I am being converted to loving the new trend of Naked Cakes which is getting more and more popular in the cake world. They skip the iced covering and show off the actual cake and filling in all their glory! You need to consider your cake and filling colour, flavour and consistency in a different way to when you cover cakes with icing - you can have no runny fillings or burnt edges - there is no room to hide!
Here is my first Naked Cake which I made for my Mum on Mother's Day. With three coeliacs at the tea party, gluten free vanilla sponges were the order of the day! I am a massive fan of Orgran Gluten Free Self Raising Flour - it is an ideal swop for normal SR flour- there is no difference in the taste or consistency and is so easy to use (I'll give you the recipe further down the post)...
The beauty of Naked Cakes is that you can use simple decorations - I know I have combined flowers and fruit on this version, but assorted fruits and any other relevant edible offerings work perfectly. I sprinkled mine with a little icing sugar just before serving to get a lovely finish.
The flowers were made with gumpaste (sugarpaste mixed with Tyo powder in this instance) and shaped using the
Little Venice Cake Company Modelling Tools and Mat. They were possibly the quickest flowers I have ever made as time was short (10pm the night before!) but I was happy with the overall effect. The flowers were wired and inserted into mini flower picks which were pushed
into the sponge at staggered heights.
Here's the gluten free recipe for 3 lots of 8" vanilla sponges (base tier)
(swop the vanilla extract for other flavours if you wish)
12oz Soft Margarine (at room temperature)
12oz Golden Caster Sugar
6 Large Eggs (at room temperature)
2 tsp Vanilla Extract (spend more on a quality one such as Nielsen Massey -
it is worth the expense as it makes such a difference to the flavour)
Heat the oven to 180
0C then grease and line your cake tins (I used the
Little Venice Cake Company Professional Grade Anodised Cake Tins as I love the quality). Cream the margarine and sugar together until fluffy then gradually add in the beaten eggs and vanilla extract. Sift in the flour and use a metal spoon to fold it onto the mixture. Divide the mixture
equally between three tins and bake for 20 - 25 minutes until light golden brown and springy to the touch in the middle.
If you do not have three tins the same size, make each layer one at a time using freshly prepared mixture. It is worth the effort as the baking agents in the mixture can start to work whilst it sits in the bowl and can spoil the sponge.
For the top tier, use 6" tins and alter the quantities to 9oz of margarine, sugar and flour and 4.5 eggs
(add one egg to a cup, beat it then measure out half) - use the same amount of vanilla extract and bake for 15 - 20 minutes.
The cake was filled with beaten double cream and strawberry jam and went down a storm! Apparently, it even freezes well too (just as well as there was rather a lot to eat!). As you can see, I used
Little Venice Cake Company Dowelling Rods to support the top tier and prevent it
squashing the base.
Thank you for looking - I would love your thoughts or ideas on naked cakes or gluten free baking!
Jill x
