Disclaimer: This is a sponsored recipe. I was compensated by the kind folks at Crosby’s Molasses for creating this recipe. However, like always, the opinions are entirely my own.
With the trees shedding their colourful leaves, orange pumpkins adorning the pathway to the doorway, and the morning air being cold enough to see your breath, autumn is definitely in full swing in Manitoba. Although I do like this time of year, I always have a hard time enjoying it. Autumn turns to winter so quickly here. Before we know it, there will be snow dusting the ground in the morning. The daylight escapes earlier every day, and the early mornings are still dark. There are a few things that I do like about this season though – the sound of leaves crunching under your feet as you walk, the beautiful colours that appear from a solid canvas of green, and the smell of spices like cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg filling the kitchen.
Gluten Free Gingerbread Cake with Chocolate and Coffee introduced the perfect aroma to the kitchen on one of these chilly autumn days. Gingerbread, with the strong aroma of molasses, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg, is like a warm, comfortable sweater when the weather turns cool. This cake also had undertones of chocolate and coffee, making it an absolute winner in my books. The texture was perfect, with a beautiful dense crumb. Although splendid on it’s own, we preferred it served with a dollop of coffee flavoured whipped cream. Perfection.
- 1 cup freshly brewed coffee (strong and hot)
- 5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
- 1 cup brown rice flour
- 1/2 cup millet flour
- 1/2 cup tapioca starch/flour
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 1/2 teaspoons xanthan gum
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup Crosby’s Fancy Molasses
- 1 cup canola oil
- 3 large eggs
- 1/4 cup chopped crystallized ginger (optional)
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 10 cup tube or Bundt pan.
- Place the chopped chocolate in a glass or metal bowl, and pour the hot coffee over the chopped chocolate. Let sit while you prepare the rest of the cake, stirring occasionally to help melt the chocolate.
- Whisk together the brown rice flour, millet flour, tapioca starch, baking soda, xanthan gum, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, using a whisk or hand mixer, beat together the sugar, Crosby’s Fancy Molasses, oil, and eggs.
- Add the dry ingredients, and stir to combine. Stir the coffee/chocolate mixture (it is OK if there are still little chunks of chocolate that are not melted) into the batter, and pour into prepared baking pan.
- Bake in preheated oven for 60-70 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean, and the top springs back when gently pushed.
- Cool cake in pan for 20-25 minutes. Turn out onto wire cooling rack, and cool completely before serving.
Shirley @ gfe & All Gluten-Free Desserts says
October 15, 2013 at 9:52 amOh, Jeanine, you have done it with this cake! I am a gingerbread fanatic and your description of it is simply perfect! 🙂 Then you add in chocolate and coffee, and top it with coffee-flavored whipped cream?! I am so very weak for this cake right now. In fact, I had to immediately feature the recipe on allglutenfreedesserts.com as I am so smitten with it! (Plus, I’m still compiling gluten-free apple dessert recipes for my big upcoming roundup.)
Thanks so much for this recipe, dear!
Shirley
Jeanine Friesen says
October 15, 2013 at 9:59 amSo glad that you like it, Shirley! I was so tickled with how well it turned out, and with it only being +2*C (about 34*F) outside right now – this is my kind of baking at the moment. 🙂 Thanks for sharing at All Gluten-Free Desserts!
Elizabeth says
October 15, 2013 at 11:20 amI want to make this. Right. Now! I can already taste it. 🙂 I can’t wait until after work to try this!
Newbie question:
I just learned that there are different types of chocolate to use for different purposes and have a question. I’m switching from making holiday cookies to making holiday chocolates and during my practice batches using Hershey’s Toll House semi-sweet chips I realized that the chips can’t be used to make molded chocolates. Now I have several huge bags of the stuff was wondering if you tried this recipe or other cake/breads using chips? If not, I would still love to know if you think that chips can be used instead of baker’s chocolate in this recipe? (I assume that the chocolate here is the baker’s)
Thanks for sharing your creativity, Jeanine!
Jeanine Friesen says
October 15, 2013 at 11:26 amOhhh… you’re making candy – that’s awesome! wish I was there to help with the testing, sounds yummy! I haven’t tried this recipe with chips though, I used the Bakers bittersweet. Using chips here wouldn’t work, I don’t think, mostly because they are a lot sweeter than the bittersweet, and unless you start playing around the amount of sugar, your cake will end up too sweet.
I do have quite a few recipes that use chocolate chips though, and they can always be frozen too.
FKP says
October 16, 2013 at 4:27 pmThe cake looks great, going to try soon. I just don’t understand why you use canola oil. That stuff is really bad for you. Will let you know how I like it but will use a different oil.
Jeanine Friesen says
October 17, 2013 at 10:57 amYou’re welcome to use whatever oil you wish, FKP.
stephanie says
October 16, 2013 at 10:07 pmThis looks and sounds delicious!! But having a child anaphalxic to eggs, its not much of an option. Do you have any suggestions for substituing the eggs in this recipe? Thanks!!
