Gluten Free Almond Cake with Honey Whipped Cream
Gluten-free almond cake topped with a honey whipped cream, honey almond granola, lemon zest and fresh berries!
Every once in a while I partner with my friends over at Purely Elizabeth and they challenge me to make a dessert using healthier ingredients inspired by one of their products. This month’s challenge was incorporating honey almond granola into a cake.
I am by no means a healthy baker and I do not have much experience with using alternative flours, sweeteners or dairy products. This recipe may have taken a few tries before it even looked edible, lol.
How to make gluten free almond cake with almond flour
Making an almond cake was more difficult than I expected. I couldn’t just swap the flour from my classic vanilla cake for almond flour. Almond flour is much more coarse and made up mostly of fat so it contains totally different properties.
I ended up using half gluten-free flour, half almond flour and a tablespoon of cornstarch. Cornstarch is used in cakes when you want to make it lighter, similar to using cake flour. I also added some almond extract to enhance the almond flavor in the cake.
I tried a few different ratios of wet to dry ingredients and ultimately landed on replacing my dairy with extra eggs. Like I said, I’m not a professional at using alternative ingredients because I’m not 100% sure how they affect baked goods in general but this would be my educated guess.
When there is gluten in cakes, it acts as a binding agent, preventing the cake from being too crumbly. The stretchy gluten strands also trap air inside, allowing the cake to rise properly and producing a fluffier cake. Since there is no gluten in this cake, I used extra eggs because they also act as a binding agent and when they’re beaten, they also incorporate air into the batter.
Ok, science class is over. I may be wrong but it worked so who cares, lol.
How to sweeten almond cake
In the spirit of using healthier alternatives I attempted a cake sweetened with honey and/or coconut sugar. I do not recommend changing the recipe to be sweetened with honey because it will affect the consistency of the batter and it will not rise properly.
I’ve sweetened this recipe with coconut sugar but unfortunately since I’m not accustomed to the flavor of coconut sugar, I was disappointed in the flavor. I resorted to using granulated sugar to reach my desired flavor and look for the cake. If you like coconut sugar, you can replace the granulated sugar with 1 ¼ cup of coconut sugar. The color of the cake darkens significantly and you may only need to bake it for 20 minutes instead of 30 minutes.
How to make honey whipped cream
Whipped cream is so easy to make, so easy to mess up and so easy to fix, lol. To make honey whipped cream, just beat the cold heavy whipping cream with the honey until it firms up. If you over-beat it (starts looking kind grainy) just add a touch more of heavy whipping cream, beat it just until it’s fully combined and smooth again.
What toppings to use for almond cake
The almond cake has a bit of a lemon flavor so I used some lemon zest as a topping. I also used Purely Elizabeth Honey Almond Granola for some extra crunch, fresh blackberries and a generous drizzle of honey. There are no wrong answers though; sliced almond, fresh raspberries or powdered sugar would be great toppings as well.
How to store almond cake with honey whipped cream
This almond cake recipe can be made a day in advance but I recommend making the whipped cream fresh. Leftovers can be refrigerated in an airtight container, just keep in mind the whipped cream may go a little limp. I do not recommend freezing the cake with the whipped cream.
Thanks so much for stopping by today and reading about my experience with healthier baking alternatives. I really enjoyed developing this almond cake recipe so I hope you guys love it.
If you have any suggestions for this cake or future recipes, comment down below! Make sure to tag me @baranbakery on instagram so I can see your recipes too. As always, have a blessed day and happy baking!
Love, B
I am so making this, possibly today! It’s Rosh Hashonah, and honey is an important ingredient on this holiday. Plus, I have to be gluten free! I also recently found out that I cannot eat any rice at all anymore. So I am going to experiment with 2 new gf flour combos I found, both without rice flour. One is made by Better Batter and one by Bob’s Red Mill. I figure that 1 cup of flour shouldn’t go that wrong. Thanks!