Can you really make a gluten-free angel cake? I'll be telling you all in today's podcast from gluten-free Angela, and I'm gonna talk about a few things that are quite retro, I suppose today. yesterday I was in the kitchen and I decided to make an angel cake, and I don't know if. You remember this from your childhood days, that beautiful white, pink and yellow layers with this lovely little white billowy filling, and it was an angel layer cake and they were pretty cheap. You know, they're in on every buffet. you bought them in a block wrapped in plastic, you cut them into slices and everybody loved them. So this was my, uh, and it's actually one my husband's favorite cake. So I came across a recipe, I thought, right, I'm gonna have a go at this. And I did make it yesterday. And interestingly, I actually found the cake too light. The, the recipe that I had, I found it was so, so light, beautiful., but it just didn't have that, that feeling, that feel of the angel there. Cake. and I thought, I'm gonna have to bake this again. Make it again. But what I'm gonna do is not just gonna use the gluten-free flour. I'm gonna blend that with some almond flour. Now, just to explain there is, a bit of a difference between, it is really interesting, isn't it? When we have conversations with our non gluten-free friends say, oh yeah, you can make, flour, almond flour, but just grinding almonds and well, that makes ground almonds which we use. in certain things which need to really hold moisture, but sometimes you don't want something really holding moisture, which is why the almond flour, goes through several processes and, um, there's even defatted almond flour out there. Uh, it's normally about 15 pounds a bag. I get it from my local health food shop. It's really good if you're doing anything like, uh, a pastry where you want a crispness. it's really good in cakes as well. Uh, I find that when you want it to react like a flower, it's really good and gives that cake feel rather than a ground almond feel. So, that's a little. Extra bit of information when it comes to, um, almonds and it's not quite as simple as it as just grinding some almonds that you've got. Especially when you get a bag of them that are reduced. If you are walking in the, um, health food shop and they say All these are reduced, I always buy them. I always do, and I just buy all of them off the shelf and I make lots and lots and lots of amazing things, however, We're talking about, making a cake and this Angel Layer cake. I just found it a little bit light. I like a cake to have a little bit of, not too, sort of dissolve in my mouth. I'll like it to so that I can act chew and I can feel the crumbs, et cetera. However, I made this Angel Layer cake. My mom absolutely loves it. She had one big piece. In the afternoon, about half past three, four o'clock with a nice cup of tea. And then after we'd had dinner, I said, do you want some cheesecake, homemade cheesecake? And she said, no, I'm all right. Thank you. And then she says, can I have something to eat some something sweet? I said, course you can. Do you want a piece of cake or, yeah, she polished it off again. So this recipe my mom absolutely loves, so I'll probably have to make two in future. One for me, one for her. And the thing that we don't often realise, is when it comes to an angel layer cake, that filling in the middle is not just standard buttercream. It will be an Italian meringue buttercream or something interesting to give it that lovely flavor. And, and I suddenly realized when I was making this yesterday, oh my word there is so much work goes into an angel, their cake. And it was, it was lovely. the one thing that I would say, is when it comes to that pink layer. I just don't like flavorings. I really don't. Uh, cuz they always think I can taste that. It's a, a flavor. So I thought, next time what I'm gonna have to do is go, have you seen those? Dehydrated, raspberry crumbs, and I thought that's what I need to do in that pink layer. And just put some dehydrated raspberries in it. And I know people will look and they, oh, there's little specks in there. However, it will just give that sour sharpness of raspberries rather than that flavouring. um, because you've got to be careful when, when you're starting to put things like rass in, it's just too wet and you really have to start combining, uh, changing recipes. But the, the lovely thing about this recipe that I did yesterday was that the bottom layer was vanilla. And you know me, I can't do vanilla, can I? So it had to be changed to Tonka, the middle one. Raspberry and I actually had strawberry flavoring in there and I used that and I thought, why do I ever have this? I have it for when I make cakes for my niece who loves that flavoring And then the top layer was a lemon and, and I thought, do you know what? We don't realize that it's just a hint of lemon in that. And altogether it was lovely and the thing that I absolutely loved doing. Put it on the top. Just put in a thick white icing on there, which is just icing, sugar and some, and some water. And then you do another little bit. That's that you put pink in and then you draw lines. I, I, um, I did four lines on the top of this angel layer cake and then just, um, used a little, a cake tester where you just drag it so you get that V-shape on the top, and it was lovely and, and I