Cinnamon Roll Cake

When you have to go Gluten Free, there is always a certain special treat (or two or three LOL) that you wish you could have, but it's either not possible, or a lot of work, or too expensive.  One of my favorite treats was a cinnamon roll, warm from the oven and drizzled in icing.  Yum!  Unfortunately, due to the nature of gluten free doughs, it's really difficult to make a decent cinnamon roll.  And though we have a FANTASTIC Gluten Free bakery near by, the rolls are a bit expensive and it is a bit of a drive for a single cinnamon roll.  This is probably a good thing for my waistline LOL.

But then I stumbled across this recipe for Cinnamon Roll Cake:
http://www.chef-in-training.com/2012/01/cinnamon-roll-cake/

And the drool began flowing.  The memories of eating cinnamon rolls surfaced.  My eyes glazed over.  And then it hit me...  Even though this isn't a Gluten Free recipe, could I make it work if I just used Gluten Free All-Purpose Flour instead of the wheat flour?  It was time to find out!

First, I gathered all my ingredients.  Well, not ALL my ingredients, I forgot to include in the picture the HUGE container of cinnamon from Costco and the brown sugar, both used in the cinnamon "filling".  Oops!

Before making the cake batter, I made the cinnamon "filling" that will be swirled into the top of the cake.

I combined all the dry ingredients for the cake in the bowl of my stand mixer and stirred to combine.  Note that I tried this recipe without using Xanthan Gum or Guar Gum, which most GF recipes use to mimic the missing gluten.  I find that my body doesn't tolerate these very well so I left them out.  Fingers crossed that it works!

Next I added the wet ingredients and used the paddle attachment on my stand mixer to mix the batter well, stopping once to scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl to ensure everything was well combined.  At first it seemed very wet, but after scraping down the sides of the bowl and giving the flours time to hydrate, it thickened up like it was supposed to.  There, that's looking great!

As soon as the batter was ready, I spread it in my prepared 9x13 baking dish.  Then I dotted the top with the cinnamon "filling".

Using a butter knife, I swirled the "filling" along the top of the cake.  I think I should have mixed the two layers together more, honestly... you'll see why in a moment.

I baked the cake as directed in the recipe, and boy did it look good when it came out of the oven!

But after it cooled, sections of it deflated quite a bit.  I wonder if that's because I didn't swirl the "filling" with the cake batter enough?  Or maybe it's because of the high content of butter in the "filling"?  I may try it again with less butter and more swirling action and see how it turns out.

The icing mixed up easily and filled in all those nooks and crannies... Hmmmm, maybe that's what was suppoed to happen?  LOL!

I can honestly say that this was a good dessert.  The crumb of the cake reminded me a LOT of coffee cake, so I can see making this as a breakfast treat as well as a dessert for after dinner.  And maybe if it were made in a smaller baking dish, it wouldn't deflate quite as far as it cools.  I guess this means I'll have to try it again.  Not that I'm complaining, mind you.  :)