Date, Fig and Almond Cake with Sea Salt {Gluten-Free} | Adventures in Cooking (2024)

FAQs

Why is my gluten free cake falling apart? ›

TOO CRUMBLY. If your baking is falling apart once baked this can be because you have used the wrong egg replacer, or not enough of an egg replacer. You want to make sure your egg replacer is acting well as a binding agent and binding all the ingredients together to give a firm result.

Thought to have Arab roots, Spanish fig cake originated as peasant fare and was eaten by country folk who relied on it for fuel while working the fields, and it soon became a staple. Fig cake was also an effective way to preserve figs of any given harvest for the winter months and beyond.

Gluten-free batters need to rest.

This is remediated by resting your batter for about 30 minutes so the flour has time to hydrate and soften. Resting is especially important for gluten-free baked goods that have a shorter bake time, like pancakes and cookies.

Gluten-free baked goods often benefit from extra liquid to hydrate the flour blends, eliminate grittiness, and achieve a less dense or dry texture. However, it's very important to drive off this extra moisture during baking, or you'll wind up with a gummy texture. The best way to do this? Longer baking times.

If you can't get your hands on ripe figs, stir 1 cup of chopped dried figs right into the batter in their place. Other sliced seasonal fruits like persimmons, cherries, or pears also work well as a substitute.

Figs are packed with all the good things: Fiber to support healthy digestion, relieve constipation and improve heart health by lowering blood pressure and cholesterol. Essential nutrients like copper, potassium, manganese, magnesium and vitamin K.

The highest levels of fig per capita consumption was registered in Morocco (X kg/year), followed by Algeria (X kg/year), Turkey (X kg/year), Egypt (X kg/year) and Iran (X kg/year), while the average per capita consumption of fig was estimated at X kg/year in 2015.

If the flour you are using doesn't already contain xanthan gum, combining quarter of a teaspoon to every 200g/7oz of gluten-free flour will help to improve the crumb structure of your bake. You can also use guar gum or a combination of the two.

If your gluten free cake is crumbly but not dry, did you check to ensure your gluten free flour blend had a binder like xanthan gum, guar gum, or psyllium husk? Gluten free baking needs a binder to help hold it together. Many premade blends contain this, but others do not.

The oven temperature is too high. If the top crust forms and sets before the cake has finished rising, the middle will try to push through the crust as it continues to bake, causing it to crack and possibly dome. Check your oven with an oven thermometer and reduce the temperature accordingly if it is running hot.

Can you overbeat a gluten-free cake? ›

Over-mixing can beat too much air into the batter and cause it to collapse. Less is more with mixing a gluten free cake batter — try to blend the batters for less than one minute.