Mmm…That’s how every good recipe should start. With an unprompted verbal reaction to how good that dish was.
Sometimes you need cake. Sometimes you need cake that’s soft and sweet and tangy and buttery. And sometimes you need that cake quickly.
That’s not always easy when you’re gluten intolerant and lactose intolerant. But that’s why I troll the internet—so you don’t have to. And after crossing off a lot of stiff, dry coffee cakes, upside-down cakes and overly fruity crumbles and cobblers, I came across this recipe for strawberry-rhubarb pudding cake from Good Food Matters (originally adapted from Gourmet Magazine). What sold me on it was the triple layering of fruit and cake, making it neither a pudding nor a cake. The picture shows the fruit in large glops amid the soft, dense batter. That means the whole thing will be moist but not liquid, rather than having a dry cake with a quasi sauce. The amount of butter seemed indulgent enough to feel like a treat, and since I didn’t have any almond milk or other dairy-free milk, I did some research and figured I could switch it out for orange juice.
I whipped it together (minus the whisk, which was a bad instruction and failed miserably) and an hour later (plus five minutes of mandatory cooling) I had cake.
And it was…bad. Well, not bad. But not good either. The strawberry rhubarb parts were too tart and the cake was too sweet and it didn’t all form one glorious moist texture together. So I ate my piece and stuck the rest in the fridge for when I was feeling more forgiving. Two days later, I cut a slice and ate it cold.
And it was heavenly. The fruit had soaked into the cake, making it denser. And the cake sweetened the fruit just enough. Perfect.
So here it is, made 100% gluten-free and lactose-free. It’s not quick. But it’s good.
Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free Strawberry-Rhubarb Pudding Cake
1/4 cup water
1 1/2 tsp cornstarch or tapioca starch
1/3 cup + 1/2 cup sugar (you could use honey or a liquid sweetener, but a crystalized sugar, even coconut sugar or cane sugar, gives a better texture)
3 cups chopped fruit (2 cups rhubarb + 1 cup strawberries. If you use 3 cups rhubarb, add a tbsp or so more sugar)
1 cup gluten-free all purpose flour (I used Cuisine Soleil)
pinch guar gum (if your flour mix doesn’t already include it)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 large egg
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup earth balance, melted and slightly cooled
1 teaspoon vanilla extract, or the seeds of one vanilla bean (I put scraped vanilla beans in my sugar to flavour it, so I skipped this)
Preheat oven to 400F. Grease an 8″ baking dish (square or round is fine). In a medium sauce pan combine the water, cornstarch, 1/3 cup sugar, and rhubarb (reserve the strawberries). Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 3 minutes or until slightly thickened and rhubarb softens. Remove from heat and stir in the strawberries.
Whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and the remaining 1/2 cup sugar. In a separate bowl, beat together the egg with the earth balance. Then stir in the orange juice and vanilla. It will be very lumpy and liquid. That’s fine. Don’t worry. I did, and it didn’t matter. What a waste of worrying.
Stir the dry ingredients into the wet, just until combined. There should be no floury parts.
Pour half the fruit mixture into the bottom of the greased baking dish. Pour the batter over top, then pour the fruit mixture on top. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes. Stick a toothpick into a cake-y part, and f it comes out clean, it’s done.
You can eat this right away, but at this point it’s basically a glorified cobbler. To let it live up to its potential, have just a bite now (because what’s the point in living if you don’t?) and stick the cooled dish directly into the fridge. Leave it overnight. Thank me in the morning. Or make this in the morning to eat in the evening.
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