When I ran a bakery in New Jersey, chocolate chip pound cake was probably the most popular cake selected by brides for their wedding cake.  (Or maybe it was a tie with marble pound?)  And, I understand why.   This is a moist, dense and rich cake and with the addition of chocolate chips, you can’t go wrong.  Well I can’t deny my gluten free audience that same experience, so here is a Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Pound Cake with all those same fabulous qualities.

Why is it called a Pound Cake?

This pound cake is believed to have been created in Northern Europe in the early 1700s and is based on a pound each of butter, sugar, eggs and flour.  So that explains that.   And, the recipe is super easy to remember, right?  Don’t even need to write that down.  And there weren’t any chemical leaveners in this cake.  It relied solely on the eggs to do that job.  Over the years, of course, all kinds of variations of this cake surfaced.  But, one of the more popular changes was to add chemical leaveners – baking powder mostly for a lighter cake.

Gluten Chocolate Chip Pound Cake with a twist…

This Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Pound, that I made for a 21st birthday celebration, has a bit of a twist.  The birthday girl loves chocolate chip cookies and I thought it would be different if the bottom layer had a chocolate chip cookie crust where the chocolate chip pound batter is placed right on top and baked to perfection.  I’ve put the crust on the bottom layer only.

But, we’re not stopping there…

It must be filled with a Brown Sugar Buttercream.  Oh, but, that’s still not enough.  Let’s crush up more chocolate chip cookies and put those in between the filled layers.  Now we might be there.

I adapted this cake from The Fannie Farmer Baking Book that was published in 1984.  This book has highly reliable recipes that are simple and easy to follow.  I chose this Pound Cake recipe because the addition of cream cheese bumps up the ratio a bit of fat in the recipe and what you get is this ‘moist, rich pound cake’ similar to your favorite store-bought brand.

Torte (cut) each layer in half horizontally and soak each layer with simple syrup! 

As I believe I’ve mentioned before, I’m a fan of cutting each layer in half horizontally so that for a two layer cake, for example, I’ll end up with four thin layers.  So much better, in my opinion, than two thick layers of cake with a layer of buttercream in between.   I then soak each layer with simple syrup (equal parts sugar and water brought to a boil and cooled) and place a thin layer of buttercream in between each layer.  In this case, I also added crushed chocolate chip cookies.  To die for I say.

But, you say, I only see three layers.  Yes – in this case, I didn’t use the fourth layer.  These layers were thick and if I used the fourth layer, it would have made this cake too tall for the design I was going after.

So, the birthday girl is all about zebra cakes.

And, her mom bought this beautiful tiara to go on top of the cake.

But, you certainly don’t need to do any of this if you just want delicious gluten free chocolate chip pound.  Just make the pound cake batter, place that in a loaf pan and sliver and slice it all week to go with your coffee or tea – for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Buon Appetito!

Adapted from The Fannie Farmer Baking Book

Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Pound Cake with Brown Sugar Buttercream

20 minPrep Time

50 minCook Time

1 hr, 10 Total Time

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Ingredients

Optional - For the Chocolate Chip Cookie Crust
• 1 cup chocolate chip cookie crumbs. About 12 to 14 cookies. Please see this Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
• 6 Tablespoons (3 ounces) butter, unsalted, melted
• 3 Tablespoons (1.3 ounces) granulated sugar
For the Chocolate Chip Pound Cake
• 1 cup (4.4 ounces) Gluten Free Farina All Purpose Flour
• 1 teaspoon guar gum or 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 6 Tablespoons (3 ounces) butter, unsalted, room temperature
• 3/8ths of a cup or a scant 1/2 cup (3 ounces) cream cheese,room temperature
• 1/2 cup (3.5 ounces) granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup (4 ounces) mini chocolate chips
For the Brown Sugar Buttercream
• 1 cup (8 ounces) butter, unsalted, room temperature
• 1/2 cup (3.5 ounces) brown sugar
• 4 cups (1 lb.) Confectioner's Sugar, sifted, if necessary
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• Optional: Milk - add 1 teaspoon at a time to your desired consistency

Instructions

1. If using the Chocolate Chip Cookie Crust, please prepare that first.
For the Chocolate Chip Cookie Crust
2. Preheat oven to 350F.
3. To make chocolate chip cookie crumbs, take about 12 to 14 chocolate chip cookies and buzz them up in your food processor into fine crumbs
4. Add sugar and melted butter and pulse until combined.
5. Press into the bottom of the prepared loaf or cake pan. See instruction 8. below.
6. Bake crust for about 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Remove from oven and let cool before filling with cake batter.
For the Chocolate Chip Pound Cake
7. Preheat oven to 350F.
8. Prepare a 9" x 5" x 3" loaf pan or an 8" cake pan by greasing the sides and line the bottom with parchment.
9. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, xanthan gum and salt and stir to combine.
10. Take 2 to 3 Tablespoons of flour mixture and toss chocolate chips to coat with the flour.
11. Beat cream cheese in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat on medium speed until smooth. Add butter and sugar and continue to beat until smooth and blended.
12. Add eggs, one at a time, until blended.
13. Add Vanilla extract and mix to combine.
14. Add remaining flour mixture to cream cheese mixture and mix to combine.
15. Add coated chocolate chips.
16. Place batter into prepared pan.
17. Bake in preheated oven for 50 to 60 minutes or until top springs back when lightly touched in the middle.
18. Let cool in pan about 15 minutes. Run a knife around the sides of the pan and turn out.
For the Brown Sugar Buttercream
19. Cream butter and brown sugar together in mixer on medium speed until smooth.
20. Add vanilla extract.
21. Add 1/2 of confectioner's sugar and mix until combined, scraping down sides of bowl, if necessary.
22. Add remaining confectioner's sugar and mix until combined and light and fluffy.
23. Should you desire a looser consistency, add milk, 1 teaspoon at a time until the mixture reaches your desired consistency.

Notes

If using a cup for cup gluten free flour mix that contains gums, please remove the xanthan gum in the recipe.

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One other thing I wanted to mention.  I know there are issues in baking where the chocolate chips (or nuts and fruit) fall to the bottom of the batter when baked.  In this case, I’ve suggested that you use mini chocolate chips and toss those in a portion of the flour mix before adding to the batter.

But, check back later this week for a post on 6 Tips to Keep Chocolate Chips from Sinking to the Bottom of a Cake.