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If I asked you what your favourite cake was, what would you answer? Mine would be this cake.

I was asked to make a gluten-free cake for my younger sister’s birthday this weekend, and I instantly thought of a white chocolate cake; I have wanted to make this ever since I saw the recipe on Arla’s site. The reason behind my instant infatuation was the fact that the cake base was made out of marzipan and I have been so sure that it would work well as a gluten-free cake base - it did.

Trust me on this.

The base consists of marzipan, cocoa powder and eggs, all of these ingredients make for a cake that is incredibly succulent, soft and chewy - I really can not praise this base enough. I promise you that you will not feel sorry about the fact that you can not eat gluten when eating this cake, unless you absolutely hate marzipan, but that is a different story.

White chocolate is the main ingredient in the filling, giving just enough sweetness to the cake without being overpowering. Whipped cream makes the filling lighter and yolks add some of that round, full flavour humans seem to crave in their food.

Please, feel free to adjust the recipe, use dark chocolate for example, if you do not feel like eating white chocolate.

I used some passion fruit on top of the cake, but I think some other kind of fruit or berries would work better, maybe strawberries would be the best choice? Passion fruit is also not the prettiest decoration for a cake in my opinion, although it did sparkle nicely in the candlelight; a quality the Libra birthday girl appreciated.

The recipe is easy to follow.

A gluten-free white chocolate cake recipe

Recipe originally from Arla

serves 8, takes approximately 30 minutes to make, and has to be frozen overnight (or at least for 4 hours)

The cake base

-300 grams or 10,5 ounces marzipan

-2 tbls cocoa powder

-2 eggs

The filling

-200 grams or 7 ounces white chocolate (this needs to be good quality made with cocoa butter, if possible)

-1 lemon, the zest and 2 tbls of the juice

-3 dl or 1,2 cups whipping cream

-2 egg yolks

For the topping and decoration

The original recipe says to use 3 passion fruits, but I think some berries for example would work better. Also, some pureed mango would probably be good too.

Heat your oven to 175 C or 350 F.

Line a springform pan with some baking paper; mine was 22 cm in diameter. Grease the paper with butter.

Place the marzipan, eggs and cocoa powder into a bowl or food processor and mix until smooth.

Pour the batter into the pan and make sure it is even.

Bake the cake at the lowest level in your oven for 20 minutes. Then let it cool and remove from the pan. Wash the pan and place the cooled cake base back into it.

Start making the filling after you have put the cake into the oven.

Chop the chocolate and place it into a bain-marie (or a microwave oven) so that it melts. This is my version of a bain-marie, I can never be bothered to take a bowl and place it on top of a saucepan, so I use a regular deep plate.  Place the saucepan on medium heat and make sure that the plate does not touch the water, stir the chocolate every once in a while and you should have no problems.

As for microwaves; I do not have one and do not want one, they are the devil’s work because they make food taste so bad. Some claim that they can not taste the microwave, but I don’t believe them.

Wash the lemon well, take the zest and 2 tbls of lemon juice and set aside.

Whip the cream and set aside.

Separate the egg yolks and whip them.

Add the lemon zest and juice to the egg yolks.

Whisk the melted white chocolate into the egg yolk mixture.

Separate the whipped cream into three equal portions and whip them into the mixture one by one.

Pour the mixture on top of the cake base into the pan and make sure that it is even.

Wrap the pan in some plastic wrap and then some foil; the foil is important since it prevents any freezing damage from happening.

Place the cake into a freezer and let it freeze overnight (or at least for four hours). Take the cake into room temperature 30 minutes before serving and place the fruit or berries on top of it.

Christmas is coming closer, although it seems far away, and me being the Christmas nutter that I am, I have already started to prepare.

I love everything about Christmas.

In my family Christmas is a big deal, much to my pleasure, and I am going to be the one in charge of the desserts; they have to be gluten-free, tasty and easy to make. I have decided to try some recipes in advance and so, if everything goes according to plan, I will blog about mostly desserts at the moment.

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It is apple season here.