Jeanine Friesen says
October 18, 2013 at 7:47 pmI know someone on my facebook group made it egg free – I’ll ask what egg substitute she used.
christa sterken says
October 17, 2013 at 3:13 pmhappy, happy, happy to have found your site today. Am brand new to GF. Do you know if I can mix a GF all purpose flour mix instead of the several different kinds?
Jeanine Friesen says
October 17, 2013 at 3:21 pmWelcome here, Christa! You can try to substitute the flours with an all purpose blend, but I’ve only tried them as written. I find there are 100 different ‘all purpose’ blends, of which I can only get one two that haven’t rocked my world, and different goods require a different combination of flours & starches to get a different outcome. Say, a bread, compared to a cookie. But, you’re welcome to experiment. If your blend contains xanthan, you can omit that from the recipe as well! HTH! Let me know if you have any other questions. 🙂
Beth says
October 18, 2013 at 7:31 pmAny substitute for millet flour?
Jeanine Friesen says
October 18, 2013 at 7:47 pmAlthough I haven’t tried it, I’d thik that sorghum, gluten-free oat flour, or quinoa flour would all work well.
Teri says
October 21, 2013 at 5:12 pmCould this be made into cupcakes?
Jeanine Friesen says
October 24, 2013 at 10:46 amHi Teri, I think that should work without a problem, you just have to adjust the bake time then.
jen says
October 24, 2013 at 10:41 amI made this as cupcakes yesterday! They are FAB! Some I left plain, and some I used a molasses cream cheese icing. I despise clove so I substituted nutmeg in this recipe. I used a 70% dark chocolate from Lindt. Bittersweet is typically around a 53%, so mine was a bit deeper. LADY you made me so happy with this recipe! This was my first experience with millet flour. I am so pleased with the results!
p.s. Dont eat 4 cupcakes at 10 pm. Theres coffee in them! Lol! It took forever to get to sleep!
Jeanine Friesen says
October 24, 2013 at 10:47 amYeah!!! Thanks for the report back, Jen, so glad that you liked them. woohoo! That frosting sounds great, mind to share how you made it? And thanks for the warning too, hope you have time for a nap today. 😉
jen says
October 24, 2013 at 11:08 amCredit for the icing concept goes to glutenfreeonashoestring.
I found a similar recipe there being used to top pumpkin cupcakes. I did 4 oz cream cheese, a cup of confectioners sugar, a spoonful of molasses, drop of cream, drop of vanilla, and a pinch of salt. I didnt really measure.
My house smelled so good yesterday!
Jeanine Friesen says
October 29, 2013 at 6:09 amSounds great, Jen, thanks for sharing!
Lisa says
October 28, 2013 at 12:39 pmThis is a great treat! Making it again to have for a treat this week. Made this for company last week and it was a hit. Thanks!
Jeanine Friesen says
October 29, 2013 at 6:09 amYeah! Glad to hear that, Lisa! 🙂 Enjoy!
Kirsten says
October 28, 2013 at 10:56 pmRecipe looks fabulous but would
it be possible to update with measurements in grams also please? I’m never sure whether the cup measures in Oz are the same as US!
Jeanine Friesen says
October 29, 2013 at 6:11 amSorry, Kirsten, here’s some handy calculators that should help with converting any recipes:
http://allrecipes.com/howto/cup-to-gram-conversions/
And for gf flours: http://realfoodmadeeasy.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/glutenfree-flours-volume-weight.pdf
Kim says
November 14, 2013 at 9:43 amWould this cake work as loaves? My girlfriends & I do a cookie swap every year & I was thinking of this cake as mini loaves.
Jeanine Friesen says
November 14, 2013 at 9:54 amI think the denser texture of the cake would work as loaves perfectly, Kim! Great idea!
Laurel says
November 24, 2013 at 3:14 pmSaints above but I just put this in my oven using a cup of Tapioca egg for the 3 eggs and the xanthan gum. Pray for me.
Laurel says
November 24, 2013 at 5:35 pmThis is really delicious. It’s the first cake I’ve had the nerve to try in a bundt pan. I should have made cupcakes though because I was pretty tired when I took it out of the oven and I asked my husband to loosen it up and turn onto a plate after ten minutes. Two hours later I realized he hadn’t been in the kitchen but was watching Football! Of course he followed me into the kitchen to help but by then the cake was very happy with the sides of the pan. Sigh. I was so looking forward to sending you a picture.
And yet, even with the tapioca egg substitute it is quite light, moist, fluffy and flavorful and the half that did come out is not a bit crumbly. So I’m going to go out on a line here and say that Tapioca gel stuff actually works.
Laurel
Jenn says
December 15, 2013 at 3:42 pmBaked this cake this weekend. Turned out beautifully!! Family very much enjoyed it even those not gluten free. So yummy with a cup of coffee and topped with whipped cream! Thanks for a great recipe!