Adventures in Gluten-Free Baking

Dan's favorite sweet treat is carrot cake. In our post-celiac era, I've tried a lot of gluten-free carrot cake recipes and found the following fiddling of a recipe I found on www.celiac.com to work out the best. In the accompanying carrot cake action shot you'll note that the frosting is somewhat skimpy, but that's only because I was low on cream cheese at the time.

Carrot Cake Jagareski

4 eggs
2 cups sugar
1-1/4 cups vegetable oil
1-1/4 cups rice flour
1/4 cup potato flour
1/2 tsp. xanthan gum
2 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
4-6 carrots, peeled and grated (about 3 cups) (I use the food processor to speed up grating the carrots and apples and for chopping the nuts)
1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts
3 apples, peeled, cored and grated

Frosting:
2 (8 oz.) pkgs. cream cheese, softened
2 Tbsp. softened butter
3/4 lb. confectioner's sugar
2 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat 2 round layer cake pans with shortening or spray with cooking oil. You can also bake this in an oiled 9 x 13 baking dish.

Beat eggs, gradually adding sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in oil slowly to blend. Sift in dry ingredients. Add chopped nuts and stir well. Mix in carrots, apples and nuts.

Bake 55-60 minutes for layer cake or 45 minutes for 9 x 13 pan. Cool in pan for 10 minutes before turning out onto wire rack. Cool completely before frosting.

Make frosting by beating cream cheese and butter until well blended. Add confectioner's sugar and vanilla and blend well.

This cake is very moist and only lasts two or three days in our household of four.