Gluten free birthday cake

[MrsGokWan]

I would like to bake my first birthday cake for my son's 2nd birthday. I have never really done much baking before and not sure where to start so can anyone give me a good basic recipe for a gluten free birthday cake, preferably chocolate and any ideas for some simple idiot proof decoration

Hiya, I did this for a friend's ds.

Asda sell a gluten free flour with a chocolate cake recipe on the packet. I did exactly as it said and it was really yummy - several mums asked for the recipe not realising it was gluten free.Hope that helps.

(Asda also sell gluten free chocolate spread and icing - slap it on thick and cover with plastic tomliboos / whatever are his current favourite)

Thank you for the tip Kitkatqueen. Will pop into Asda today.

doves farm gluten free flour can be substituted for regular flour in a sponge with no probs at all, in fact i now use it in preference for sponge cake as it's amazingly light. If you don't get the self-raising, I think supercook baking powder is also gf. It's in all the supermarkets round here.

Good luck!

Right will look out for that then, cheers.

another great gf cake is Nigella's clementine cake - uses ground almonds instead of flour.

It is incredibly lush (need to make it the day before though, to let flavour intensify), and you grate chocolate on the top while still warm instead of icing. yummy.

(also very easy to do - boil up clementines for a couple of hours, whizz them up, stir in to ground almonds and eggs, and then bake) can't go wrong.

have also made the packet ones and they are surprisingly nice.

Wow! that sounds interesting. Unfortunatly I haven't got anything to do the almonds but I am looking at improving my skills so will be looking at geting some sort of processor soon so I will bear that in mind for my other son's birthday.

recipe here.

but you really do need to make it the day before - it needs to rest at least overnight to let the flavour come through. we were impatient once (and couldn't really believe it was that necessary to let it rest) and ate it the same day - it was Not Nice.

oh, it doesn't say there to grate choc on - as soon as it comes out of the oven, grate a bar of dark chocolate (orange choc works best - Green & Black's maya Gold is good) over the top - it melts, then forms an "icing" layer when th ecake cools.

Oooh!! cheers Silverfrog, sounds yummy!!! Have saved that to favourites to try later and will have a mooch through that site as well.