
My boyfriend had his birthday recently and he wished for a regular sponge cake filled with strawberry jam, bananas and cream mixed with quark (this tastes much better than whipped cream by itself). I’ve wanted to try a sponge cake with potato flour and quinoa flour for some time and so I decided to bake him a birthday cake using those two flours. I also left out the baking powder completely and it turned out better than when using baking powder. From now on I won’t be using it in cakes.
I know that some people use all-purpose flour mixed with potato flour when baking sponge cakes, maybe because it really does add some softness to the cake, so the idea of using potato flour and something else, or just potato flour, in baking wasn’t new. Maybe rice flour and potato flour would also be a good combination in this, but I am partial to quinoa, so I used it this time.
The taste of this cake was just perfect, it just melted in your mouth, and it was incredibly moist and soft. I was surprised at how perfect this turned out; I really recommend trying this kind of a cake, if you miss wheat based baked goods.
There is no milk in the batter, so this would go well for people who can’t tolerate milk and gluten; you can get milk-free whipped cream from most stores.
I baked this cake for almost two hours at 150 Celsius, I do this even with regular wheat cakes; I make sure it’s done without burning this way. For the first hour I make sure not to open the oven so that it does not go flat.

If you don’t like the way the filling is spilling out a bit (like in the above picture), you can use something like agar-agar to make it firm. You just mix the agar-agar (or gelatine) into the fillings (filling) and line the same springform pan you used for baking with cling-film and assemble the cake in it. Leave it in the fridge for a couple of hours.
Gluten-free sponge cake
Use 4 eggs for a small cake, 8 for a big cake and 10 for a really big cake
- the same amount of eggs, sugar and flour (I used 1 part quinoa flour and 1 part potato flour, half and half)
-whipped cream (quark or creme fraiche added to it, I use 2 parts whipped cream and 1 part quark) add some sugar and vanilla according to taste
-fruit, jam or whatever you can think of for the filling
-something liquid to moisten it with
Preheat the oven to 150 Celsius or 300 Fahrenheit.
Measure the eggs and the sugar. Beat them until they are light and fluffy.
Measure the same amount of flour, I used 1/2 part quinoa flour and 1/2 part potato flour, make sure the potato flour is gluten-free. Grease a springform pan and add some flour to it so that the cake does not stick, or just put some baking paper on the bottom of the pan.
Bake at 150 Celsius (300 Fahrenheit) until a toothpick comes out clean. I used 5 small eggs and it took almost 2 hours for the cake to bake.
Slice the cake in half after it has cooled down, moisten it and start adding the fillings.
The recipe with pictures
Measure an equal amount of eggs and sugar.

Beat them until they are light and fluffy.
Measure the same amount of flour, I used 1/2 part quinoa flour and 1/2 part potato flour, make sure the potato flour is gluten-free.

Sift it into the sugar and egg mix.

Fold it in very gently, otherwise the cake will be flat.

Grease a springform pan and add some flour to it so that the cake does not stick, or just put some baking paper on the bottom of the pan.
Bake at 150 Celsius (300 Fahrenheit) until a toothpick comes out clean. I used 5 small eggs and it took almost 2 hours for the cake to bake.
Let the cake cool after baking before you transfer it.

Slice in half very carefully.

Moisten the cake, I like to use Sprite to do this, but almost anything liquid and sweet works here.

Start adding the fillings, or filling if using just one. I used some strawberry jam.

And some mashed bananas, whipped cream mixed with quark (I use 2 parts whipped cream and 1 part quark, creme fraiche would also be a good addition, sweeten this with some sugar and vanilla according to taste) and some mashed peaches.

Moisten the upper part of the cake base and be really careful when putting it on top of the cake, it breaks easily after it has been moistened. If you want to be sure it doesn’t break, you can just leave out the moistening, the fillings will add some moistness anyway.

Add some of the whipped cream and quark on top of the cake, it will be easier to decorate this way.

Decorate the cake.

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linda 04.12.08 at 8:11 pm
Looks delicious! Good tip about adding quark to whipped cream, I’ll try that some time.
naomi 04.13.08 at 11:07 am
That cake looks just incredible! The physallis berries are gorgeous too.
I nominated you for a meme, check out my blog to see the details. It’s a very short one, so quite fun to do and not too much work.
x x x
Ida 04.14.08 at 12:11 pm
that is a good looking cake. it looks very moist!
Emilia 04.15.08 at 5:56 pm
Thanks! The cake was really very delicious.
I think I’ll pass on the meme, it requires too much brain work for me right now, I’ve been down with a flu and I’m not feeling quite right yet, but thanks
Ida 04.25.08 at 8:33 am
These cakes are too good looking, I haven’t eaten my breakfast yet and these make me want to just bake a huge cake and eat it.
miriam 06.25.08 at 7:27 pm
looks and sounds delicious—have you done any baking using agave nectar instead of sugar? i would love to find some recipes with agave.
Emilia 06.26.08 at 10:22 am
No, I don’t use agave, mainly just regular sugar, but you could check out Elana’s Pantry, she has a lot of recipes with agave on her site. http://www.elanaspantry.com/
Hope it helps.
Ida 10.15.08 at 8:34 pm
I made this cake for my birthday, I made tiramisu and lakka cake, I do not know what lakka/hilla/suomuurain is in english, maybe Emilia could tell?
Anyway I made the sponge with half potato and half rice flour. It worked really well. I used some quark. It is wonderfull with hilla.
Here is some photos:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3230/2944581077_9034914a3e_o.jpg
and
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3173/2944581071_40fa84f276_o.jpg
Emilia 10.15.08 at 8:53 pm
Happy birthday Ida
I hope you had a lovely time.
Thanks for posting the pictures, hilla is cloudberry in english, I’m sure the cakes were delicious; cloudberry cake with some quark cream is so very good!
Laurie B. 12.21.08 at 7:24 am
Hi. I am going to try and make this cake for Christmas dessert. What is quark? Thanks!
Emilia 12.22.08 at 8:23 am
Laurie,
Quark is a type of cheese, it is very firm and tart, I use it in sponge cakes to balance out the sweetness, which I find to be too much sometimes with fruit, sweetened cream and jam. You don’t need to use it, you can use just whipped cream, if you want to, or something like mascarpone and whipped cream mixed together.
There’s a blog post here about how to make quark, if you can’t find it.
http://whatsforlunchhoney.blogspot.com/2008/10/quark-recipe.html
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