Gluten Free Cake Without Almonds

Asked by Mils. Answered on 10th December 2015

Full question

Hi Nigella & team, my mother-in law is coeliac and coming for Christmas. I many gluten free cake recipes use ground almonds - unfortunately my husband does not like almonds and I wondered if there was something I could try which would be as good?

Our answer

Nigella has several cake recipes that are gluten-free and use ground almonds (almond meal or almond flour). Ground almonds are popular as they are usually easily available and do not have an overpowering flavour. However if almonds are a problem (but not other nuts) then we would suggest ground hazelnuts as an alternative.

Nigella has a particularly good recipe for Nutella Cake (from Domestic Goddess and on ther Nigella website), that uses Nutella spread and ground hazelnuts. We have also made Nigella's Chocolate Olive Oil cake (from Nigellissima and on the Nigella website) with ground hazelnuts instead of ground almonds. We woud also suggest considering Nigella's Gloriously Golden Fruitcake (from Christmas) which is a gluten-free fruit cake. Although this uses ground almonds you cannot taste the almonds. We suspect also that you could probably use ground hazelnuts instead of the almonds, though we have not tried this ourselves so cannot guarantee the results.