You may recall me saying when making my Whisky and Ginger Bundlettes I had some mixture left over and nowhere to put it! Well, the wonderful people from Nordic Ware came to my rescue and sent me a fantastic Ruffled Medallion Cakelet pan, in the hopes I would always have somewhere for left over cake batter in future. However, I decided right away that this pan was far too special to be used just for left overs. I had a bit of a think and these little cakelets were born!
I decided I ought to try my hand at gluten-free baking. We have a couple of friends who are gluten intolerant and the best I could offer them was a standard cake with the flour swapped out for a gluten free flour mix from the supermarket. Although edible, those cakes never turn out as well as the ones using wheat flour so I wanted to make something that would be even BETTER because it’s gluten free.
I spoke to the lovely Howard Middleton (the charismatic baker from GBBO ’13) on Twitter and he told me that rice flour is a good flour to use in cakes when combined with coconut and a little xanthan gum for texture. I was instantly reminded of my Coconut Rice Pudding which combines pudding rice with the flavour of coconut into a delicious dessert. I quite often pair this with some mango slices poached in a rum-spiked syrup so I set about creating this flavour combo in my gluten free cakelets.
I made my own pudding rice flour by whizzing up pudding rice in my Optimum 9400 blender for 30 seconds. It worked perfectly and I had a flour that I KNEW would taste like rice pudding! If you don’t have an Optimum 9400, you could always use store bought flour.
Rather than using butter in these cakes, I used some delicious Lucy Bee Extra Virgin Organic Raw Coconut Oil. This is simply divine and a fantastic ingredient in baking. As well as adding a great flavour, this coconut oil has a bunch of health benefits too; just have a quick browse online if you’d like to know more. You’ll also notice I use less coconut oil than you may do with other fats; this is because it contains no water unlike butter meaning you don’t need to use as much which can also mean a few less calories!
Included in my syrup is a generous splosh of rum; I used a delicious Ron Miel (Honey Rum) my parents bought me when out in Tenerife but I’m sure any rum would be delicious.
As you can see, I couldn’t resist for long before I HAD to tuck into one. They are absolutely delicious and I think SO much better for being gluten free and having rice flour in!
Gluten-Free Coconut Rice Pudding Cakelets
Delicious little gluten free cakes, perfect for afternoon tea or a dessert when combined with rum-spiked mango and creme fraiche.
Ingredients
Instructions
1. Prepare the tin and preheat the oven to 160ºC.2. Place all of the cake ingredients into a mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer and beat together until fully combined. Don’t worry if the mixture looks a little bit gelatinous, this is caused by the xanthan gum at this stage but will not affect the finished cakes.3. Spoon into the tin and bake for around 15-25 minutes or until done. Leave to cool for 10 minutes then turn out onto a cooling rack before leaving to cool completely.4. For the mango, simple combine the sugar with 0.5 cups of water and the rum and bring to a simmer. Place the prepared mango in the syrup and poach until tender. Serve with some of the syrup poured on the cakes and a dollop of creme fraiche on the side. Garnish with the dessicated coconut if desired and enjoy!
Details
Prep time: Cook time: Total time: Yield: 6 cakelets.
For more gluten free bakes and desserts, check out these from other bloggers:
- Flourless Chocolate Cake from Tinned Tomatoes
- Angel Cake from Casa Costello
- Chocolate and Chestnut Torte from Franglais Kitchen
- Pumpkin Pie from Rough Measures
- Lemon, Lavender and Almond Cake from family-friends-food
- Popping Candy Brownies from emily’s recipes and reviews
Disclaimer: I received the Ruffled Medallion Cakelet pan as a gift from Nordic Ware and was not expected to review it or write about it at all. I did because, quite simply, I think their products are awesome! I also received some Lucy Bee Coconut Oil for free to review. As always, I wasn’t expected to write a positive review and all views expressed are my own personal opinions.
They look tasty, I love Rice Flour, it has a lovely texture so I imagine these are lovely to eat!
Thank you. I've not had much experience with rice flour except from mixing it with sesame oil and brushing on top of tiger bread, but these cakes had a great texture so I'll definitely use it again.
Oops first comment disappeared- hope I don't duplicate. Thanks so much for the mention. Your cakelets look divine – so cute x
Nope, only one! I really love this tin… As you say, they are so cute!
So many people are going gluten free and this is just a fabulous looking recipe – looking fabuloso!
They sure are and I always feel very sorry for them as the delicious cakes are dished out and they have a dry claggy sponge instead. It's time we changed all that 🙂
My last comment disappeared! These look great, love the idea of a rum spiked syrup.
Thank you. I really love the syrup and you could do it with loads of different flavours too. Always a great way to turn a cake into a really moist dessert.
Love the look of these! Mango, coconut and rum?! Yes please! Great for making for dessert when gluten free friends are round for dinner.
I'm definitely making these again whenever I have gluten free friends over, or maybe even for friends that can have gluten because they are so tasty.
Love the look of these – I'm terrible at gluten-free baking, maybe this is the way to go though!
Thanks Craig. I think a lot of people are terrible at gluten free baking because they think you can just chuck a different type of flour into a normal cake recipe (and I'm guilty of this myself!). The trick is to make something that compliments the qualities of the other flour instead, so that's what I tried to do with this recipe. I'm glad you liked them.
They are gorgeous, I love the baking tin. They look moist and nice, the combination of flavors sounds absolutely divine! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Thanks Marie. Would love to hear if you give it a go. 🙂
Lovely tin, and the flavours sound amazing!
Thanks Lucy. I love these Nordic Ware tins; they do half the hard work for you in making it look good.
These look lovely Kevin! I like the addition of rice flour too – great for making them GF-free.Glad to see you are jumping on the coconut bandwagon too 🙂
Thanks Stuart. Rice flour adds a great flavour to this as well as making it gluten free.
These look lovely! I always use rice flour in shortbread so it's great to have another recipe for it 🙂
Thanks for the link! Helen x.
Definitely. It's always good to have a variety of recipes for one ingredient or you end up with half-used out of date packets in the cupboard which is never good!
what would happen if i wee to omit xanthan gum? thanks
The xanthan gum takes the role that gluten would usually in a wheat flour. It binds the ingredients together to stop them from becoming crumbly. It also absorbs and holds on to some of the moisture from the recipe. I think it would work without it but just be careful and watch out for the crumble and reduce the coconut milk a little.
Excellent reminder that our power blenders can be used to make rice and grain flours. I did similar in the loan Thermomix I had a couple of years back, but I couldn't justify buying one as I already had a food processor, microwave (for steaming), slow cooker and a blender. I did miss that aspect when I sent it back though, as the blender I used to use before Froothie was powerful but not enough to make flour!
Where do u get xanthan gum from?
If that's the role of this ingredient – can we instead use chia seeds? Mill it together with rice perhaps??