glutenfreedirtcheap

This is a recipe adapted from CNN’s eatocracy blog.  Part of the reason I chose this recipe is that I wanted to show how easy it is to adapt wheat based recipes.   Basically I added PAM, exchanged their boxed cake mix for a Betty Crocker Gluten Free Cake mix, added a toaster oven, and added about five minutes extra baking time to a very simple recipe–some people have lives; I cook.  (Also, I substituted vanilla for almond extract–you have a cabinet full of extracts?   Would you ever use them?  Really?)

Ingredients:

5/8 cup boxed Betty Crocker gluten-free yellow cake mix (Most regular grocery stores carry this.)

1 egg

1/4 cup butter

1/3 cup water

1 tsp vanilla extract

3 plums or pluots

Original PAM  (Watch out for the floured PAM; it is annoyingly not gluten-free.)

Optional:  maple syrup, to glaze the top.

Kitchen apparati:

$10.00 hand mixer.  (Mine doesn’t have instructions in English.  That’s o.k.  Use it to practice your French and Spanish.)

measuring cup

mixing bowl

spatula

6 by 2 baking dish

toaster oven

Instructions:

Let the butter sit out long enough to melt.  Preheat the toaster oven to 375.  Mix 5/8 cup cake mix and all of the other ingredients with the hand mixer.  (Sorry, I can’t get you out of that particular kitchen gadget;  if you have strong arms, that can compensate for not having a bread mixer, but when what you need is speed, only a hand mixer will really do.)  Spray a lot of PAM into the cake dish;  otherwise it will stick, because it’s rice flour, and you will hate me.  Slice the plums or pluots and arrange the sliced fruit artfully over the surface of the the cake pan.  Pour the batter into the cake pan and arrange more sliced plums on top.

Bake for 45 minutes in the toaster oven.  You’ll know it’s done when a knife stuck into the center of the cake comes out clean.

Cost:  About $3.50.  This isn’t rocket science, babe.