Gluten Free

Chocolate Ingredients
Cake ● ¾ cups of gluten free flour (Either almond,
all-purpose, or coconut)
● ¾ teaspoons baking powder
● 9 tablespoons melted butter
● ½ cup plus 4 tablespoons cocoa powder
● ½ cups plus 4 tablespoons powdered sugar
● ½ teaspoon salt
● 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
● 8 eggs
● 2 egg yolks

Equipment
● 2 large bowls
● Microwave safe bowl or a sauce pan
● A rubber spatula
● Whisk or fork
● Baking pan
● Cooking spray

Ready in 40 minutes
Serves 19 people
 extract. Once they are fully combined,
add in the eggs.
● You should add each egg in one at a time.
Mix each one in as you add them. At the
end, add in the egg yolks. You can
separate the egg yolks by cracking the
eggs, then pouring the yolk into the other
half of the shell. Then pour it back into
the other half. As you go back and forth,
the whites should separate and fall down.
You can do this over a sink or another
bowl to contain the mess.
● Add the flour and baking powder to the
liquid mixture and mix. Be careful not to
overmix the batter much.
● Spray the pans. I would recommend using
parchment paper as well. When the
batter is done, pour it into the baking
pans.
● Set the cake aside for roughly 8
minutes to allow them to absorb
more liquid.
● Bake the cake for 25 minutes, then
remove from the oven and let it cool
for a few minutes.
Steps Taken

