Guest Recipe: Gluten Free Magic Showstopper Celebration Cake by TheGFRedhead

So you may have noticed that, a little while ago, we were making rather a lot of noise about our very own Gluten Free Magic Bake Off. It was an eight week competition which sought out the creme de la creme of free from baking. The final Showstopper Challenge of the contest required our bakers to create a three-tiered celebration cake with our Gluten & Dairy Free Vanilla Sponge Mix.

Hannah, one of the finalists, who runs the fantastic blog TheGFRedhead, produced one of the best gluten free cake recipes. She has very kindly agreed to share her show-stopping recipe with us!

 

GFMBO Three Tier Showstopper Celebration Cake – Raspberry & Coconut, Blueberry & Lime, Cranberry and Orange

The GF Redhead – “Finding my way through a gluten free lifestyle, one biscuit at a time”

Twitter: @TheGFRedhead

“To celebrate all things Bake Off, I decided to take part in this year’s Gluten Free Cake Recipes Magic Bake Off with Delicious Alchemy to practice my gluten free baking skills. Having been diagnosed in April, gluten free baking was still new to me, so the GFMBO was the perfect opportunity for me get my apron on and see what I could come up with in the kitchen!

Whether you are newly diagnosed or not, I would definitely recommend home cooking as a way of overcoming the sometimes daunting task of dealing with coeliac disease – it allows you to experiment and develop your own free-from recipes of your favourite things whilst learning about which foods are safe.

Baking is a great way of treating yourself to some lovely gluten free treats, knowing that they’re home made, free from cross contamination, and cheaper and better portion sized than the shop bought equivalents, so why not give it a try! Have fun, test out some recipes, and enjoy your creations!”

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Gluten Free Cake Recipes: The Basics

Preparation Time: 1 hour

Cooking Time: 1 hour 35 minutes

Assembly and Decoration: 1 hour

Servings: 30-34

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Bottom Tier – 9 inch tin, Raspberry and Coconut

Ingredients

• 2 bags of Delicious Alchemy Vanilla Sponge Mix
• 6 eggs
• 360g butter
• 200g raspberries
• 50ml milk
• 50g desiccated coconut

Method

1. Line two 9 inch cake tins.
2. In a large mixing bowl, add the flour, eggs, butter, milk and coconut.
3. Beat the mixture together in an electric mixer until smooth and fluffy.
4. Fold in the raspberries gently.
5. Split the mixture between the two tins and spread evenly.
6. Bake for 45 minutes until golden brown, and the sponge springs back when touched. You can also check its cooked by using a metal skewer and seeing if the skewer comes out clean when inserted into the middle of the cake.
7. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tins for 5 minutes.
8. After the cake has slightly cooled, remove from the tins and leave to finish cooling while you make the next tier.

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Middle Tier – 7 inch tin, Blueberry and Lime

Ingredients

• 1 bag of Delicious Alchemy Vanilla Sponge Mix
• 3 eggs
• 180g butter
• 160g blueberries
• 1 lime
• 20ml milk

Method

1. Line two 7 inch cake tins.
2. In a large mixing bowl, add the flour, eggs, butter, milk and zest and juice of one lime.
3. Beat the mixture together in an electric mixer until smooth and fluffy.
4. Cut the blueberries in half and gently fold into the mixture.
5. Split the mixture evenly between the two tins and spread evenly.
6. Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown, and the sponge springs back when touched. You can also check its cooked by using a metal skewer and seeing if the skewer comes out clean when inserted into the middle of the cake.
7. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tins for 5 minutes.
8. After the cake has slightly cooled, remove from the tins and leave to finish cooling while you make the next tier.

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Top Tier – 5 inch tin, Cranberry and Orange

Ingredients

• 1 bag of Delicious Alchemy Vanilla Sponge Mix
• 3 eggs
• 180g butter
• 55g dried cranberries
• 1 orange
• 20ml milk

Method

1. Grease and line two 5 inch baking tins.
2. In a large mixing bowl, add the flour, eggs, butter, milk and zest and juice of one orange.
3. Beat the mixture together in an electric mixer until smooth and fluffy.
4. Gently fold in the dried cranberries.
5. Split the mixture between the two tins and spread evenly (you will have enough mixture left over to make a spare one!!)
6. Bake for 20 until golden brown, and the sponge springs back when touched. You can also check its cooked by using a metal skewer and seeing if the skewer comes out clean when inserted into the middle of the cake.
7. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tins for 5 minutes.
8. After the cake has slightly cooled, remove the tins and leave to finish cooling while you make the icing and prepare to assemble the cake.

 

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Assembly and Decoration

Ingredients

• 2 x tubs of soft butter (500g per tub)
• 2 x boxes of icing sugar (500g boxes)
• Vanilla paste
• 20g dessicated coconut
• 1 juice and zest of a lime
• 1 juice and zest of an orange
• 1 punnet of raspberries
• 1 punnet of blueberries
• Icing sugar to sprinkle on the top

Method

1. In a food mixer, mix the two tubs of butter and two tubs of icing sugar until a butter cream icing is formed.
2. Separate the icing out into three separate bowls – one for each layer of cake; 500g for the bottom tier, 300g for the middle tier and 200g for the top tier.
3. In one bowl of icing, flavour with desiccated coconut. In the second bowl, flavour with the zest and small drizzle of juice from the lime. In the final bowl, flavour with orange zest and a small drizzle of orange juice.
4. Meanwhile, prepare your cake stand, and place the bottom layer of the raspberry and coconut cake on it.
5. Fill the piping bag with the coconut icing, and pipe it onto the top of the cake layer.
6. Place the second layer of raspberry and coconut cake on top and gently press it down.
7. Next, place one layer of blueberry and lime cake on top of the previous tier.
8. Whilst you still have the coconut icing in the piping back, pipe some dabs of icing on the overlap of the first and second tier, and then place a raspberry and blueberry on alternate dabs.
9. Wash out the icing bag and re-fill with the lime icing.
10. Pipe the icing onto the blueberry and lime layer of cake and place the second layer on top.
11. Now add one layer of the top tier of the cakes onto the cake.
12. Whilst you still have the lime icing in the piping bag, pipe two circle rows of icing dabs on the overlap of the two layers between the second and third tiers, and place blueberries in between the two rows of icing.
13. Finally, wash the icing bag and re fill with the orange icing and pipe onto the top of the layer of cake.
14. Add the final layer of cake to the top and use the remainder of the icing to ice the top.
15. On the top tier icing, create alternate circle rows of blueberries and cranberries and place a raspberry once you get to the centre of the cake.
16. Lightly dust icing sugar over all of the cake.

I made some homemade ribbon bows and attached them to some wires to push into the layers between the fruit and icing, but you can also buy these ready made from most cake shops, or simply decide on your own final touches!!

We think Hannah’s Showstopper is absolutely stunning!

The flavours complement one another so well, and the decoration is simple, yet oh-so-effective! Make sure to check out her blog, and let us know if you have a go at creating this gluten free masterpiece on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. And for more gluten free cake recipes, stay tuned to our blog!

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