I made the flourless gluten-free lemon pound cake at 24292 today

C

CathyZ

Well-known member
I had to try it because it was such an odd recipe. I have a gluten-free, vegetarian friend who loves a bit of dessert now and again so hey, I said....why not try it.

It is good! It is fragile, not dense like a pound cake so what you could do very successfully is to scoop some into a bowl (while still warm) and serve with a bit of vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt. The flavor is good. Not weird. Try it!

 
Yes, fragile is a good description of a lot of GF items. That gluten is missing

that holds it all together. Every cake/cupcake I have tried has been so dense inside that it looks underbaked. The taste is good, but that dense, almost rawness turns me off.

So you couldn't slice & toast this, or spread with cream cheese I take it?

 
It would crumble if you tried to slice and toast but you could manage by...

slicing and toasting in the oven instead of trying in a conventional toaster. Spreading cream cheese might be tough unless you used the whipped stuff.

Honestly the flavor of this pound cake is really good- it doesn't need anything else added. My friend is nuts over it. The consistency is much less dense than any other GF baked recipes I've tried.

 
I used a loaf pan- it completely filled it but did not flow over the edges.

I ground the almonds in a food processor. I do not know if ground almonds are the same as almond meal or almond flour. The recipe calls for ground almonds.
I prepared the pan before filling- you may want to do that as the batter is quite sticky.

 
Yes. Whole lemons cooked in water until soft and don't pierce at all

Then take out of the water, cut in half to take out any seeds ( I put in a bowl before cutting because juice runs freely when you cut the lemons) and put in food processor to puree

 
I tried this last night with a few extra tweaks. Delicious, but used the wrong pan: a GF-bread pan!

Got home from work, set 2 lemons to simmer for an hour & let them cool. Then I read the directions.

Damn. It was supposed to be 3 lemons. Deseeded the boiled ones and dropped everything into the Vitamix. Pared off the skin of another fresh lemon and squeezed its juice into the Vitamix. Added 1/4 C of the sugar and buzzed until utterly smooth. Then I added the six egg yolks and another 1/4 C of the sugar and buzzed until I had something that tasted awfully close to lemon curd.

I used 2 1/4 C of ground almond meal, 1.5 TBL of baking powder (whisked those two together well and added the eggyolk cream. Blended by hand), then beat the 6 egg whites until frothy. Added 1/2 tsp cream of tartar. Then slowly added the remaining 1/2 C of sugar until shiny with stiff peaks. Whisked 1/3 of this into the almond/yolk mixture and folded in the remaining stiff whites. Ended up with a HUGE bowl of frothiness.

Piled it all the way to the top of a GF-bread pan from King Arthur lined with parchment. This is what we call a "BAD IDEA" in the "we don't know crap" baking business. The raison d'être of a skinnier & taller GF-pan is to give the rising GF bread support so that it can set. Which I totally nullified by using tall pieces of parchment that fell inward under the weight of the batter.

The batter rose another inch and then started to collapse. Final result was a cooked perimeter and a damp middle. If I were going for a delicate and brightly-flavored 4" high lemon trencher, I'd have achieved my goal.

But the taste? Wow. It was really, really good. I need to refine this somehow, but I'm sticking with the 2-boiled + 1 fresh lemon goof-up for the flavor punch it delivered.

 
Marilyn, it has great lemon "punch" with the three boiled lemons

I used a "regular" loaf pan, prepared it with oil. The result was an evenly-browned loaf or cake but it puffed up as it baked then deflated when taken out of the oven. I found the recipe was really good as written.

Let us know if you make it again and what your further tweaks are. Why did you use almond meal as opposed to ground almonds? Is it the same thing?

 
I made Elana's almond muffins and they Did. Not. Collapse! However, they

were terribly dry and boring. We needed to add a serious amount of strawberry jam just to make them edible. I'm guessing if a person is truly GF and can't eat most foods, they would not be as picky as we were.

I hoped--based on that positive, life-affirming, non-collapsing muffin test--that adding "more" almond meal to the lemon cake would help stabilize it.

I was woefully wrong.

http://www.elanaspantry.com/ratio-rally-quick-breads/

 
These cottage cheese & ham breakfast muffins are great

Cottage Cheese and Egg Breakfast Muffins with Ham and Cheddar

(Makes 6 large or 12 small muffins, recipe adapted from Cottage Cheese Muffins at 101 Cookbooks, original recipe by Rose Elliot. You can see step-by-step photos of making cottage cheese and egg muffins if you'd like.)

2/3 cup cottage cheese (I used low-fat cottage cheese)
1/4 cup grated parmesan
1/4 cup white whole wheat flour
2/3 cup almond meal (I used Bob's Red Mill almond meal)
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
4 eggs, beaten
3 T water
1/4 cup finely diced ham (could use turkey ham)
1/2 cup sharp cheddar (I used low-fat sharp cheddar)
2 T sliced green onions

Preheat oven to 400 F.

In mixing bowl, combine cottage cheese, parmesan, white whole wheat flour, almond meal, baking powder, salt, eggs, and water. Mix until well combined, then gently stir in ham, sharp cheddar, and green onions.

Spray silicone muffin cups with non-stick spray or olive oil, or use foil muffin cups. (I would spray those too.) Divide batter between six muffin cups. Bake muffins 25-30 minutes or until lightly browned on top and set. (If you're going to be microwaving, I would bake about 25 minutes, for eating immediately I would use closer to 30 minutes.)

Muffins can be refrigerated and reheated in microwave. Be careful not to microwave too long or they will get tough. (Still have not tried freezing them, I eat them too fast!)

 
interesting about Bob's Red Mill almond flour - which is, of course, what I have 2 lb of smileys/irritated.gif

 
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