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The Best Gluten Free White Cake is tender and moist, while dense enough not to crumble at the touch of a fork, this is exactly what I want in a white cake.
Topped with creamy fresh strawberry frosting, or a classic buttercream, this cake has received more thumbs up over the past ten years than anything else I’ve baked. The flavor combination is absolutely perfect with both almond and vanilla flavors.
Gluten Free Cake Recipes
Several years ago, my best friend asked if I would make her a gluten-free white cake. In my relative newness to gluten-free baking, I assured her that I could do that. Ha.
It took me 6, maybe 7-8, different recipe attempts, (I stopping counting after I dumped the third mess into the trash.) The taste and/or texture was never quite right.
If you are familiar with gluten-free baking, then you likely already know that recipes for traditional chocolate desserts are fairly simple to convert to gluten-free most of the time.
This is evidenced by The Best Gluten Free Chocolate Cake, no one ever believes that one is gluten-free. Unfortunately, this is not true for all gluten free baking recipes.
Chocolate provides so much flavor that without it, the more “unique” flavors of the gluten free flour alternatives will often show through. This made it much harder to achieve a classic white cake flavor.
Gluten Free White Cake
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m rather picky about my gluten-free baking. (It has caused many an eye roll from my husband as I decide something just isn’t quite right, while he and my kids are happily devouring it. ha)
Because I am not restricted from eating the traditional versions myself, I often make both items side by side to taste the both versions and see if the gluten free recipe measures up. “Good enough for gluten free” isn’t something I ever want to share with you.
I’m thrilled to tell you that this is THE CAKE. This cake absolutely positively measures up. Over the past few years, I’ve made this cake with the exact recipe below countless times now and I’ve served it to over a dozen people.
It received rave reviews from every single person and they all questioned me more than once regarding whether or not it was really gluten free. (That, my friends, is a sign of gluten free recipe success!)
Gluten Free White Cake Recipe
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease (2) 8″ round cake pans with butter and line the bottom of each pan with a greased parchment circle.
- Stir together the dry ingredients and set aside.
- Beat the eggs and the sugar together until creamy.
- Add half of the dry ingredients and beat again.
- Add the buttermilk, butter, vanilla and almond extracts and beat to combine.
- Add the remaining dry ingredients and beat just until combined.
- Divide the batter between the greased cake pans.
- Bake in the center of the oven for 35-40 minutes, until the cake is very lightly browned and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Remove and let cool at least 30 minutes, before inverting onto a wire rack to finish cooling.
- Frost as desired.
Once you’ve fallen in love with this cake the way that we have, you can use this recipe to make a Strawberry Poke Cake, a Pineapple Crush Jello Cake, or this Strawberry Mousse Cake.
The Gluten-Free White Cake recipe works great as cupcakes for a gluten-free birthday cake. My middle son loves this cake with Fluffy Chocolate Frosting. The possibilities with this cake recipe are endless.
Check out all of the Gluten Free Dessert Recipes on this website!
Kitchen Tip: I use this sheet pan, this cake pan, or this cupcake pan to make this recipe.
The Best Gluten Free White Cake
Ingredients
- 1½ cups brown rice flour
- ⅔ cup potato starch
- ⅓ cup tapioca starch
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon xanthan gum
- 4 eggs
- 2 cups white sugar
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1 cup butter melted and cooled
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon almond extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease (2) 8" round cake pans with butter and line the bottom of each pan with a greased parchment circle.
- Stir together the dry ingredients and set aside. Beat the eggs and the sugar together until creamy. Add half of the dry ingredients and beat again.
- Add the buttermilk, butter, vanilla and almond extracts and beat to combine. Add the remaining dry ingredients and beat just until combined.
- Divide the batter between the greased cake pans. Bake in the center of the oven for 35-40 minutes, until the cake is very lightly browned and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Remove and let cool at least 30 minutes, before inverting onto a wire rack to finish cooling. Frost as desired. Enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
{originally published 4/1/14 – recipe notes and photos updated 8/17/21}
This recipe is a winner!!! I gave it a test run & used whipped white chocolate ganche as frosting.. delish!! I will be attempting my first wedding cake for my niece’s wedding in June and I’ll have a few practice cakes with her shower. With a tight budget & bakers charging $1200 for a gf cake that serves 150, I decided to give it a try. Besides.. we love the naked wedding cake with fresh flowers look so no fancy icing work. I’m excite & nervous.
can I use gluten-free cake mix instead of gluten free flour and if so how much
This is the BEST GF cake recipe! It is moist and yummy! I used Betty Crocker Gluten Free rice flour blend and just put in the total amount for the combined flours.
