The Simple Ratio Ina Garten Follows For Her Gluten-Free Chocolate Cake

Despite an ever-expanding gluten-free food market, avoiding gluten can still be challenging — especially if you have a sweet tooth. After all, most cookies, pastries, and other baked goods you'll find at a typical bakery are made with gluten-containing ingredients, at the top of the list being most traditional flours. And while you can always roll up your sleeves and whip up a gluten-free dessert yourself (such as Tasting Table's pomegranate-stuffed chocolate brownies or almond crinkle cookies), even that's not always so simple. For one thing, gluten-free flours tend to be lighter, finer, and more absorbent than regular flour, which will affect how it interacts with the rest of the ingredients in your bake. Because of this, you can't always adapt a standard recipe by making a 1:1 swap. Well, not unless you use Ina Garten's favorite gluten-free flour, that is.

As the Food Network star revealed on her website, her "secret weapon" when it comes to gluten-free chocolate cake is Thomas Keller's Cup4Cup flour. As its name suggests, the product stakes its claim in being the first gluten-free flour that can substitute standard flour at a 1:1 ratio. Garten, as we all know, loves to keep things easy, so it's no surprise she's a fan. "I substitute it — literally cup for cup — for regular all-purpose flour and trust me, no one can ever tell the difference!" Add this to the list of Garten's best cooking tips for home chefs.

As Chef Thomas Keller himself insists on the Cup4Cup website, "Giving up gluten doesn't mean giving up the foods you've always loved." Thanks to this flour formulation, which was developed by chefs at Keller's acclaimed French Laundry restaurant, that includes rich chocolate cake á la Ina Garten. The fact that it allows for a simple 1:1 substitution of gluten-free flour for traditional flour means that the rest of the recipe can stay the same, thus resulting in a gluten-free chocolate cake that tastes on par with the real (glutenous) deal.

Always the gracious host, Garten has expressed her adamancy that all of her guests share the same meal when they eat around her table. And no, that doesn't mean she's forcing them to dine on something they shouldn't; rather, she says she sees allergies and restrictions as "a challenge" to make a meal that fits everyone's needs without singling anyone out. "They think it's only a happy accident that everyone can eat everything on the menu," she writes in the introduction to her cake recipe.

Indeed, her self-described "decadent" gluten-free cake is sure to be any chocolate lover's dream. Per the recipe, it calls for over a pound of bittersweet chocolate, along with plenty of butter and the unique addition of coffee granules, which work to enhance the chocolatey flavor. Throw in the addition of creamy chocolate frosting, and, gluten-free or not, it's guaranteed to please the entire crowd come the dessert course.