Gluten Free Spiced Zucchini Cake with Cream Cheese Filling + Mrs. Fields Fill N Flip Review

Making a cake stuffed with a filling can be hard sometimes. You want smooth edges, and don’t want the insides coming out. You can do it the old fashioned way by baking two separate cakes and hoping the filling stays inside and there is enough in every bite. So what can you do about it?

Love Cooking Company has a great solution for all of the home bakers trying to make a filled cake easily and with one pan set. They sent the bloggers of the Blogger Recipe Challenge each a Mrs. Fields Fill N Flip pan to try out and see what we could come up with for Herbs and Spices month.

The Fill N Flip pan comes in two parts, it is non stick, but be sure that you oil and flour your pan to make sure your cake removes easily. Both parts are dishwasher safe (yeah!) and it works well with boxed cake mixes as well as homemade recipes. I was told by some of the other members that it required two cake mixes to make a cake with the Fill N Flip. For my recipe it only required one batch to make both parts of the cake. Unfortunately, I didn’t know this until I made a double batch – so we have a lot of cake here!

Ingredients:

• 3 cups grated unpeeled Zucchini
• 2 cups White Rice Flour
• 1 cup Tapioca Starch
• 1 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
• 1 tsp Baking Powder
• 2 cups Sugar
• 1 cup Brown Sugar
• 1 Tbsp ground Cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground Cloves
• 1/4 tsp ground Nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 4 Eggs
• 1 cup unsweetenedApplesauce
• 3/4 cup Vegetable oil
• 1 tspVanilla

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees
2. Using your food processor, shred your unpeeled zucchini into thin strips. Place in a strainer and set aside.
3. In a mixer bowl add in your eggs, apple sauce, vegetable oil and vanilla and mix them together until well combined.
4. In a larger bowl mix together your white rice flour, tapioca starch, baking soda, baking powder, sugar, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, clove and nutmegs.
5. Slowly start to integrate your dry ingredients into your wet ones.
6. When the batter starts to pull together, scrape down the sides and mix again for 2 minutes.
7. Add in your zucchini shreds and mix until just combined.
8. Spray the inside of your Fill N Flip with a cooking spray (make sure that the Mrs. Fields Logo is facing you. And lightly dust with extra white rice flour.
9. Fill 2/3rds of the way up with your batter and repeat with your other half.
10. Bake for 35 minutes or until a tester comes out of the center of the cake clean (due to the shape of the pan – test the center as well as the “walls”).

Some notes I picked up using the Fill N Flip – be careful on just how much flour you use to dust! This is just a good note for any cake I guess, but both of my halves had a bit of a flour glob. This doesn’t hurt anything – just something to keep in mind!

I ran a knife around the outside of the cake and both halves came out extremely easily after I allowed them to cool in the pan for about 30 minutes. So then it was time to create the filling!

Cream Cheese Frosting/Filling

• 4 oz Butter (room temp)
• 4 oz Cream Cheese (room temp)
• 2 cups Powdered Sugar
• 1 tsp Vanilla
• Directions:

1. Add all ingredients to a large mixing bowl and mix until combined!

Now it’s as simple as putting your filling in the cake! Don’t over stuff the well, but simply fill it about 2/3rds of the way full. It may not seem like a ton, but trust me you end up with a full bite of filling with every fork full!

The next step was also extremely easy, remove the top half from the pan. Use your hand to support the top and make sure the bottom of the top layer is facing up. Now, flip it onto the bottom layer! How easy is that? The two pieces fit together and create one single cake with a small seam.

I only put a filling inside the cake, but you can fill it with fruit, frosting, ice cream or really anything you want! There is the seam that isn’t visually attractive if you don’t ice the outside. But once it’s frosted you see it at all. Since you’re not cutting layers  you wont have loose crumbs to get into your frosting as you go!

I absolutely loved working with the Fill N Flip pan, and can’t wait to see what other combinations I’ll come up with for it in future. You never know what might hiding inside those cake layers!

Another quick note – the center of my cake did sink in a little once it was assembled. This wasn’t due to the pan’s design, but a mistake on my part. I removed extra batter thinking I had put too much in! So next time I’ll leave the extra in and it wont have a center that sinks in.

A single batch of the Spiced Zucchini Cake is all you need to make this filled cake recipe. Alternatively it also fills up a 13″ x 9″ pan nicely. Just add 10 extra minutes to the bake time and let it cool completely before spreading the frosting on top!

This recipe is part of the Food Challenge with nine other bloggers. You can check out the recipes below for this challenge! Each month we’ll be doing another challenge – let us know if you try any of the recipes!