● The first step in this recipe is to preheat

the oven to 350˚ Fahrenheit or 176˚
Celsius.
● After this is done, pull out one of the
bowls and pour the flour and baking
powder in. Mix them together then set
the bowl aside for later.
● Place the butter in the microwave safe
bowl and microwave it for 1 minute, or
until it is fully melted. You can also melt
the butter in a saucepan over
medium-low heat.
● In the other bowl I would recommend
mixing the powdered sugar and cocoa
powder together, but you can also wait Personal Commentary
until the butter is done melting.
For the longest time I avoided making anything
● Mix the melted butter and cocoa
that was gluten free, so making these cakes was a
powder/powdered sugar mixture
big step in my baking journey. I always assumed
together then add the salt and vanilla
that gluten free baking would make a cake less perfectly, rising far beyond any of my
delicious and more chunky. This wasn’t something expectations. In the end I learned a lot about how
that I wanted to deal with, so I always kept with to make gluten free baked goods and I am looking
my traditional methods. While I was making these forward to taking it further.
cakes I ran into a number of problems and issues.
My primary issue was finding a recipe that
worked. In the beginning of November, Student
Council and I decided to put on an Autumn
Informal party and I was tasked with creating a
gluten-free cake for people who might be gluten
intolerant or have Celiac’s disease. I initially took
this assignment with a groan. I found it
increasingly frustrating to finish the cakes. I used
an all purpose gluten-free flour and it made the
batter taste like bad chickpeas. The cake then fell
flat, but tasted amazing. It was better than any
other cake I had ever made, but my chemistry
experiment was about the rise of gluten free
cakes. I decided to keep with my experiment,
wondering if I could recreate the taste with a
better rise. I found it difficult to find recipes for
both high altitude and gluten free together. When
I finally found a recipe that worked, it required
more than I had at my house. I realized that the
ingredients the recipe called for had to be Hypothesis
doubled because the final amount of batter was
too small. My first go at it didn’t work out, so I My question for my experiment was: How do
tried again, doubling the recipe this time. It different types of gluten free flour(almond,
worked out perfectly and the cake tasted all-purpose, and coconut) affect the rise, density,
incredible while maintaining its size and rise. The and fluffiness of a gluten free chocolate cake. My
unfortunate part of my success involved the assumption is that the all purpose gluten free
number of eggs I had to use. My house had a flour will cause the cake to rise the most, due to
dozen eggs set aside for my baking, but the recipe the greater amounts of xanthan gum it possesses.
requires 10 eggs, so I quickly exhausted that
supply. I ran into town and purchased 5 dozen
eggs, or 60 individual eggs for my cakes. I knew
that this was a few more eggs than I needed in
total, but I was thankful for the extras when I
made a mistake halfway through the process. I
was making one of my coconut flour cakes and
failed to put in the proper amount of eggs. I was
reading the recipe and doubling the ingredients,
but forgot to double the eggs. The final cake was
incredibly dry and tasted poor. This was an
immense failure for me and a waste of perfectly
good resources. This made me feel horrible and I
quickly went back to work to fix my mistake with
another cake. These new cakes worked out
 the point where the cake begins to inflate beyond.
After cutting it, I measured the height of the cake,
which now took the shape of a wide cylinder. I
then took the measurements of the diameter, all
in centimeters. This was all recorded so I can find
the volume and then density of each cake later on.
I repeated this process with another cake made
from coconut flour to increase my experimental
data.
After making my first two cakes, I repeated the
process on the other two types of flour. I made
two cakes for almond flour and two cakes for all
purpose gluten free flour. I then repeated all the
previous measurements.
The next step in finishing my experiment was to
bring it in for a taste test. I prepared each cake by
Experimental Design stacking the cakes that are the same. For example,
I stacked the two almond flour cakes on top of
My independent variable was the type of flour I
each other and brought them in for tasting. My
used. My dependent variable was the rise and
taste test was conducted by cutting a piece of
density of the finished cake.
each cake and marking them with a 1, 2, or 3. This
This experiment was conducted by changing the was a blind test. I gave a person one of each cake
type of gluten free flour used in the cake recipe. I and asked them to fill out a survey about aspects
used three different types of alternative flours. of the cake. I received 20 responses. I asked each
My first flour used, and the one requested by the person to rank the fluffiness of each cake on a
recipe, was coconut flour. My second flour was scale of 1 to 4. This was a qualitative result
almond flour and my third was all purpose gluten because fluffiness is subjective. This was a
free flour. The rest of the recipe was kept the comparison between the rise and density to the
same, including all the steps and ingredients. This fluffiness of each cake. I believed that with
helps to assure that the experiment is only greater density the cakes would have less
focused on the aspect of the experiment that I am fluffiness when ranked. I also predicted a positive
changing and what it does to the final product. correlation between fluffiness and rise. I then
The outcomes I measured were how it changes asked them to rank the qualitative density of each
the rise and density of the cake. I measured the cake.
weight of pans, batter, and final cooked cakes,
with and without the pans, in order to calculate Experimental Results
density and change in mass from the cooking
The results of my experiments resulted in a
process. After this, I inserted a metal skewer into
negative correlation between the qualitative
the center of the cake and marked the place
density and the qualitative fluffiness, whereas the
where it ended. After pulling it out, I placed it
qualitative density also seemed to correlate with
along a ruler and measured it in centimeters,
the quantitative density. There seemed to be a
which was more precise than inches. This gave me
little correlation between the fluffiness of the
the rise for the cake. I then knocked the cake out
cake and the cake's quantitative rise. The largest
of the pan and cut the top section of the cake off
piece of information that I found was that the
at the point where the cap met the straight edge
cakes with the highest rise had the lowest density
of the cake’s bottom. This is the point where the
(quantitative).
flat, vertical section that is against the pan meets
 not. Something to consider is that these are
Quantitative Density
averages and the two cakes taken into
The quantitative densities of each cake are listed consideration were vastly different in density for
below. both cakes 1 and 2.
Cake Density Rise

