I’ve never really been a baker, but I do love cake. And I really love it when another glutard comes over for lunch and brings a homemade gluten-free, sugar-free whole lot of cakey deliciousness with them. And that’s just what happened last weekend. 

I had wanted to make Yotam Ottolenghi’s meringue roulade with rose and morello cherries but didn’t have all of the ingredients. And it was just as well because Sarah, whom I shall now refer to as the baker chick, and her delightful French beau Thomas, turned up with a very large cake. With a bit of baker’s poetic licence, Sarah had adapted Hannah Miles’ plum and cinnamon cake from the gluten-free baker into a sugar-free version, with great success. Here’s the recipe with the baker chick’s substitutions:

Get ready

185g butter, softened (+ extra to grease the tin)
A few drops of liquid stevia and a squeeze of rice malt syrup
6 eggs
1 scant cup gluten-free all-purpose flour + 1 teaspoon baking powder + a generous tablespoon of chia seeds (the original recipe says 1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum)
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
400g ground almonds
Whipped cream or thick yoghurt to serve

for the topping

8 ripe plums, halved and pitted
100g blueberries

A 25cm springform tin, greased and lined

Get busy

Preheat oven to 160°C

Put the butter, stevia and rice malt syrup into a mixing bowl and whisk until light and creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, whisking after each addition. Sift in the flour and cinnamon, add the ground almonds and whisk again. Spoon the batter into the prepared cake tin and level the surface.

Arrange the plums, cut side up, over the top of the cake and scatter the blueberries.

Bake in the preheated oven for 1.5 – 2 hours, until the cake is firm to the touch and a knife inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and let cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Serve with generous dollops of whipped cream or thick yoghurt, and rejoice!