Poppyseed Love Cake With Raspberry Frosting

I am going to be honest about this cake. Sometimes gluten-free baking gives you flavor confusion and you can't decide whether something tastes good or bad. For the first four (or so) pieces that I had, I was still trying to decide if I liked the flavor. For the last four (or so) pieces that I had, I was fairly certain that, yes, the bean flour flavor in this cake is standing out too much... but maybe if I added lemon to it next time it could taste good.

When the cake was gone, and I realized that I had eaten probably eight pieces total (more or less), I thought, "I must have liked it!"

Flavor confusion aside, the loveliest thing about this cake is that Z helped me make it for Valentine's Day.

We took it to a Valentine's party to share with friends, and then we brought some home for Shane. I didn't think I liked it at first taste, and was surprised that some people really liked it, especially the light flavor of the frosting. The cake recipe came from the Simply Sugar and Gluten Free Cookbook, and I did not add the freshly-squeezed lemon juice and lemon zest for which the recipe called. The cake was dense, yet moist, but that garbanzo-fava flour does have its own taste to it and it kind of stands out if you don't add flavor to it. So, that was a big "duh" on my part. I made it into a triple-layer cake and frosted it with Raspberry Ricotta Frosting (also from the Simply Sugar and Gluten Free Cookbook). The raspberry flavor was extremely light, and that helped the garbanzo-fava flavor in the cake to dominate even more.

However. We kept eating it. So, it couldn't have been that bad. As with other things I've baked with this flour mix, the taste isn't a bad one... just so different than the wheat flour flavors I grew up with. I like to think that my taste buds are gaining perspective.

Still, next time I would add more lemon flavor to the cake and more raspberry to the frosting, for sure!

Mixing up the batter

Filling the cake pans

Fresh out of the oven

 

Cooling the cakes

Z mixing up the frosting

Light pink frosting

Making it pretty

Admiration

Did I mention there is ricotta cheese in both the cake and the frosting?!

Love :)