Cake #1 - All .32 g/cm3 7.05 cm

purpose

Cake #2 - .52 g/cm3 4.05 cm

Coconut

Cake #3 - .38 g/cm3 6.6 cm

Almond

We found here that cakes with a higher rise

had a lower density. This is a negative It is interesting to note that the coconut flour
correlation. This may be because the rise cake has the highest quantitative density of the
comes from larger pockets of gas trapped in three cakes, whereas the all purpose gluten
the batter. The pockets push the cake’s top free flour cake had the lowest. The coconut flour
up and give it a higher rise, but a lower had no xanthan gum and the all purpose gluten
density because of the gaps that are created. This free flour had xanthan gum mixed in. This might
would be a negative correlation between rise and be part of the reason for the difference in the
density. cakes' rise and density. The gluten free all
purpose flour also contains a number of different
Qualitative Density types of gluten free flour mixed together. The
Cake Fluffiness Qualitative type used in this experiment contained sweet
Density white rice flour, whole grain brown rice flour,
Ranking potato starch, whole grain sorghum flour, and
tapioca flour. The potato starch and xanthan gum
Cake #1 - All 2.3 2 are two important factors here. These two factors
purpose will be explained in the next section.
Cake #2 - 1.8 3 Overall Ranking
Coconut
Cake Sweetness Overall
Cake #3 - 3.25 1 Ranking Ranking in
Almond Taste

This differed slightly from the quantitative data Cake #1 - All 2 2

collected. Quantitatively we see cake #3 as the purpose
least dense cake, which was solved
Cake #2 - 3 3
mathematically by finding the mass and the
Coconut
volume, then dividing them to get the density. We
found that cake #2 is still the most dense of the Cake #3 - 1 1
three cakes though. It appears that there is a Almond
general correlation between the perceived
density and the mathematical density of the This shows a positive correlation between the
cakes, though there is evidence that they might rise and density of a cake and its overall taste and
sweetness. As the perceived fluffiness got higher,
the overall ranking of the cake got higher, which is connection between people liking fluffy and non
inverse with the density. This may draw a dense cakes over dense and fluffy cakes.
surrounding a gas, but the xanthan gum helps to
Chemical Explanation strengthen the bonds between the starch
particles, allowing them to rise more. This means
There are a few main causes for the differing rises
that the cake is a foam because there is a gas, the
of the cakes. Before diving into this, we first need
CO2, being surrounded by a solid, the batter.
to know how a cake rises. In a traditional cake we
Flours like all purpose gluten free flour contain
have glutenin and gliadin molecules which when
higher amounts of xanthan gum, whereas other
mixed with water, produce gluten. Gluten creates
gluten free flours don’t have any at all. This might
a matrix that forms pockets within the batter.
be the cause of the all purpose gluten free flour’s
When we add a leavening agent, like yeast, baking
rise, but it doesn’t explain the almond flour’s rise.
powder, or baking soda, the pockets fill with CO2
Almond flour contains high levels of fats which
because of a reaction with an acid. This happens
cause the cake to retain moisture. The fats coat
during the baking process and causes the cake to
the flour molecules within the batter, adding
expand. The process is different with a gluten free
stability, but don’t evaporate when heated up, like
alternative. The rise will still happen because of
the surrounding water. The result is a semblance
CO2 expanding pockets of batter, but the lack of
of moisture, though little to no water is within.
gluten in gluten free flour forces the process to
This helps the cake to seem moist, which is
require a different mechanism to form the
advantageous because most gluten free baking is
pockets. Instead of gluten, the starch molecules in
dry.
the gluten free flour attach together in a spherical
pattern to create the pockets. The pockets then
take on the CO2 and inflate to cause the cakes
rise.

(A particulate representation of gluten free “pockets”)

Normally this wouldn’t be enough to allow the (The difference between gluten free matrices and
cakes to rise at a similar level to regular, gluten gluten matrices)
cakes because the bubbles/pockets aren’t stable This brings us to the coconut flour cake, which
enough for a full rise. Xanthan gum provides the was the most dense and had the least amount of
extra structure and flexibility, by adding viscosity rise. It was also ranked as the worst tasting cake
to the liquid. Some gluten free flours contain overall. This cake also lacked any xanthan gum,
xanthan gum. In this experiment, neither the but didn’t have the added fats that the almond
almond flour nor the coconut flour contain flour contained. Coconut flour is also known for
xanthan gum, whereas the gluten free all purpose absorbing a large amount of liquid. The batter
flour contained added xanthan gum. There are a most likely dried out quickly, resulting in it
lot of reasons for different types of gluten free becoming stiffer and more solid before the cake
flour to rise differently. Xanthan gum acts as an began to rise.
emulsion stabilizer, but has a neutral charge. The
actual pockets of gas that the starch particles
create aren’t an emulsion because it is a solid