I love gluten free baking. I love home made gluten free cake! I find baking relaxing and exciting at the same time. Delicious Alchemy‘s Vanilla Sponge Mix shouted out to me this weekend and I decided to give it a go. 

I am not usually one for using cake mixes, I’ve always thought it is a bit of a cop out. However, I’ve come to realise that it really isn’t like that at all. It’s just a way of making life that little bit easier… and in this day and age why would you not want to make your life easier?! Sometimes all we want is a slice of Gluten Free Cake! On this particular Saturday evening, I craved baking.. it wasn’t long until dinner time and we were making gluten and dairy free pizza from scratch so I really didn’t have a huge amount of time. Hence the Delicious Alchemy Gluten Free Cake Mix I had, stood out to me as the perfect compromise. So often I’ve found this to be the case, I find out friends are coming round last minute or I’m suddenly told there is a charity cake sale at work the next day… in these instances what I need is a delicious but quick solution. Delicious Alchemy really do tick all the boxes with their mixes… they aren’t called Delicious for nothing!

When you look on the back of many pre made gluten free cake you often are bombarded with a lot of ingredients you would prefer not to see. Preservatives in one shape or another… no thanks! However using a Gluten Free Cake Mix like this surprised me in that there are no dodgy ingredients at all. All the ingredients on the back of the packets are the things I would have individually measured out, had I had a little more time!

As always, the Delicious Alchemy packaging is on point. It’s colourful, bright, engaging and definitely far removed from many of the first gluten free brands with their bland, medicinal style packaging. It makes you want to try it, even if gluten free cake mixes aren’t necessarily your thing.

To use the mix all you need is 3 eggs, 180g of Dairy Free spread and 20ml water, simple as that! So if that is all you have in the cupboard you can make a delicious gluten free cake or around 16 little cupcakes! However this mix is incredibly versatile and you could make a huge variety of different flavoured cupcakes by adding a few different ingredients to the mix and/or by adding a different flavoured icing. 

For example, I love lemon cupcakes so just adding some lemon zest to the mixture would really give the mix that fresh flavour. I would then cut a little circle out of the top of the cupcake… fill it with a home made lemon curd… place the circle back on top… and cover with a sharp lemon glace icing. Sadly it was getting late in the evening and I had no lemons so I will have to wait till next time, but definitely try using the Delicious Alchemy Gluten Free Cake Mix for this purpose… it would definitely work!

For me I decided to go really simple with my cakes this time. I am testing out a few different ideas for Comic Relief which is coming up on 13th March, so I just added some red food colouring I recently bought from Hobbycraft (It was a food colouring paste rather than a liquid). 

Good Bye Gluten, Hello Delicious

So basically it was a matter of chucking all the ingredients in my bowl… adding the red food colouring and giving it a good, thorough whisk. I then spooned out the pinky/red mixture into cupcake cases and baked them in the oven for 18 minutes at 180 Degrees (160 Fan). When I took them out they smelt amazing and had risen really well. Though I would have liked the cakes to come out more red that is my fault and I will definitely be putting in a little more food colouring before I bake these again for Red Nose Day!

I decided to make these into little Butterfly Cakes this time round. I made a simple dairy free vanilla buttercream and a little raspberry jam. I then cut a small circle out the centre of each gluten free cake. I spooned in a little jam and then covered the jam with the vanilla buttercream. To finish off each cake I cut the circle in half and stuck them back on like little butterfly wings! I haven’t made butterfly cakes since I was a kid so this was great fun!

The cupcakes tasted great. They had a really soft, moist texture with lots of vanilla flavour. The icing and jam complimented them really well. I would highly recommend this gluten free cake mix if you are on the look out for one. It is a perfect base for making any flavoured or type of gluten free cake. I will definitely be giving this mix ago again, its just so easy.

I’ve also tried out the Delicious Alchemy Oaty Cookie Mix and Brownie Mix before. Both are gluten and dairy free and taste amazing. I would highly recommend them too. Check out the blog post I did on these mixes a while ago here.

I have heard that they are possibly bringing out some new products over time which is great news that I will keep you posted on! You can buy all their products directly from their website. Their website also contains some great recipes you might want to check out if you get the chance.

I can’t wait to sit down with another cupcake after writing this… if there are any left! The final words of this blog really do have to come from Delicious Alchemy themselves…

“Good Bye Gluten, Hello Delicious”

Thanks for reading,