Thank you so much !!
My daughter is gluten free and has a rice allergy. Is there another flour I can substitute for the brown rice flour?
I want to bake this for a friend’s baby shower. I need to modify it to be dairy free and vanilla free. Could I use just almond extract or something else? Also, how do I make buttermilk with almond milk & vinegar? So excited to try this!
Yes, you can swap the vanilla for almond extract. You can make a dairy free buttermilk by subbing almond milk in this method for making homemade buttermilk: https://barefeetinthekitchen.com/kitchen-tip-how-to-make-buttermilk/.
This has been my long-standing favorite white cake recipe since going gluten-free! I recently began eating more whole foods and less sugar and found the recipe to be a bit sweet for my tastes the last time I made it, so I reduced the sugar to 1-1/2 cups this go-round and it still worked great! My youngest daughter and I also can do butter but not other milk products right now, so I substituted almond milk & vinegar for the buttermilkthis time. It was DELIGHTFUL! Somehow, you have created a perfectly-flavored, perfectly-textured cake that I can even make slight to moderate changes to and it still manages to impress me! I just wanted you to know how much I come back to this recipe, time and again, as I bake for friends and family with dietary restrictions. We don’t feel like we’ve given anything up when we have a slice of this cake! Thank you!
I am looking for a great white cake recipe. Since going gluten free over 4 years I can’t even find a white GF boxed cake. Have you ever substituted the flours and starch with gluten free blend? I’d like to attempt it, but I usually don’t have good luck with that. I see a few people have asked my same questions but I don’t see a response. Thanks in advance!
It’s certainly worth trying with a GF blend, but I have no idea how that will work, as I haven’t tried your exact blend myself. As I mentioned in this post, I tested white cake recipes endlessly until I was thrilled with this one. So, for me, it’s worth having the exact flours listed in order to achieve a perfect white cake that is GF and tastes like a traditional white cake.
Hi Mary
Can I use regular gf flour and how much
I really want to try to make this cake
Also what can u substitute buttermilk
for since I have an issue with dairy
Thank you and anxiously waiting for ur reply
So I can try it very soon
If you read through the comments, you’ll see where others have substituted GF flour blends with success. I make it exactly as written when I make it. If you simply need a dairy free alternative, almond milk will work with a teaspoon of vinegar to make a buttermilk substitute.
Hi! I have been scouring the Internet for recipes that are gluten free but that have no potato starch in them. I am along with no gluten also not allowed any nightshades and potatoes are a night shade. If I want to switch out the potato starch in a recipe and still get good results can you recommend to me what I can do? I’m really new to this only recently having found out that I need to be gluten free. And help would be really appreciated as I LOVE to bake!
You can try substituting tapioca starch for the potato starch listed here. That said, it will change the final texture of the recipe. Good luck!
Will this be enough for sheet pan 13x9x2 or do I double the recipe? Thank you linda
What brand of flour and starch do you use? I am looking forward to making this cake! Thanks!!!
I typically use Bob’s Red Mill for my gluten-free baking.
I made this last week! It rose nicely cooled it and it was hard as a rock!! All the ingredients and to have the cake hard and dry’ linda
Absolutely Best White Cake! I’ve been gf for 12 yrs and have been disappointed again and again, but I can honestly say my search is over! By far the best crumb, no weird flavor, and has the flavor you remember. I followed directions to a T. Can’t recommend it enough
I’m so glad that you enjoyed it, Heather!
Is this cake really white with the whole eggs in it?
It’s as white as the photo. That is the true color of the cake. Maybe not the brightest white ever, but it’s certainly white enough to work for me.
This cake was ridiculously sweet and no one could eat it which was a shame because it was very expensive.
I’m sorry to hear that you didn’t love this cake, Kristy. So many people love this recipe, it’s a bummer that you didn’t.
WOW!! That gluten free white cake is “the bomb”!!
I served it to about 18 people at a group birthday party last night and everyone was raving about it…including me! I was asked beforehand whether it was gluten free so everyone knew, but there was no hesitation in the enthusiastic ooooos and aaahhhhhs along with a few “Oh My God”s thrown in for good measure as they devoured it. I made the creamy strawberry frosting which was superb! I used that frosting because the cake was heart shaped (I’m a Valentine’s baby) and pink was the perfect color.
I baked this twice as my first attempt was not great. It was dense and a little in the flat side. I watched your video after I baked it (a little out of order) and learned I didn’t cream the sugar and eggs enough. They had not thickened up. The second attempt was great!
