Gluten free rice flour cake or Torta di riso

Before I start my customary monologue about unimportant things that may or may not entertain you, I just wanted to inform you of my new slight obsession, after Twitter, with Instagram these days. I also just created a Facebook page (after several attempts - I may not be that tech savvy but starting a page whilst trying to keep your personal profile... well, personal, is not so easy) that I am still sort of wondering what to do with... My point being, you can find me and hang out with me on all three searching for Nuts about food (or nutsaboutfood).

Anyhow...back to what I was going to say...

We all have some big retail mistake hiding in our closets/apartments/garages/attics/basements. That pair of shoes you love and spent a fortune for but that hurt just looking at them. That sweater that looked original and quirky in a good way at the store but that just makes you look plain ridiculous whenever you try it on at home. That thing-a-ma-jig that tells you how far you have run, how many calories you have burned and files you nails at the same time that is sitting at the back of your drawer, still wrapped in plastic. The rowing machine. The collection of 16^th century poetry the New York Times wrote up six years ago that you wouldn’t have read even if you didn’t have the excuse of being a new mom.

My latest mistake was a 500gr pack of rice flour. Sure, I am aware there is a big difference between a $300,00 pair of shoes and a $3,00 pack of flour. But I don’t like wasting food and I don’t have another inch of room in my cupboards.

I was dreaming of stacks of rice cookies and goodies, not just because they are a healthy and gluten-free option, but because I love baked goods with rice in them. However, once I started searching on the Internet I realized that: a) most baked goods that contain rice flour only have a couple of tablespoons in them; 2) you need glutinous or sweet rice to make those yummy sounding Asian rice-based desserts.

I looked and looked and could not find a single recipe that had a large quantity of rice flour in it (that wasn’t for noodles or some sort of pancake/wrap).

Until I came across this little gem. It is definitely what I would call breakfast cake. It is simple, it has an interesting crumb (and I don’t mean interesting as in bad or weird, just more crumbly than moist) and is perfect to dunk into a glass of cold milk, to spread with some jam or honey or just on its own. It has just a handful of ingredients, it is the kind of cake you feel good serving your kids. And yes, it is gluten free.

What are your retail disasters? And do you have any interesting recipes with rice flour to suggest? I still have 275gr of it lying around...

Ingredients

 4 eggs

200gr sugar

225gr rice flour

225gr potato starch/flour

140gr butter, melted and cooled

1 sachet (16gr) baking powder

1 tsp vanilla extract (the Italian recipe suggested 1 sachet vanilla sugar)

Preheat oven to 170°C/350°F. Grease a Turk’s head mold.

Start melting the butter and let cool.

Beat the sugar and eggs in a bowl until well combined.

Mix together the two kinds of flour and baking powder and then start adding to the egg mix a little at a time. Finally, add in the butter and vanilla extract.

Pour the batter into the mold and bake for about 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out dry. Let cool a little and unmold.
Dust with icing sugar if you are so inclined.

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