I haven’t actually written any posts specifically about my food sensitivities so I guess today is as good a day as any to come out of the food pantry, carrying the beautiful gluten and dairy free cake I baked for my husband’s birthday.

I really wanted to bake a delicious cake for Van, but it had to be a cake my whole family could enjoy.  In my kitchen, gluten, dairy and peanuts are the enemy; one of my daughters has already been diagnosed with lactose intolerance like me (you are welcome, Darling).  So I found a recipe while shopping online for King Arthur Flour products.  The link to the site is at the end of my post if you become interested in baking this cake.  I did change a few ingredients to make the recipe dairy free and also more, shall we say appealing, to my sometimes critical eaters.

You can make this cake in any tube style Bundt pan, according to the King Arthur recipe.  To pull off the actual spiral-effect cake, which is very fancy looking, I purchased the spiral Bundt pan from the King Arthur site.  The pan looks like this:

I greased the Bundt pan liberally with Crisco because of paranoia that the cake would stick to the pan and I would end up with a huge mess,  resulting in my crying and pouting for the rest of the day.

The directions from King Arthur were very easy to follow.  I mixed the batter exactly according to instructions but used Earth Balance dairy free butter and  Silk PureAlmond almond milk (regular, unflavored) instead of dairy butter and buttermilk/sour milk.  Note to those planning to make a dairy free cake: I found that ingredients could be substituted for exact amounts from the recipe to get the desired effect.  My batter looked like this when it was ready to go into the oven:

I have a gas oven with the convection setting, but did not use that setting for the cake.  I found that my cake came out nicely baked on the center rack, after exactly 45 minutes.  If you choose to make this cake, you will want to keep an eye on it after about 30 minutes (which is what I did) to make sure that it does not over brown.  This is what it looked like when the cake came out of the oven:

Now was the moment of truth: would the cake come out of the pan smoothly?  The King Arthur instructions say to wait 20 minutes before turning over the pan, so I set my timer and laid on my couch watching Duck Dynasty with my fingers and toes crossed.  DING!  Okay, here goes…

Hallelujah!  It turned out!  I can’t believe it!  I think the Crisco shortening was the key to keeping things slippery enough for the cake to pop out.  Whew!  I did not follow the instructions for the glaze, but instead I drizzled honey over the cake while it was still warm.  I did make a pseudo-frosting/whipped spread for my husband to put on his cake slices.  The recipe is below.

Whipped Cinnamon Honey Frosting

• 1 pkg. Cream Cheese, at room temperature (I prefer the taste of Philadelphia)
• 1/2 C Honey
• 1 tsp cinnamon (If you are not wild about cinnamon, start with 1/4 tsp and add more to taste)

Whip the ingredients together in a mixer on high speed until a fluffy frosting has developed.  This frosting will be mildly sweet, and if you want to add more sweetness or make a stiffer frosting, you can add powdered sugar by Tablespoons until you have the desired consistency and sweetness.  This is basically a very fluffy cream cheese spread, so keep it refrigerated and use it on anything you can imagine!

Note: If you add powdered sugar to your frosting, it may not be gluten free.  Some powdered sugar does contain gluten, so check the label!

If you are interested in trying this recipe,  follow the link to the King Arthur Flour site.

• http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/gluten-free-almond-cake-with-honey-lemon-glaze-made-with-baking-mix-recipe#.UqSqV5UCpQ4.facebook

Related articles – more goodies from King Arthur Flour experimenters and other fun cakes to try on a cold winter day:

• Whole Wheat Bread via King Arthur Flour (eatyourtarteout.com)
• The best cake I’ve ever made (takecomfortproject.wordpress.com)
• Orange Glazed, Heavenly Fruit Cake! (Gluten and Dairy Free, this one.) (rethinkwellness.wordpress.com)
• Sticky Lemon Syrup Polenta Cake (Gluten-free) (clairerobbie.com)