realized afterwards. We've really lost that art to put in that beautiful icing on top, haven't we? And I think in the seventies, eighties, we always had that on top of cakes. And I remember doing just the most simple, simple, simple orange cake. And you just make a, a standard, Victoria sponge, you don't even have to layer. It's so good. Put put. Rin the zest of one or two oranges in, I always say put in more because then it isn't a sweet taste of orange. It's a powerful taste of orange. and then on the top, the only thing that you put on the top is ice and sugar that you've mixed with the juice of the orange. So it's still thickish and it just goes so beautiful and glossy. And then just put a little bit of the, you know, the, the orange zest on the top as well. I always tend to put the orange zest on after, so I make sure that I put the icing on there because then you can really see the beautiful orange and just have that with a cup of tea. It's one of the most simplest things I realized that that icing sugar that we have on top, we've got so into having different buttercreams, different ganaches, uh, the list is endless. And there was something magnificent, absolutely magnificent about putting that on top. So I invite you to make something and just put a simple icing sugar topping on there. It's really not overly sweet. I was surprised at how little sweetness there was there because it's only the thinnest layer that you put on, and it gives this beautiful, glossy finish to your beautiful cake. and I really, really enjoyed it. And this angel layer cake, I looked at it and I thought, wow, that's really quite impressive. I have to say I didn't it. I would normally even it up It looked a little bit as if it was leaning one way, but who cares? This is a homemade cake. And the other thing I didn't realize was it was so light it because it was a simple recipe. um, Genoese sponge, and then what you did was you put it into three bowls, applied a little bit of lemon coloring to one and a bit of lemon zest, then my tonka to the other one, and then the, the pink and, flavor into the other one. Then you put them in three low tins and put 'em on top of each other, which I did. However, this is the thing that you have to do. you as soon as you take them out of the oven, you have to get them out of those pans. If not, what will happen is your sponge will just, constrict and you'll end up with wobbly edges. Which is what I did. I hadn't left them there for about five minutes. I thought, right, I'll take them out now and put them on a cooling rack, but that was too late. So as soon as you take them out of the oven, that's what you need to do and you will end up with perfectly straight sides that haven't started to go in on themselves. Um, but this cake was just lovely. However, when I suddenly realized I had to make an Italian meringue buttercream, I thought, oh no. Like, where's my, my thermometer? Because it, it's really interesting when you make this Italian meringue buttercream, you have to get the temperature of your boiling sugar and water, right? And whenever you think it's hot enough, I, I looked at it and I thought, right, that must be hot enough now. And it needed to get to 120 degrees, it was only about a hundred and five. Now, I would normally, without that have thought, right, must be hot enough now take it off. But you really have to keep it going, putting the temperature up and up and up and up and up until you get to 120 degrees. So anyway, that's a little bit of a thing, but just get yourself a little temperature, gage, uh, they really do come in useful when you have to do something like this. And I made this buttercream and I thought, um, well, it's nice. However, I think a buttercream just with a butter or you know, a, a block. Marge is actually just as nice. Um, Because you can put vanilla in it, et cetera. so it's entirely up to you if you're making a buttercream, make it pretty thick. I tend to use to make buttercream with butter, with double cream and with the icing sugar, which is why they're never that sweet. A lot of people do put in, butter and icing sugar, and that's where it gets pretty, pretty, um, sweet. But as soon as you put in that double cream with it, it's fine. just a little point, if you are using there, uh, there are, uh, vegan. or dairy free products on the market that are double cream. Just be careful because a lot of the time they don't whip like others. They, you know, you can't whip them into something that will hold structure. Uh, they will fall, but they taste lovely. So just be careful because if you put that into the mix with making, a buttercream, you may think this is just still wet and it, that will be the reason why. As I said, they taste great. I use them, but they're quite hard to, whip up. So anyway, uh, I made this cake and we've only got two pieces left now. my mom will have both of them today, so I'm gonna be making something else for her for tomorrow. So who knows what I'm gonna be creating, but I made this, this cheese cake. and this cheesecake was, I used some the base pre gluten-free. We never made our own bases, did we? So I, I don't do that now. And I had a mixture of some shortbread rounds, some ginger cookies. And some ginger biscuits that were in a little four pack and I just mixed them together. Um, so I, and I put in about 75 100 grams of, butter