I had a craving for carrot cake recently. One of my sisters created a delicious carrot cake recipe years ago. Her version uses soured milk along with vegetable oil, which gets rid of the oiliness that some carrot cakes suffer from. Her recipe also features raisins and orange rind and is topped with cream cheese icing. It is by far my favourite carrot cake.
But this post is not about that recipe, exactly. This post is about what happens when you bake when you are tired…
I made this at the end of a long week. I had a clear evening, a clean kitchen and all of the ingredients. I threw it together quickly, cleaned up and then sat down to relax as it baked. I realized, twenty minutes after I had put it into the oven, I had forgotten to put in the baking soda and baking powder. This concerned me, as gluten-free cakes do need help with rising. However, I couldn’t face the thought of the mess involved in taking the hot batter out of the oven, trying to transfer it from the pans, adding in the leavening, cleaning the pans and then starting the process all over again. As well, twenty minutes in to the baking time, messing with the batter might do more harm than good. So it will be flat, I thought. Oh well. It will still taste good.
I was right—the cake that came out was flat. I let it cool and then iced it. It did taste good but there was something odd about the texture.
The next day I realized that not only had I left out the leavening powders, I had completely messed up the flour ratio. Instead of using a small amount of tapioca flour and potato starch to a larger amount of rice flour, I had, in my tiredness, put in way more tapioca flour than I should have.
However, even after all of that, it still tasted good. I do plan, at some point, to post the full recipe, after I have made a successful gluten-free version of it.
A Flour By Any Other Name 