Gluten Free Red Velvet Cake

I know this is a little unrelated to high tea, but I had to share this gluten free recipe that I found online last week. I had dinner with some friends over the weekend and offered to bring dessert, and was given a joking request for gluten free red velvet cake (my friend is gluten free). Not one to shy away from a baking challenge, I spent a lot of time online searching for a recipe and below is the one that I found that looked the best. My friend was amazed at how good it was (she has previously had some bad gluten free experiences) and I was impressed at how it turned out as it was my first attempt at baking gluten free. I altered the recipe a little due to availability of ingredients and the comments below the original recipe so I’ve included the original link so you can check that out too. The texture is a little different due to being gluten free but it’s moist and tasty and doesn’t take too long to make. A winner I would say. I like to serve a sponge cake when serving high tea so this could be an alternative?

Gluten Free Red Velvet Cake (this was all that was left when I remembered to take a photo)

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups canola oil
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs, beaten


2 1/2 cups gluten free flour mix (I used Orgran Gluten Free all purpose plain flour which is a mix of maize starch/cornflower, tapioca flour and rice flour and the vegetable gum guar. This was just bought from my local supermarket)
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

1 cup buttermilk (or 1 tbsp white vinegar and 1 cup milk left for five minutes to stand)
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tbsp red food coloring
2 tbsp cocoa

Cream cheese icing:
50g butter, softened
150g icing sugar (this is approximate, I generally just keep adding icing sugar until I get the desired consistency)
125g cream cheese (I like using low fat cream cheese but this makes the icing quite soft)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. Cream the oil and sugar with an electric beater. Add one egg at a time while still beating, ensuring that the eggs are well combined with the oil and sugar mixture.
   
3. Sift dry ingredients into a clean bowl.
4. Add dry ingredients to the batter in four parts, alternating with the buttermilk, mixing each part in before adding the next.
5. Mix a paste with the cocoa, red food coloring, and vanilla essence. You may need to add a bit of water to this to make sure that it becomes a paste. Gently stir it into the mixture.
6. Pour the mixture into two cake tins (I used 8-inch cake tins) that have been lined with baking paper and the sides sprayed with non-stick baking spray. Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for approximately 25 minutes
7. When the cakes are completely cool, ice with cream cheese icing.

Cream cheese icing: Beat butter and icing sugar together so there are no large lumps of butter remaining. Add cream cheese, beating slowly until combined. Increase speed of electric beater and mix until soft and fluffy. (You can use your favourite cream cheese icing recipe on this cake as long as it's not citrus based.)

Adapted from http://www.glutenfreecookingschool.com/archives/gluten-free-red-velvet-cake/