and probably 150 grams or 200 grams, something like that if the, the Crush biscuits, um, just melted the butter, put 'em together, and then put them in lined a little, probably like a seven inch square, cake tin. Just lined it. Put those in, put it in the in the fridge. And then my cheesecake is just the simplest cheesecake ever. I had two tubs of good quality. cream cheese. Now, I've spoken about this before. Sometimes I will have, longly farm from Yorkshire because their cream cheese is fantastic. I really wanted to indulge in this, so I actually went to, um, a little deli that I know in Radlett and I went in there and bought their cream cheese, which is really quite thick. I tend to stay away from the supermarket style ones because they, they are made to be really lovely and creamy. I like the sharpness that you get. In what item? Traditional old-fashioned, old school cream cheese. And when I was young. when I was little, cream cheese came in a little. It was like a tiny pack butter size with silver paper on the outside and you would peel it off and it would crumble, and that was the Philadelphia. It would crumble and it was sharp and sour, and that's how it always was. Whereas now it is very smooth and very light in taste. So that's why I like to get the traditional homemade style stuff. Um, and it just is so much sharp. So I use a couple of packs of that. If you can't get that, then do use a supermarket brand, but make sure it's a full fat one and not a low fat one. Low fat one. And cheesecake. Sorry. No, and what you want to do is less mixing is. So two tubs of, of that, I think they're about 300 grams each. And I put in about a hundred mil of double cream and one large tablespoon of icing sugar. And I just mixed it slowly in the mixer. But you could do this by hand. and what you don't want to do is whip it in any way. You don't want air getting in there, you just want to mix it. And then I put about a third of a Tonka bean in there, shave Tonka bean. That was it. Um, so then I take the base out of the fridge, put that topping on top, and then just level it and put it back in the fridge. And that will last for a good few days in the fridge, honestly. But that's not where we finish. Now, with that cheesecake, you could do an array of anything. So some people love, and my dad always loved Mandarin cheesecakes, so if you've got a little tin of Mandarin segments, just put a few segments on that cheesecake or on a piece of cheesecake my dad would always look for that type of cheesecake. And it's amazing how few supermarkets you can get it in if you eat gluten. Um, like he, he's fine. He can have gluten. but for me, I could never have that. So just being able to put in those on, or if you like berries, like raspberries or, or, um, some cherries. Anything that you'd like on top and frozen stuff is great as well. Every single freezer out there in every single supermarket and even in our farm shops have berries. And all you have to do is take them out half an hour before and they will be, they'll still be chilled, but they should have really defrosted quite a lot. You can put those on the top. What about those pie fillings? Princes pie filling. And I know the last time I, I looked, I do look on the ingredients. So the cherry one has been gluten-free for years and years and years. It's great. Can, you remember going out when you were looking, you used to have the cherry cheesecake and it had cherries on top. Oh my word. Like, that's all it is. And it's got a beautiful taste to it. Or you could go to your health, food shop, shop, or, uh, one of these amazing. European style, supermarkets where there's all these amazing ingredients that, sour cherries. That is the world of sour cherries. When you look across Europe, oh my word, uh, they are delicious on a cheesecake. Oh, I'm gonna talk about something unusual now. you see in gluten-free world, we know, don't they, that there is a sort of biscuit that comes with most coffees that we can't have. It's called a biscoff. Um, and for anyone who used to eat gluten, they were pretty nice biscuits, weren't they? But hey, ho, we can't have the damn things. And well, life would be good with a little bit of cinnamon and, and pazazz so. When I went up to a cafe up in Leeds, that is a 100% gluten-free bakery and cafe. They had something near the till and it was called not Biscoff, Biscoff and this, not Biscoff Biscoff is a gluten-free equivalent of Biscoff, so bless her. Mina, the founder of Wildcraft Bakery makes her own biscuits, gluten-free biscuits of course, because their entire factory is a hundred percent gluten-free. So she did that and she made these biscuits and then she created this not biscoff biscoff, and she had to get other people to taste it. Santa, it tastes like biscoff yet. So what I did was I just put about four spoonfuls. Not biscoff biscoff on the top of my, cheesecake and with a fork started to swirl through those blobs. So it made this beautiful pattern on top of the cheesecake. And then I got my gold glitter out and sprinkled the gold glitter on top. And that was. The most amazing cheesecake. So simple. So simple, so simple. But the result was amazing. Now, for anybody who can have gluten, all of our friends, they just won't realize the importance of this. But being able to have a beautiful cheesecake with a lovely, crispy base, delicious, thick, incredible