Gluten-Free Chai Tea Cake

I've been itching to try out a non-chocolate cake for awhile now, and started with the recipe for chai latte cupcakes from VCToTW (though the only thing I ended up keeping from the recipe was the flavor profile). I've been playing around with flax goo as an egg substitute and really like how much it binds and coagulates after baking if you make it an hour or so ahead of time, so I went with that instead of the soy yogurt the original recipe calls for. I used sugar whipped into a solid fat to get more of a rise out of the cake, upped the salt and baking powder, raised the cooking temp and lowered the baking time, threw in some coconut, and added some potato starch to my usual flour mix to lighten it some.

The cake is light and fluffy and it blows away the box mix that stole my heart all those months ago. We ended up eating half of it instead of dinner. Woops.

1 cup soy or nut milk
4 black tea bags or 2 tbsp loose black tea
¼ cup dried unsweetened coconut
½ cup earth balance, softened
¾ cup cane sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp flax seed
3 tbsp warm water
¾ cup sorghum flour
¼ cup tapioca flour
¼ cup potato starch
2 tbsp almond flour
1 tsp baking powder
¾ tsp salt
1 tsp xanthan gum
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cardamom
½ tsp ground ginger
¼ tsp ground cloves
pinch of ground black pepper

Pulverize the flax seeds in a coffee grinder, then mix thoroughly into the warm water. Let this sit for at least an hour before using - during that time it will become less like a thick slurry and more like a gelled mass (it's more pleasant than it sounds, really).

In a small saucepan, heat the non-dairy milk just short of boiling. Add the tea and coconut and cover, then let steep for 10 minutes. Strain out the coconut and remove the tea, squeezing any remaining liquid out of both. You should have around ¾ cup liquid left at this point.

In a large bowl, cream together the earth balance and shortening, then add the vanilla, flax goo, and tea-milk mixture and whisk together until well incorporated. In a separate bowl, whisk or sift together the flours, baking powder, salt, xanthan gum, and spices. Whisk the dry into the wet, then pour the batter into an oiled cake pan. Bake at 375 for 20 minutes or until inside is tested to be dry.

We liked the cake so much as is that we decided not to frost it, though a double recipe made in separate cake pans and layered together with a lightly spiced vanilla coconut frosting wouldn't be a bad idea. If going without frosting, sprinkle some extra cane sugar evenly over the top of the poured batter before baking.