Gluten Free Classic Chocolate Pound Cake

Pound cake gets a makeover with this Gluten-Free Chocolate Pound Cake recipe.

~by Regan Jones, RD

If you consider yourself a #PoundCakePurist, please let me take a moment to tell you two things:

1) You are not alone (at least not according to many of my friends on Facebook who are misguided like minded with you)

2) You need to avert your eyes immediately as I am not only about to do what you abhor -- take pound cake to a whole new level -- but also tell you that you're dead wrong that pound cake should only be un-iced and only vanilla flavored. 

Who's still with me? 

Thank you friends... we can be close. Those folks who think pound cake is plain with nothing on it? I pity them, really I do. Such a sheltered life. 

I've talked about being sheltered from wine and lamb as a child. And you can judge me if you want. But I'm pretty certain where I may be lacking in lamb shanks and early-onset vino, my exposure to yummy baked goods is epic. My grandmother Miller (Mawmaw Ween as many of you have heard me refer to her) had it going on in the baking department. She was a "from-scratch, spoon-and-scrape your flour, only use a liquid measuring cup for liquids, by the book" kinda cook.  

And she made Chocolate Pound Cake (with Icing) years before you and I were ever born... and we all know I ain't no spring chicken these days. I can't speak for you.... 

I will admit that I can't guarantee Chocolate Pound Cake existed in Elizabethan times when people were saying stuff like "What hast thou? A pound of butter and eggs for ye olde cake?"

...or something like that... 

But I can guarantee that there were many an occasion before The Twitter, and Faceworld, and all this new fangled food bloggery mish-mash of flavor fusion and crazy combos, where Chocolate Pound Cake was served and enjoyed with great delight.

Now, just to be transparent and on the up-and-up in this pound cake conversation... my grandmother's chocolate pound cake isn't topped with a traditional Icing or Frosting, if you ask me. I do acknowledge that perhaps this is a uniquely creative spin on both Icing and Frosting... here's how my Aunt describes the process:

She's right... it is a masterpiece. And one that I happily recreated for this month's Recipe ReDux of "Holiday Memories" and made it gluten-free. 

Gluten-free baking has taken on a whole new importance at my house. You can read more about that here. For all you #PoundCakePurists, if we can't agree on chocolate and icing, can we at least agree that making a gluten-free version for those who need to eat gluten-free is a good thing?

I am 100% certain Mawmaw Ween would. Just as long as you scoop and scrape your flour, use only a liquid measuring cup for measuring liquids... and enjoy it with the folks you love the most.

Happy Thanksgiving to each and every one of you! May this be a time when you recall many happy holiday memories past and make many more for the future!

Be sure to click here - InLinkz Link-up - to see what other Recipe ReDux Members are cooking up this month!

A few notes about this cake: If there's ever been a cake ideal to remake gluten-free, it's this one. The chocolate covers the look of the flax meal (I used flax instead of xanthan gum as a binder. I'm not 100% certain that xanthan doesn't give at least 1 of my children a stomachache, so I'm using it sparingly. Here is more convo on xanthan at Kumquat.).

The dense nature of a pound cake, by nature, makes the change in flour not so noticeable. This truly was a recreation that I thought it hard to tell the difference in the original versus the gluten-free version. I also opted to cut Mawmaw's recipe in half. So rather than a tube or bundt cake size, this is loaf size. You could easily double the recipe, though. Just be sure to watch the cooking time closely as it will likely take longer. 

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Pound cake gets a tasty makeover in this Gluten-Free Chocolate Pound Cake recipe by @ReganJonesRD Tweet this