I have been eating apples almost everyday - local apples are the best, maybe it is the cold winters and the light during the nights in summer, but I have never had better apples than the ones growing here. Therefore I embrace this time of year and eat locally grown apples as much as I can.

Even the scent of them is intoxicating and heavy; I often walk around shops trying to decide what fruit or vegetable to buy and I always smell them and rely on that one sense to pick up the best tasting ones.

Foreign winter apples do not have any kind of scent compared to these seasonal, tiny and perhaps a little bit bruised local apples.

I wish locally produced food was more appreciated here in Finland; that is certainly not the case at the moment, even though it is much the trend elsewhere. There are many benefits to eating mainly seasonal and local, but the most important thing would be - for me at least - the fact that it tastes, oh, so good.

We just recently got locally produced organic pork; you just can not compare the taste of it to the meat that has been produced with factory farming. The price was also much cheaper than when bought from a supermarket, we paid 4,50 euros per kilogram, when the price is twice that at a supermarket for factory farmed pork meat. It was also nice to be able to see the pigs and have some sort of connection to the food I eat.

It has been many meals now with apples and pork; I still feel that this is the most delicious of meals and I am ever so grateful for the opportunity to eat like this.

Apples boiled with hard cider

I came to make this dessert one evening when we had made some pork chops with cider and there was some left; I was surprised with the intensity of flavour and delighted, this has since become a favourite for us, and it works well as sweet dessert or as a side dish, especially with five spice flavoured pork.

The sugar should be left out if this is used as a side dish for something savoury; as for the cider, I would imagine that using some sharp apple juice might also work, but I have not tried it. If you are into fat-free cooking, just lose the butter, I do not think that the flavour will suffer much. A dairy-free margarine would work just as well as butter.

Make sure your cider is gluten-free if you are celiac.

Apples boiled with cider recipe

serves 4, takes around 15-20 minutes to make

-6 small apples or 4 medium sized

-1-2 cups hard apple cider

-2 heaping tablespoons of butter

-small pinch of salt if you are using unsalted butter

-1 teaspoon vanilla extract or vanilla

-0,4 cup, 1 dl, sugar, I would recommend replacing a part of this with brown sugar or muscovado sugar, or then using 0,2 cup maple syrup. It will taste better than with just white sugar.

Heat a (cast iron) pan on medium heat.

Slice those apples and place on the pan with the butter.

After the apples have gone a little bit soft add the sugar, wait until the sugar has melted and then add the cider.

Make sure the apples are covered with the cider and then let it reduce.

The apples are done when there is only a small amount of the sugar and cider mixture left along with the apples; you don’t want to make this too dry.

Serve hot with some good quality vanilla or cinnamon ice cream.

Tosca apples

This recipe is a nice substitute for a more traditional apple crumble, I think so.

As for variations, replace the butter with some dairy-free margarine for a vegan and casein free dessert. The amount of sugar and also the kind of sugar used can be played with; if you like using just brown sugar or maple syrup, then try it, also some other kind of sweeteners might work.

Tosca apples recipe

serves 4 and takes about half an hour to make

-100 grams almond slivers

-6 small apples or 4 medium sized ones

-1-2 tbls vanilla sugar

-100 grams butter

-1 dl, 0,4 cup, sugar, or 0,2 cup maple syrup, I really recommend trying this with maple syrup

-2 tbls muscovado sugar

-small pinch of salt if you are using unsalted butter

-1 tbls cinnamon

Preheat oven to 170 C 340 F.

Slice the apples.

Take a small saucepan and place it on medium heat. Place the butter in it along with the sugar and let them melt together.

Take a baking pan, or a cast iron pan, grease it and place the apples in it. I would recommend using a cast iron pan here, if you have one of those where you can take the handle off.

Place the apples on the pan and sprinkle some vanilla sugar on them along with the cinnamon.

Sprinkle the almond slivers on top and then pour the sugar and butter mixture on top of the almond slivers.

Bake for 15-20 minutes depending on your oven, the almond slivers should be slightly browned, just slightly, and the apples should be soft when this is done.

Serve with some ice cream.

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