I have a bride that cannot eat gluten or corn. the groom’s only cake requirement is that the cake is custard filled. I repeat, allergic to corn, custard filled. umm…right.  They want a riff on black forest cake (chocolate and cherry).

So the questions are:

1. does anyone have amazing recipes for gluten free chocolate cake that could be used to make a wedding cake?
2. does anyone have suggestions about making custard without cornstarch. arrowroot (i heard it doesn’t thicken well)? gelatin (would it be a totally different texture than regular custard)?

I haven’t used it myself, but my son-in-law has a lemon tart recipe that uses potato starch to thicken the filling.  The tart is wonderful.  I would try the potato starch.

Can’t help you with the gluten-free thing.

Perhaps there are some people who just shouldn’t be eating cake.

How about a cheesecake? Or a flourless chocolate cake- Rose’s Chocolate Oblivion? Hector’s flan?

The bittersweet cocoa almond genoise (TCB 134-1315) has no flour.  It’s one of Julie’s faves—she says it’s very light—so it might be a great “regular cake approximation.”  She’s baked it as many shapes, so it appears quite flexible.  She says if you use almond flour, it’s light.  If you use ground almonds, it gets more like a torte—the larger the almond grind, the fudgier and denser.

There’s many posts and pictures—quite recent:

http://www.realbakingwithrose.com/index_ee.php/forums/viewthread/3077/
http://www.realbakingwithrose.com/index_ee.php/forums/viewthread/3035/
http://www.realbakingwithrose.com/index_ee.php/forums/viewthread/3021/ (about 1/2 way down this post)

Tapioca flour is a good substitute for the custard. In fact I prefer the flavor. Slightly longer cooking time is needed. At first is will seem gritty but with some extra time it will smooth out.

The bittersweet cocoa almond genoise is wonderful and I love it, but it is a dense cake, maybe even denser than a pound cake.  And I don’t know if it would work in anything larger than a 9” pan, maybe, maybe not.  It is also one of the least sweet cakes in Rose’s repetoire, so may not be a crowd pleaser if your group likes things sweeter. 

As regards Gene’s comment to make the custard with tapioca or cassava starch/flour, it definitely works but in my experience you may need to use less to get the texture right- a test batch may be needed.

You could make either chocolate cloud roll or cocoa souffle roll and stack many layers with the custard to get the height you want.  Kind of like the RHC chocolate feather bed.  Given how much custard that would be, it might be good to lighten it with either meringue or whipped cream.  It would be an awful lot of work, though, all those layers!

Annother idea is to make a genoise using gluten free flour (rice, potato, cassava, or a pre-mixed GF blend).  But I’ve never tried it so again, a lot of testing may be involved. 

I like the idea of either the oblivion or a cheesecake wedding cake.  One huge corn and gluten-free custard.

Woops!  Sorry—bad advice there.
Apologies!!!
Best of luck on your cake!!!!

Anne, no worries, everything you said is right, except that it doesn’t start out light and get dense and fudgy, it starts out dense and gets denser. 

Thanks, Julie!

It starts out dense and gets denser

Been there, done that ....

Not sure if you still need gluten free cake info, but I have news about it… Just this week I experimented with using Bob’s Red Mill gluten free flour mix in (my slightly altered version) of Rose’s German Chocolate Cake, and IT WORKED! (Rose’s Heavenly Cakes, pages 137 and 409.) The texture is a bit more dense and heavy than the original cake, but it’s just like a regular glutenful cake, and I am ecstatic and sharing the news with anyone who will listen!

Some changes for the gf flour include:
- 1:1 sub of the flour mix by weight
- adding a scant 1 teaspoon of xanthan gum per 2-9” rounds
- adding 1 teaspoon cider vinegar per 2-9” rounds
- remember to use the gf flour mix when you grease and flour the cake pans!

Hope this helps!