I’ve been waiting for an excuse to try them, and since we were going to be away on my son’s birthday, that seemed to be the perfect to make the chocolate cake and take it along with us to my mother’s house.
In Learning to Bake Allergen-Free I include an entire chapter on adapting gluten-free baking mixes with allergen-free substitutions to make some delicious baked goods. In this case, I decided to stay as true to the mix as possible, to give it a good road test.
The only added ingredient I needed to substitute for was the eggs – instead of three eggs, I used ¾ cup of applesauce. The other added ingredients were oil and water – easy!
This was the result:
The first thing I noticed was how flat the resulting cake was. Certainly with the eggs it would have fluffed up more, but I wondered – was this meant for a single layer cake? No, the directions clearly expect you to use two rounds or one 9 by 13-inch pan.
I would compare this to Gluten-Free Pantry’s chocolate cake, or King Arthur Flour’s Gluten-Free chocolate cake (two of my favorites), so I took a closer look at the labels. The Gluten-Free Pantry mix – intended for a single layer cake – weighs 425 grams. The King Arthur Flour mix – intended for a double layer cake – weighs 624 grams. The Better Batter mix is 517 grams – right smack in the middle of the other two.
Next time, I would make this mix differently – I would most likely choose a medium-sized baking pan (8 by 10-inch), instead of the 9 by 13-inch pan. This would result in a cake that is about the thickness I would expect. The other change I would make is to add chocolate hemp milk instead of the water. I think this would give the mix a nice flavor.
Have you tried Better Batter mixes? What do you think?
3 comments:
curious - why didn't you choose to use the recommended sub on the box of the pureed black beans?
I have used both the black beans and my own tweak of white beans (no beany taste compared to black beans) and the cake thickness is awesome.
If you write us at contact@betterbatter.org we'll be happy to let you have another go free on us, if you'd like to try our suggestion :-)
Naomi, thanks for pointing out that the package does have a vegan suggestion to use black beans, while I chose another route.
no problem at all! and the offer still stand ;-)
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