I have become more aware of gluten and its affect on sufferers fairly recently. As a little thank you to the amazing photographer David Loftus who photographed me and my food for my book Under The Olive Tree, I wanted to make a cake or biscuits or anything at all using flour that he could eat. The first time I made a cake with just gluten free flour, it was terrible! I just went into it blindly and never stopped to think that without a binding agent in the absence of gluten, the cake would more crumbs than cake.
As I love biscuits myself (I always want to have one with my coffee) I worked on this recipe and I very much enjoyed the results.
- 2 medium eggs
- 50g unsalted butter
- 75g gluten free flour
- 75g gram (chickpea) flour
- 125g almond flakes
- 125g sultanas
- 1 orange (zest only)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ½ tsp baking powder
- A pinch of salt
- Light oil for spraying
Method
Line a cake tin 21 x 21cm or similar with baking paper and grease with some light oil.
Preheat the oven to 1800C.
In a bowl beat the eggs with the sugar for 5-7 minutes till pale and fluffy.
Sieve the two types of flour and the baking powder in another bowl.
In a third bowl mix the sultanas, almond flakes and 2 tbsp of the flour.
Add the orange zest, vanilla and sultana and almond mix to the eggs and using a spatula mix well. Add the remaining flour and continue mixing till you have a smooth, slightly runny batter.
Transfer the batter to the cake tin and bake for 30-35 minutes till a skewer comes out clean when dipped into the middle of the cake.
Let cool slightly and transfer to the freezer for 10 minutes.
Increase the oven temperature to 2000C.
Remove the cake from the freezer and the tin and cut, using a serrated knife, into three long pieces. Cut each piece into individual biskota approx. 0.5cm thick.
Lay them on a lined flat baking tin and bake again for 10 -15 minutes till golden. Turn over and bake for a few minutes more.