Inspired by the Great British Bake Off, I made a gluten and dairy free ‘schichttorte’ – a 20-layer* vanilla sponge. Gluten free company, Delicious Alchemy, have recently run their very own ‘Gluten Free Magic Bake Off’, so when I contacted them about my project, they kindly provided some cake mixes to use.

Of course, I couldn’t just leave it at that – so made a little video for your viewing pleasure, in case you fancy doing the same! But to be honest, it took blinking ages, if you need a cake fix and quick, I’d just use the mix to make a normal sponge ;)

The ingredients I used were adapted from the Paul Hollywood one on the BBC.

Ingredients

For the cake:

• 1 bag of Delicious Alchemy Vanilla Sponge Mix
• 11 eggs, separated (yes, really!)
• 110g dairy free margarine (or butter if your diet allows)
• Oil for greasing
• 6 tbsp seedless raspberry jam

For the chocolate glaze:

• 50g dairy free margarine (or butter if your diet allows)
• 1tbsp golden syrup
• 1tbsp dairy free milk
• 1tsp vanilla bean paste
• 75g dairy free dark chocolate (mine was 45% cocoa solids)

Method:

1. Oil a 20cm round springform tin and line the bottom with baking parchment
2. Beat together the cake mix, egg yolks and margarine
3. In a clean bowl, whisk the egg whites until they form soft peaks
4. Mix one third of the egg whites into the cake batter to loosen it, then carefully fold in the rest of the whites.
5. Preheat the grill to high.
6. Spoon about half a ladle-full of mix into the tin, and spread with a pastry brush to form an even layer (don’t worry, this get easier with the next layers)
7. Grill until light golden-brown.
8. Repeat for the next layer, and continue until all of the mix is used.
9. Leave the cake to cool in the tin for 5 minutes, before turning out and leaving to cool completely.
10. Melt the jam in a saucepan, and brush all over the cake – this helps the glaze to stick.
11. To make the glaze, melt the margarine, syrup, vanilla and milk together and bring to the boil. Take off the heat and leave to cool for 5 minutes.
12. Mix in the chocolate until it has melted together, and pour into a bowl to cool until it reaches coating consistency.
13. Pour the glaze over the cake, spreading with a palette knife, and decorate as you like (I used red icing and freeze-dried raspberry pieces).

You might also like my gluten free epic rainbow cake video.

*we managed 17 layers, I counted