Gluten Free Anise-Fennel Pollen Tea Cakes

All photos by Knoxy

Happy Holidays my gluten free fiends. To kick things off, I wanted to gift you with my inaugural recipe of the feasting season with these gorgeous anise-fennel pollen teacakes.

My grandmother always made desserts with anise flavoring in them for the holidays so it feels super natural that this be the first of the many to come. Another recipe I have and that is already on my site, is my recipe for gluten free pizzelles, which can be served flat or rolled into an ice cream cone for the ice cream lovers, or draped over a rolling pin and filled with fresh berries and cream, for an elegant dessert for after dinner. Anyhow, I digress. I guess what I’m trying to say is think of the endless possibilities for every dessert you see here. Each piece can be wielded to create something else, so let your imagination go wild while you’re here with me. These teacakes are a perfect example. The cakes can be baked into cake rounds and piled with a cream cheese or Swiss meringue icing for a decadent, layered experience, or pour the batter into a muffin tin and you have some quick holiday cupcakes on your hands. Can you feel me?

What makes this recipe great for me is I decided to list my flour measurements by weight rather than by volume. This was a point of contention that I’ve grappled with since writing my first book. You will notice that the ingredient lists are funny: lots of cups + tablespoons and teaspoons. I didn’t want to intimidate the readers further by adding the use of a scale, but as I plow through writing my next cookbook, I realized that I was only making the writing process and the precision of my recipes more difficult and timely to achieve.

There are a myriad of different gluten free flours and all of them have a different density; a cup of sorghum does not weigh the same as a cup of glutinous rice flour and their characteristics yield a very different result. In the past, I always resorted to just spooning my ingredients in and then leveling them off, but if I was in a rush and just scooped the ingredients out and dumped them into my bowl, there would be a margin of error. For example, if the starches or flours are densely packed into your storage containers, then you will probably be scooping out up to ¼ cup more of a given ingredient, making your margin of error of 20-30%. To eliminate this problem, I always fluffed my ingredients with a fork before proceeding. But all these extra steps began to get tedious and so rather than adding more and more steps of instruction, I decided to take them away by simply weighing out the flours like they should be.

As I noted on facebook, gluten free girl wrote a great article about the virtues of weighing and now I’m weighing in as well because as I said before, she’s right, just like all the bakers of the world that came before any of us and espoused the importance of weighing the flours are right. I mean, a technique that is passed down through the centuries survives the test of time for a reason, because it works.

So here is my inaugural recipe to kick off the less tedious life of gluten free baking for not just myself, but for all of you. I love what I do and now I love it even more because it just got easier.

I found the fennel pollen at the Savory Spice Shop, so if you don’t have one in your area, you can get it easily on line.

The cakes are buttery and the flavor is subtle and fantastic, especially with the weather getting chilly outside, and the perfect accompaniment to that cup of tea or steaming coffee.

Anise-Fennel Pollen Teacakes

60 g. sweet sorghum flour
60 g. tapioca flour (Bob’s)
60 g. glutinous rice flour (flying horse brand used here)
50 g. non-gmo cornstarch
45 g. potato flour
2 cups packed light brown sugar
1 teaspoon guar gum
½ teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon fennel pollen
¼ teaspoon packed freshly grated nutmeg

10 tablespoons unsalted butter, diced

3 large eggs
1 ¼ teaspoon baking powder

½ cup whole evaporated milk
¼ teaspoon anise extract

4 anise stars for garnish

Preheat oven to 350°F and position the rack to the middle of the oven.

Grease and line the bottom of 4 cylinder baking molds with a removable bottom with vegetable shortening.

Weigh out all the flours and add to the bowl of your stand mixer along with the rest of your dry ingredients with the paddle attachment. Mix on the lowest setting to amalgamate. Add the diced butter and cream together until the mixture looks like damp sand.

While the butter is cutting into the dry ingredients, crack the eggs into a clean glass bowl and add the baking powder and allow to sit for at least 5 minutes.

When the butter is perfectly amalgamated into the dry ingredients, add the evaporated milk and then the egg mixture, being careful that all of the baking powder gets into the bowl.

Mix the batter on medium high until everything is very well combined and very smooth about 45 seconds will do.

Add the anise extract and mix to combine.

Divide the batter amongst the four molds so that each is ¾ full. Gently place a anise star on top of the batter. Place the molds on a jellyroll pan and bake at 350°F until golden brown and the cakes have risen to the top of the molds, 25-30 minutes. The cakes are done when the tops feel firm to the touch.

Serves 4.

If you are baking you cakes in a different mold, then adjust your baking time accordingly. If you are making layer cakes, rotate the cakes half way through from front to back and top to bottom. This batter will yield 2-9″ rounds and and a dozen cupcakes. If making cupcakes, reduce the baking time to 20 minutes and the cakes are golden. Be sure to also grease and line your pans with parchment or cupcake papers.