Thanks for doing what you do. I don’t have the time, patience, or knowledge to create recipes so I truly appreciate your talent in creating, and your generosity in sharing.
Your comment made my day, Sue. I am so very glad that you love the cake!
Hi! Was so excited to find this recipe. Followed the instructions exactly and my cakes didn’t rise and were very hard. Was Wondering if you could help me trouble shoot. Do you think creaming the butter could be better than melting? I’m confused how people are getting such great results. I’m gapping to give it another go with some tweaking.
Thank you so much.
Oh, Leah. I know how frustrating it can be when recipes don’t work as expected. That said, without being in your kitchen with you, I honestly have no idea what could be going wrong with the cakes. Are you substituting any ingredients? Changing any of the methods?
Hello Mary,
Thanks for getting back with me so quickly, really appreciate it.
Well the good news is my little girls 6 and 7 Yrs old rarely get sugar and only a baked good on their bdays. So my 6 year old was thrilled about her bday cake tonight. I made a TON of Strawberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream to make up for the flat and dense cake. It was also pink so I received extra points for that too!
The cake smelled amazing so I’d love to try it again.
I made no subs and followed the recipe to a T.
I did find the melted and cooled butter made the light and fluffy batter rather liquidy. That’s why I was curious if in your 6-8 attempts and throw out of the cake if you had creamed the butter sugar and eggs and what had happened.
All my ingredients were fresh and bought at the store today and were all the suggested brands as well.
I’m not ready to give up on the cake for your pic is the best looking gf cake I’ve seen. The crumb on it is beautiful and looks real, as in non gf!
And for the people who the recipe turns out for the reviews are amazing.
Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks so much 🙂
This cake really does taste like a “real” or traditional all-purpose flour cake. It sounds like you’re familiar with baking, so I don’t doubt that you followed the recipe as written. This cake is lightened by beating the eggs with the sugar until creamy in the first step. So, you would lose that by creaming the butter with the sugar. It’s a different kind of cake making process, but it simply works.
I am assuming that you watched the video at the top of the post. However, if you didn’t, it might help to watch that to see if there is a step that didn’t stand out as written. In the video, you can see where the butter and other liquid ingredients are added, followed by the remaining dry ingredients. The batter should be pretty thick at that point and not liquid.
To be honest, I’ve been making this cake as written for so many years now, that I don’t recall exactly what the different attempts were. I simply remember all the failures.
What temperature and time do you use if baking as a sheet cake? I found the instructions for the cupcakes, but not the sheet cake.
Thanks in advance!
I haven’t made this as a sheet cake in a while. I typically make it in two rounds. I recommend starting with 25 minutes and testing for doneness in 5-minute increments. The cake should be very lightly browned and a toothpick inserted in the center should come out clean.
Hello Again Mary,
Yes I had watched the video and followed exactly. I was using a kitchen aid mixer because I don’t have a hand held. However I followed exactly. When the wet ingredients were added, the second addition of the dry ingredients never thicken it back up. It stayed fluffy but it was a soupy fluffy. I’m going to try again with the left over ingredients and I’ll teport back…:::
Keep me posted, Leah!
Hello Mary,
Ok I just took a second go around at the cake. Moving slowly, being present and triple checking my measurements. When it was time to add all the liquids I added all the butter and only 1/2 of the buttermilk due to being traumatized from a soupy batter the previous attempt.
I added the remaining dry ingredients after mixing liquids in and thought the batter was thicker than the previous attempt but still wasn’t as thick as the video. At this point I added an extra 2 T of brown rice flour and 1 T of Potato starch to get the desired consistency. I never added the remaining 1/2 c of buttermilk.
They are in the oven now, I’ll let you knock when they are out cooled and sampled.
I just don’t understand these failed attempts on a tried and true recipe!
So frustrating.
Any thoughts are appreciated!
🙂
Hi leah, how did yours turn out? I’m in high altitude so I’m thinking I need to remove liquid as well, my cakes sink in the middle
I am not a expert on cakes and this is my first gluten free cake that I made for my friends baby shower. The cake turned out so good! It was moist and dense which I needed it to be because I was making geode cake. The cake held together really well I accidentally cracked my first layer of cake and it was so easy to mold it together. To get a flat layer of cake and keep it from not having brown edges I suggest using
a wet paper towel wrapped in aluminium foil and wrap it around the sides this technique saved me from cutting the cake in half there was no dome top cake. Everyone at the baby shower was raving about how moist and delicious it was. I’m so glad I found this recipe!
I am so happy that the cake worked out for you! That’s a great tip for achieving a flatter cake too.