My Gluten free Birthday Cake

A gluten free recipe by my brother Francesco

A few weeks ago I went back home to Italy to celebrate my birthday with my family.

I asked my brother Francesco to help me out with the gluten free birthday cake as he has more skills than I do when it comes down to cooking. I have always learnt a lot from him. For my birthday we made a three layers gluten free sponge cake with vanilla cream, covered with chocolate and topped with red berries. It was so delicious!

I am very happy to share the recipe with you. It can take some time to make it but it is not difficult and completely worth it.

INSTRUCTIONS

SPONGE CAKE

Pre-heat the oven to 175° C

Melt the butter in a pot over low heat; put it aside and let it cool down.

Divide the sugar in 2 parts.

Separate the eggs whites from the yolks.

Beat the whites until stiff peaks.

Keep beating and add the sugar.

In a separate bowl mix the yolks with other half of the sugar, add the salt and mix until you get a creamy consistency.

Add the milk, and keep mixing it. Add the flour and the yeast.

Add the hazelnuts, the cinnamon, and in the very end, the eggs white. Mix very delicately.

Pour the batter into two tins and cook for about 45 minutes.

Let the cakes cool down for at least 20 minutes before taking them out of the tins.

Cut each cake in two halves.

Now we have four layers where we will stuff the cream.

CREAM

Pour the milk into a pot and bring it to 60° C, add the vanilla bean without the seeds, turn off the heat, cover the pot and let it rest for 3 hours or, even better, for a whole night.

Remove the vanilla bean, put the pot back on the stove over low heat, add the fresh whole one. Milk has to get to 80° C temperature. Be careful, it doesn’t have to boil.

At the same time, take a large bowl, add the egg yolks, the sugar and beat them.

Add the rice starch, and the corn starch.

When the milk gets to the right temperature, add the other ingredients previously mixed together.

Stir until you reach a creamy consistency.

Put it aside and pour 300 gr of cream into a separate bowl.

Add the dark chocolate and mix until  the chocolate is completely melted.

Let the vanilla and chocolate cream cool down completely.

Put them to rest in the fridge for one night.

The day after take the creams out of the fridge along with the butter.

Wait until they reach room temperature.

Mix the dark chocolate and the butter together.

The cream and the butter have to have the same temperature when you mix them.

We will use the vanilla cream to stuff the cake and the chocolate one to cover it.

We added red berries op top to decorate.

Hope you’ll enjoy this cake as much as we did and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to send a message.