Hazelnut and Walnut Cake

We spotted this recipe in the Waitrose Kitchen Magazine, November 2013 issue, and thought it looked like something that'd convert to being Gluten Free quite easily... specially since there's only 2 tablespoonsful of flour in the ingredients.  It could probably also be adapted to be dairy free by using a dairy free cooking spread like Pure (which we use in baking our Quick Mix Chocolate Cake).

These are the ingredients we used -

150g unsalted butter, cubed and softened
90g walnut pieces
90g blanched hazelnuts
175g light brown soft sugar
2 Tablespoons Gluten Free self raising flour (we used Dove's Farm)
1 teaspoon Gluten Free baking powder (again, we used Dove's Farm)
3 eggs, beaten
1 orange, zest only
pinch of salt
icing sugar for dusting

The nuts and 50g of the sugar were whizzed in our small Braun hand blender - they're shown in the green bowl in the pic.  To this, we added the flour, baking powder and salt (shown in the red bowl) and mixed well.

In another bowl, we used our electric hand mixer to cream the butter and remaining sugar.  Once fluffy and light in colour, the eggs were added in small amounts.  Next, the orange zest was added, followed by the nut and flour and combined thoroughly.

Having lined a 20cm tin, we poured in the cake mix and baked in a pre-heated fan oven (160ºC) for 35-40 minutes until a skewer came out clean when inserted into the middle of the cake.  We checked the base of the cake for 'sogginess' and were delighted there was no sign of a dreaded soggy bottom!



The cake was cooled in the tin, removed when cool and dusted with icing sugar prior to serving.

We served the cake with a dollop of Rodda's clotted cream.

Having had a hearty wedge of cake each, some of slices were placed in a plastic pot and frozen for a treat at a later date.