Cake: wheat, dairy, soy, egg and chocolate free? Is it possible?

[Ruralretreating]

My breastfed baby is allergic to wheat, dairy, egg, soy and chocolate. I miss cake, desperately, but all my attempts to make a cake without the above have been disastrous. Dry, crumbly, with a grainy or fizzy taste. What am I doing wrong? Does anyone have any recipes that work? Flapjacks work but I really want cake!

Must be, my mum does it. Have you looked at deliciously Ella?

This is a good site for multiple allergies: freefromfairy.com/recipes

Also this is nice. You can use dairy/soya free spread, and flaxseed eggs.

This recipe here: allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/4725/banana-banana-bread.aspx

Ignore the eggs (the bananas are enough), use whatever flour suits you best, such as a doves GF (we used to use a mix of rice, tapioca, oat & potato, but we couldn't have soy or corn which are in most of the wheat free mixes). Use about 1.5 times the recipe amount for the bicarb, and replace the butter with either a suitable margarine such as sunflower spread, or we used to use coconut oil (which added a nice flavour). If using coconut oil, you may want to add a little salt to the recipe. Don't be worried about the number of bananas (it'll use about 6!). You'll need to judge the cooking time based on how ripe the bananas are. Yum!

user7755 I have tried some of her savoury recipes and didn't love them but I'll take another look. If your Mum has a good recipe or tips to share I'd love to hear them. Am about to bin another failed attempt...

Thanks for the links DrDiva, ground almonds and potato as a base rather than flour might give a better texture

In the lemon cake I mean

Might be worth having s look St free from heaven magazine. Their current issue has an afternoon tea recipe section.

Thanks peri, that's very similar to the recipe I used for banana muffins today which is successful every time with normal ingredients but just doesn't work with Trex/GF flour/egg replacer or extra banana.

I really enjoy the Ms Cupcake vegan recipes which I always do GF, though sadly they normally contain soy - but the second on that link doesn't, and you can substitute Doves Farm GF SR flour straight in.

You can also use Doves Farm GF in a wacky cake. They sound weird, but work really well

I can recommend the Dove' Farm gluten free SR flour....it's really good in cakes....made a brilliant Victoria Sponge with it.

it behave just like normal flour...i guess that covers the wheat thing...not certain though so apols if I have that wrong

Have a google for vegan recipes, I had a cake recipe that had oil in in instead of eggs, and that was lovely....cant find it mind you!

This seems familiar, but you'd need to sub out the cocoa

have also made The lemon drizzle with mash ....there'd be no bother to swap the butter for vitalite or similar, but I'm not sure about the eggs

don't know how egg substitutes work, but might be worth making a half quantity in a small loaf tin to see?

Polenta cakes...also might be worth a google.

I have been using Dove's Farm flours but wondered if they were causing the problems with texture? I wondered if almond flour would work better but it's hideously expensive. The Wacky cakes look good! I really appreciate the ideas, recipes and links to blogs. I had no idea there was a free-from magazine either!

I once made two Victoria sponges side by side, just to see and would say the GF flour does give a slightly different texture, but not a lot

sort of like the difference between a lovely home made cake and a shop cake

but it was just the flour as a sub...i can see that swapping out other stuff isn't going to help.

For keeping th ecost down for ground almonds, you could grind your own...i know ouw big tesco has a great ethnic foods section and they have MASSIVE bags of almonds for hardy any money compared to the piddling 100g bags in the baking dept. I guess it'd be worth a look in indian/chinese supermarkets too if you have any near.

Yes he has babybarrister and is already under specialist care. Not sure why you felt the need to query that.

Thanks Ton, it's useful to hear other experiences. Mine just have this awful fizzy taste. I'll try some of the recipe ideas I've been given here and see if that helps. Great tip re the almonds too, thanks.

Rural,
We couldn't use most of the premixed GF flours and we mixed our own blend for several years. I've just moved house and don't have our mix recipe to hand anymore, but there are several websites if you google. I suspect the graininess is from the rice flour; you can try other mixes to find what suits you. I also found that using banana as the egg substitute helped keep the cakes moist, but using chia seeds gave a lovely texture as well (though i like my cakes more like the american sguidgy type than the dryer english type).

the fizzy taste can be the extra baking powder/bicarb. You can cut this back to reduce the taste but you may find they don't lift as well... you might want to aim for a brownie type recipe instead of a cake recipe?

Thanks for explaining babybarrister. I definitely wouldn't be inflicting this restrictive diet on myself or baby without good reason and medical advice and support. Thanks for the pig in the kitchen tip. I'll add that to the list of sites to try. I've found vegan sites quite helpful too so far.

Peri, thanks I will research making an"own blend" flour without rice. It just seems to absorb all the moisture. I'll give chia seeds a try too. And look for recipes that don't need too much lift. I have high hopes (no pun intended) for the lemon one DrDiva linked to. Thank you.

Try Lucy's friendly foods - British mum/chef who has loads of excellent recipes on her site. I think some of them might fit the bill.

lucysfriendlyfoods.com/2012/07/13/gluten-free-thank-you-cupcakes/

Also Google Vegan Meringue Hits and Misses on Facebook - bit American but lots of gluten-free vegan recipes with Aquafaba as the egg replacer.

I am a hopeless baker, but have been honing my questionable talent on the banana muffin recipe in Gwyneth Paltrows book. They come out quite stodgy, a banana bread texture but taste really good. I use GF flour, coconut milk and coconut oil when I make it.