cheesecake, not overly sweet. And this not biscoff biscoff on top. It was just, I have felt as if I've been in heaven every time I've sat down for a piece of this cheesecake. So anyway, I, I love, love, love cheesecake. I will always love cheese cheesecake, and I love Mina. For creating this little pot of goodness. So I do think at the moment if you want the not biscoff biscoff, you have to go to Leeds to get it. Um, and I was due to go up there this week and I haven't been able to. so I need to go up at the weekend and get a couple of jars because this stuff is incredible. Now, you could do all sorts with this, but hey, there is not Biscoff Biscoff out there, and I am so, so, so, so, so happy that Mina's done this. So I've made my cheesecake, I've made this angel layer cake, and I also had lots of egg whites left because I, I made something else with lots of egg, egg yolks, so I had. Egg white's left. So what else do I make? I make Tonka meringues and Tonka meringues are quite, quite amazing. You just need egg white. You mix it with a certain amount, I think per egg, is it about 70 grams of sugar? Caster sugar that I normally put in. I did make it with less, but I didn't like the results. So if you're gonna have meringue, just do do it normally. And. either some cream of tartar that you add in there or some corn flour or something to stabilize it because it's so easy for them to, go a little bit sloppy. If not, or not have that crunch and firmness. But when I, whenever I have egg whites left, I just bake meringues and I have lots of big tins. You know, you know when you were little. He used to go to, you know, if you came home from school, your mom had been baking and they would be in the tin, the baking tin. There were always scones in there. There were always like certain things in there. If, if I went to my grandma and grandad's, there were always like tins with the lemon tarts and Jam Tarts in tins with the chocolate cake tins with the, um, sausage rolls and tins with the, coconut tarts in. So that's what would happen. And I just have these tins, the normal cake tins and I, I put quite big meringues in there. And whenever we want a dessert and we're not quite sure what to have, or if people just arrived, I could get these huge meringues out. They're look incredible open with that. I will open a tin of the cherry pie filling, stick that on the side, and a little bit of cream or a little bit of ice cream and people will go, wow. Uh, because these things are huge, and just put a little bit of glitter over the top of the tonka bean meringue. So that's what I do so, so often. so that's what I've made over the last few days. I need to bake something else again today or tomorrow because there's hardly anything left. And, and I was thinking, do you know what the one biscuit that I used to love, that I absolutely used to love and I haven't actually seen anywhere to buy, certainly not commercially. In, in, in the shops are the Viennese whirls. You know those viennese whirls which just melt in the mouth and you've got a little bit of buttercream and a little bit of beautiful jams. So that's my little challenge for myself today. Now, when you are making something like Vietnamese worlds, you want them to be like a shortbread and in gluten-free world, cornflower, that mix of cornflower to give it that shortness, I think will be key in the blend. So I've got one recipe that I've found. I'm gonna make that and I'm also gonna make my own. Cuz what I tend to do is I'll look at a recipe and think, mm, probably need to tweak that. Um, cuz I think I need to get more, um, lightness into it. so it doesn't disintegrate, but there is a lightness there. Um, and who knows, I may have to put some, some, another type of flour in, but I try and make it the only thing that I, I always use ready mixed flour. and if I need to compliment it, I might put in an almond flour, I might, um, you know, put in corn flour, but that's really it. so we're gonna have a look and see, but that's, That's it for today. And I know that they're al always the, the viennese whirls that have the jam in it, and then you have the Viennese fingers, don't you? And those tend to have the chocolate on the end. And I'm, I'm not so much of the chocolate fan, however, I did find some quite incredible chocolate the other day, so who knows? I may have a go at them, but I'm gonna make some of them today, so I will let you know. How my creation goes. Sorry, I've had this blinking flu for about three weeks. I've still got this bit of a cough, but one thing that I would say with Viennese Whirls is restraint is key. what you don't want is too much sweetness out of that filling in the middle and getting that filling right. So I have no idea which filling I'm going to make for them, but there's just something lovely when you bite into them and these things sort of crumble and you always end up with a shower. of, icing sugar, don't you? Going over you and a shower of little crumbs as you bite into this beautiful, beautiful, beautiful Viennese Whirl. So let's see how that goes today. So what are you inspired to bake? What are you gonna be baking this week? Um, and in gluten free world, we can do most things. And I will be back with you next week. So happy baking. You take care of yourself. This is gluten-free, Angela, and see you next week. Bye-bye.