Chocolate Bundt Cake

I had tried a gluten-free chocolate bundt cake made with quinoa a while back, but I hadn’t had much success with it. It called for the batter to be mixed in a blender, and while I did get an even consistency with the cooked quinoa, my batter never got “fluffy” and my cake turned out differently than the one in the original blog post. So I ended up not posting about it. Plus then there were coconut milk brownies that had textural issues and were way too sweet for my taste (which is saying a lot). And I tried another flourless chocolate cake, this one with whipped egg whites, but I don’t think it was any better than my good old free cake. So all this to say that even though I was obviously having chocolate cakes of some kind, I wasn’t really happy with those new recipes.

Then I decided to try Gluten-Free Girl’s bundt cake, which is adapted from Joy the Baker. Obviously, you can make this gluten-free by using a gluten-free flour mix (Shauna James Ahern suggests a mix of teff, sweet rice and potato starch), but since I didn’t want to buy the one more kind of flour I would have needed, I used the equivalent weight of white whole wheat flour. I also replaced some of the oil with applesauce. This cake was delicious, and what’s more, it unmolded beautifully!

350 g. all-purpose gluten-free flour (see note above)
2 ½ tsp. baking soda
1 ¼ tsp. salt
2 cups sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1 ¼ cups lactose-free sour cream (I used a 12-oz. container; you could try Greek yogurt)
¾ cup unsweetened applesauce
½ cup safflower oil (or other neutral vegetable oil)
1 ¼ cups hot coffee (decaf is fine)
1 cup cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 350 °F. Grease a 10-inch bundt pan and dust it evenly with cocoa.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar and eggs until well combined. Add the sour cream, applesauce and oil, stirring well. Set aside.

In a small bowl, whisk together the coffee and cocoa powder until no lumps remain.

Whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients (I think I used a wooden spoon here) until they are truly incorporated, without any streaks of flour remaining. Add the coffee-cocoa mixture and stir until you have a smooth batter that is all one color. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in the cake comes out clean, about 45 to 60 minutes (it was 55 minutes for me, and my oven is usually on the hot side).

Remove the pan from the oven and let cool at least 20 minutes (I always wait more). Carefully invert the pan and tap the bottom – the cake should slide right out. Allow the cake to cool to room temperature, about 30 minutes.