Hidden Heart Loaf Cake (Gluten Free)
If you’re looking for a guaranteed “wow, how did you do that?” reaction, this is the cake for you. Cutting into the loaf cake reveals a hidden heart, which looks super impressive, but is actually surprisingly easy to make!
The cake itself is fluffy and moist, and will stay that way for at least a few days due to the almond flour, which helps stop the cake becoming dry.
The gluten free crumb is especially good thanks to the “reverse creaming” method, which involves mixing the butter with all of the dry ingredients before adding the rest of the wet ingredients. This gives the loaf cake less of a dome on top, less air holes and less dryness.
If you make my hidden heart loaf cake I’d love to see it! You can find me on Instagram @the.gfg.
Ingredients
For the cake:
300g self raising flour
50g almond flour (you can replace this with 50g more self raising flour, but the cake will dry out quicker)
300g caster sugar
5 eggs
Splash of milk
3tsp baking powder
1 tsp Xanthan gum
350g unsalted butter (softened)
2tsp vanilla extract
Few drops food colouring (I use gel)
For the buttercream:
50g butter
100g icing sugar
0.5 tsp vanilla extract
2tsp milk
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 180°C.
In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients for the cake (flours, caster sugar, baking powder, xanthan gum).
Using an electric whisk, beat the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
Add the eggs, vanilla extract and small splash of milk and combine until you have a smooth batter.
Put around 1/4 of the cake batter in a separate bowl, and add the food colouring until you have a strong colour, thoroughly combining so the colour is even. (You can also use different colours and create rainbow or marble effects if you would like).
Grease a small, ideally square or rectangular tin. This could be a baking tray, roasting tin, loose bottomed tin, loaf tin or anything really! Add the coloured batter to the tin. If it doesn’t fill the whole tin, fold up some aluminium foil and use as a barrier so it doesn’t spread too much and become thin.
Bake the coloured cake for 15 mins, or until it springs back up when gently poked. Leave to cool.
Grease a loaf tin. Spread a very thin layer of the uncoloured batter along the bottom of the tin.
Once the coloured cake is cool, use a small heart shaped cutter (or any other cutter you like!) to cut out heart shaped pieces of cake. Line the hearts along the middle length of the loaf tin, sitting in the batter, so they form a solid line of hearts.
Fill the loaf tin with the remaining batter, covering the coloured cake hearts at the sides and at the top.
Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the cake springs back when gently poked and a skewer inserted into the sides of the cake (with the uncoloured batter) comes out clean.
