes in a moderate oven. I then put the pudding mixture on top. We found that the base was a bit too thick and sweet for this recipe so next time we'll try for a gluten-free pastry base or eat the pudding by itself. The other option is to halve the base mix so it's not so thick (so this means use a quarter of the base mix I have for the chocolate caramel slice).

Egg-free Chocolate Mousse

My children were asking for chocolate mousse the other afternoon. I have a recipe that they just love but I don't often have the motivation to make it because it contains eggs which I cannot eat. Some of the commercially prepared mousses from the supermarket don't contain eggs but they are quite expensive. I did a Google search for eggless mousse and found a great recipe on this site.

It just happened that I had all the ingredients on hand so away I went. I found it quite quick to prepare and it certainly disappeared quickly.

You just need to make sure that the marshmallows are gluten-free. I used a packet called 'Dominion' which I bought from Aldi. It does not state that they are gluten-free on the packet but it contains wheat glucose (which is highly refined and does not contain gluten) and uses maize starch.

Chocolate Caramel Slice

I make this slice often during the holiday time and always make up a double batch because it disappears quickly!

BASE: Mix together 2 cups self raising gluten-free flour (I've tried several types and all work well), 2 cups brown sugar, 2 cups coconut and 250 grams of melted butter. Place into a large baking tin (mine is 34 cm x 24 cm). Bake at 180 C for 10 minutes.

FILLING: While the base is cooking combine 2 tins (395 g each) sweetened condensed milk, 2 tablespoons butter and 4 tablespoons golden syrup in a large saucepan (19 cm diameter)and stir constantly over medium heat until boiling. Turn down the heat slightly, keep stirring and keep it simmering for 5 minutes. Take care not to burn the mixture or yourself. By the time the 5 minutes is up it should be looking like hot, bubbling lava. Spread over the base and cook for another 10 minutes in the oven. Allow to cool.

TOPPING: Melt 375 grams of cooking chocolate in a double saucepan. Spread over the filling and refrigerate.

NOTE: The base part of this recipe can be used as a gluten-free cheesecake base in place of a biscuit base.

No Egg Chocolate Cakes/Muffins

Ingredients:

3 cups gluten-free self raising flour*
200 grams butter
2 cups milk
2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
2 tablespoons golden syrup
2 tablespoons cocoa
1 and a half cups of sugar

Method:

Sift the flour and cocoa together.
Add the sugar and golden syrup.
Melt the butter and add to the mixture with 1 cup of milk.
Add the bicarbonate of soda to the other cup of milk and add to the mixture.
Mix well by hand or with electric mixers.
Place into muffin trays and cook for approximately 30 minutes at moderate heat (180 C).

This cake has a nice texture even though it does not have eggs.

All measurements are Australian metric measurements: 1 cup = 250 ml
*I use Orgran self raising flour but in the past have used other gluten-free flours and they work fine too.