Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Can Gluten-Free Cake Really Taste as Good as Cake with Flour?

We think so. In fact, euforia's flourless cake (as in no flour; not a scratch of it... at all), is so good and tastes so much like the original, that we received a response from a food editor that they didn't believe it! They said that there must be some type of flour in there somewhere.

Photo Courtesy of Foodette-Reviews.blogspot.com!

But, there's not. If you've ever tried flourless cake - the kind that is simply a non-flour version of a traditional cake (like chocolate cake), you'll notice a lot of differences. For one, flourless cake is typically denser, and sometimes it is even sweeter than normal.

euforia is already moist. The only difference you may notice in the gluten-free/flourless version is that it is just as moist - sometimes even more moist - than the version with flour.

How is this possible?

The baking process is really the only explanation. ALL euforia cakes - flourless or not - go through a layer-by-layer baking process, in which each layer is baked individually, one on top of the other. When the first layer is baked, batter is poured on top of it, creating a second layer. That is baked, and then a 3rd layer of batter, etc. It takes 4 hours. The first layer benefits from all of the moisture in the layers on top of it.

The whole cake has layers upon layers of moist, sweet flavor.

Because the cake consists of layers, the layers give the flourless version a traditional cake-like texture, even though there is absolutely no flour in it at all. Kartika spent a long time perfecting this version. We believe you will adore it!!

Want to try our flourless euforia cake? Leave a comment and receive a gift certificate for $5. Share it with your whole family!

Monday, September 12, 2011

Perfect Pairing: Spiced Apple Cider

It's still summertime, but it's at that point of the summer when people are so ready to go out and buy a new hoodie, make apple cider, and hit the pumpkin patches already. In most areas of the country, the leaves will begin to turn in just a few weeks from now. Fall planning has already begun!

With that in mind, we have another perfect pairing for euforia: Spiced Apple Cider. Apple cider is sold cold at grocery stores, specialty stores, or farmer's markets - because it is so perishable. But you can warm it, too. For this pairing, I suggest drinking it chilled. Chilled cider has that incredible apple taste - it's cold, fruity, with just a little spice. Sip and munch on euforia after a nice dinner of easy roasted chicken and potatoes. It's the simple goodness of REAL FOOD.

Perfect Pairing #2: Spiced Apple Cider

You'll need
  1. Apple cider
  2. Ingredients for spice cider recipe (see below)
  3. euforia cake! Get 20% off euforia from now til Food Day, Oct 24. See Facebook (become a fan and then go back to "Welcome.")

First, spice the cider. A great (and creative) recipe for spiced apple cider from allrecipes.com (one of my favorite recipe sites) calls for brown sugar, allspice, nutmeg, whole cloves and a cinnamon stick, and then uses the coffee maker to brew! Clever.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Perfect Pairing: Homemade Spiced Chai Tea Latte Recipe

Okay, Gourmets! (Funny, "foodies" used to be called "gourmets." I wonder what the name will be in ten years.)

When eating euforia, and in a state of euphoria (ha) wouldn't it be nice to sip on something amazing? It would. For the next several weeks, we're going to be publishing all sorts of perfect pairings for euforia, so you can get the full experience! euforia is a delicate, super moist thousand-layer cake that goes really well with coffees and wines - which we will certainly cover - but there are also a number of other drinks that bring the gourmet experience to life.

Perfect Pairing #1: Homemade Spiced Chai Tea Latte Recipe

What is chai tea? In my opinion, it's definitely the best stuff on earth! Chai is by origin an Indian concoction of delicious, fragrant spices - cardamom, star anise, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg are frequently found in Chai. The recipe below uses pepper (I would probably leave that out). Fresh black tea is also used as a base.

In chai tea latte, steamed milk is used to create the latte. It's absolutely wonderful. Chai mix is easy to make and store, also. Doing a quick search on Google for chai tea mix recipes will bring up tons of great resources on blogs.

We like the step-by-step instructions for making chai from TastyKitchen.com. They also provided a printable recipe, which we have published below.

Thanks to TastyKitchen.com for providing such a great walkthrough!

Image Source: TastyKitchen.com