Let them eat egg free and gluten-free cake!

It's been a pretty good summer so far, all 7 days of it. I've given myself off for the summer and have decided not to take classes. Instead, I've planted a raised-bed garden and have a kitchen full of new gadgets to experiment with. Three of my favorites so far are a bacon press, a cast iron griddle, and a 12-cup mini-bundt cupcake pan. The bacon press makes a wicked grilled cheese.

The mini-bundt cupcake pan lends itself quite well to making the gluten-free menu just a little bit better. I used the Betty Crocker yellow gluten-free cake mix as my base.  I normally use the mixer to beat the eggs first so that the cake is lighter.  This has proven to make a tastier cake that actually tastes like cake, if you can believe that. The mix is cheaper than the gourmet mixes and doesn't have that crumbly texture that gluten-free cakes often have.

Since we recently found out that my 2 year old niece, KM, has an allergy to eggs, I decided to experiment with the batter just a bit, based on the suggestion from a stranger in the supermarket: use a can of soda. Yup. That's it. She suggested using a can of Coca Cola and the chocolate cake mix. I used Sierra Mist and the yellow mix and baked it up in the mini bundt pans.

Here's what I learned...

- Yellow cake and Sierra (a lemon-lime soda) makes cake, but it's a moist and heavy cake.

- Moist and heavy cake doesn't mean delicious. It does however mean that it's a good base to add things to, since it was pretty bland. Things to add include chocolate chips, nuts, cranberries, poppy seeds and lemon extract, and my favorite, almond paste and almond extract.

- The cupcakes were much better when served warm, with warm, real maple syrup. The dense texture soaked up the syrup and they reheated in the toaster over the next morning for breakfast.

- Microwaving a bit of regular frosting for 10 - 15 seconds and drizzling it on the cakes adds as well.

Overall, the cake mix on its own is good. The eggless version is going to take some tweaking to get it right. I may experiment with some orange soda and some zest. We'll see how that goes...