Moist & Fluffy {GF} Chocolate Cake Recipe

In the past 18 months, I've done a fair amount of gluten and wheat free baking, and while there are some excellent and tasty recipes out there, it's so very rare to find easy gluten free recipes that turn out so similar to those tasty white flour alternatives.  {By 'easy', I mean recipes that don't involve all of the extras like xanthan gum etc - I know, they're really not that complicated, but I really like just using a good GF AP flour.}

The batter does not act like regular cake batter (it's more like an unset mousse), in that it has to be scooped into the cake pan & smoothed around with a spatula, but it rises beautifully and your guests will be too busy wolfing down the cake to even wonder if there's 'something different' about it. :) 

The recipe calls for 2 9" round cake pans, but I actually like to use 3 - it rises that much! I always enjoy extra icing or filling in cake, anyways - that's half the point of eating cake, isn't it?! For painless & easy removal of cake from the pans, lay your pans out on a sheet of parchment paper. Trace the pans & cut the circles out. After greasing the pan, lay the circle of parchment paper inside. Your pan is now ready to receive the batter!

I LOVE that this recipe uses melted chocolate as opposed to cocoa powder. It just seems more chocolatey to me. That, and the fact that it's fun to watch the melted chocolate swirl into the batter. :)

See, they don't look quite like regular cakes when they come out of the oven...

...but when you ice them, you'd never know. Mmm. So good.  Particularly delicious when served alongside this healthy banana 'ice cream'.

When I made the recipe last week for a friend's birthday, I had this fantastic idea of making a pumpkin cream cheese icing for the middle, and then frosting it with this super easy no-added sugar whipped chocolate icing. Well. Things didn't go according to plan. My pumpkin cream cheese icing didn't thicken, and I tried making the whipped chocolate icing with coconut oil instead of butter (spoiler alert: it doesn't work).  And then I ran out of chocolate, so I couldn't make another batch of icing. At our friend's house, I raided their baking cupboard, stole some chocolate chips, added some (just a Tbsp or so) coconut oil, melted them down, and poured it over the cake.  I have to admit, it doesn't look entirely like the train-wreck that it was, but it's not the prettiest cake that I've ever made.  It got the enthusiastic approval of 5 kids and 3 other adults, so I'm happy with it.

Moist & Fluffy {GF} Chocolate Cake 
Adapted from Gratefully Gluten Free's Gluten Free Chocolate Cake Recipe
Ingredients:

• 2 cups all purpose gluten free flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup butter, softened or grated*
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 3 squares unsweetened chocolate or 2 cups chocolate chips, melted and cooled
• 1 1/4 cups cold water

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350
• Grease 3 9" cake pans & line bottom with parchment paper
• Combine first 3 ingredients in medium bowl.
• In a mixer beat butter for about 30 seconds.
• Add sugar and vanilla and beat until combined
• Add eggs, one at a time, beating 1 minute after each
• Beat in cooled chocolate
• Add dry ingredients and cold water alternately
• Turn into prepared pans
• Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes or till done
• Cool 10 minutes and remove from pans to wire rack to cool completely

*This is a trick that I picked up from Pinterest a few weeks ago.  If you (like me) forgot to take your butter out of the fridge a few hours before you started to put your cake together, and you have a nasty habit of just melting the butter in the microwave when you try to 'soften' it, check this out. 

Shared on Easy Green Mama's Gluten Free Tuesday Linky. Head over there for more delicious Gluten Free recipe ideas! , and on Moms & Munchkins Party Time Linky - there are some seriously fantastic Halloween ideas going on over there right now - head over and take a look!