Words & recipe adaptation by Karen Swan

To honour the end of my son’s first week at kindergarten, I wanted to make him a simple, no fuss chocolate cake. I turned to my very favourite cookbook, ‘Apples for Jam’ by Tessa Kiros and adapted her lovely chocolate cake recipe to a gluten free version.

Ingredients:

180g butter – softened

50g dark chocolate

30g cocoa powder

3 eggs – separated

180g caster sugar

125g Gluten Free self raising flour

1.5 teaspoons baking powder

3 tablespoons milk

Icing:

80g butter – softened

60g gluten free icing sugar

30g cocoa powder

2 tablespoons milk

2 teaspoons honey.

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and grease and line a 24cm round cake tin.

Using a small saucepan, melt the butter over a low heat.

Add the chocolate and cocoa and mix until melted.

Remove from heat and prepare the remaining ingredients.

Beat the egg yolks until soft peaks form.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks until pale, then add the sugar and mix well.

Slowly add the chocolate a little at a time and mix well.

Sift in the flour and baking powder.

Fold through well before gently incorporating the egg whites.

The mix will be quick dense and thick.

Pour into the prepared tin and bake for about 35 minutes.

Cool completely before icing.

Icing:

To make a lovely smooth icing, I used the food processor!  Beat the butter and icing sugar together.  Then add the cocoa powder, honey and milk and whizz it around until it becomes lovely and smooth. Pile it on the cold cake and spread roughly.

Enjoy!