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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}
Thanks for this recipe! I was diagnosed with celiac disease over the summer, and my twins requested gluten-free cake for their birthday on my behalf. I made this cake and the America's Test Kitchen birthday cupcakes. Both were a hit, but people who tried both mostly voted for your recipe, and it definitely stayed moist for longer. This will definitely become a birthday standard in our house (although for my own birthday I think I'll try your chocolate gluten-free cake . . .)
This cake looks beautiful! I am wondering though, would it alter the texture to use less sugar? I was hoping to use 1 cup sugar and 1/2 cup xylitol as I've found this to be the perfect sweetness for our personal preference (in similar layer cakes). Thanks in advance!
Unfortunately, I have no idea how that would work. I've never used xylitol.
I have a friend who can eat neither wheat nor corn. Baking powder has corn starch in it. For the tablespoon of baking powder in the recipe, you can substitute 1&1/2 tsp cream of tartar plus 3/4 tsp baking soda. Also (for the frosting) — powdered sugar usually contains corn starch — but Trader Joe's sells a wonderful organic powdered sugar that is corn-free.
This is a MOST excellent cake. Thank you!
Mary thank you!
I am a cake decorator and had a last minute request for a gluten and dairy free 21st birthday cake for this Saturday. Today is Thursday. I found your recipe and read the reviews (I had looked at several other recipes before this one). I decided to give your recipe a go. I live in Australia and I couldn't find all the ingredients listed for the flour. I used a mixture of white rice flour, gluten free flour and arrowroot flour. As the cake needed to be dairy free, I used coconut milk and added 1 tablespoon of fresh lemon juice (it didn't curdle) I also substituted canola oil for the butter. As I make my own vanilla extract, I poured in about a tablespoon for good measure. All other ingredients were added as listed. I turned my mixer on, crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. Let me tell you – It certainly is the best cake I could have hoped for! 1 used 2 x 9" pans and the cake rose lots in the oven. It did settle a little while cooling, but that was great as the tops are nice and straight. It is light and airy and smells divine! You are amazing and I thank you for sharing. (I couldn't connect my name to this program for some reason, It is Sylvia.) Cheers!
A friend of mine gave me the link for this cake … Oh my goodness!!!! I used it for my wedding cake as my "future" husband was diagnosed with Celiac Disease a year before. There are no bakeries in our area that make gluten free anything, let alone a wedding cake. On Christmas Day 2015, I undertook the task of creating our cake. Needless to say, I was thoroughly amazed when we cut into the cake the next day at our wedding and it was the most incredible tasting cake I had ever eaten. It was so good that we decided to share it with our family (traditional cupcakes were made for each of them since no one else required GF). We received the same reaction from them about how incredible it tasted.
We can't thank you enough for "making OUR day"!
Melissa & Bob
I'm not only gluten free but potato and corn free. How could I modify this? Could I replace potato starch with arrowroot? What could I replace xanthan gum with? This looks fantastic!
OH MY GOSH !!!!!!
I could almost cry !!. I was despairing of ever finding a white gluten-free cake that rises, looks and tastes like a regular cake. This cake is amazing !!!
I had a gluten free birthday cake to make for Saturday. I have tried numerous recipes – didn't taste good, fell in the over, course and grainy, etc. If there was a Nobel Prize for Cakes – You would win, hands down, for this one.
Thank you SO MUCH for sharing !!!!!!!!!!!
Hi! This cake looks great – I am looking to make it in a larger form by using two 9×13" pans and stacking them. Do you think doubling the recipe would be sufficient for the batter quantity?
Thanks!
It should be plenty of batter. However, I haven't tried stacking two cakes of that size. I can't tell you from experience how it would work. Happy baking!
What temperature do you bake gluten frre cakes at? I nomally bake my cakes at 325 degrees as l find that leaves a cake mouster.
Sorry for misspellings, that would be gluten free and moister
It depends on the cake, Betty. All of the recipes on this website should have the temperatures clearly noted. Happy baking!
Hi there! Can i do this recipe with an all purpose gluten free flour!? Instead of having to add in the tapioca and potatoe starches if I have a flour that already has those in it?
I haven’t tested it with your flour blend, so I can’t say for certain how it will work. However, if you’ve made successful cakes with that blend in the past, it’s worth a try!
My daughter and I made it last night and love it. Even the batter was yummy!!!! We are very excited and glad you posted it. It is hard to find good GF recipes and to buy a cake is very pricey.
This cake is overall quite good. I made a couple of changes:
1. Used 175 grams (6 oz) full fat sour cream and 60 ml (2 oz) whole milk in place of the 1 cup buttermilk since I didn’t have buttermilk in the house. And, too I think the homemade buttermilk substitution just doesn’t provide the same taste as commercial buttermilk. So I used sour cream.
2. I used orange extract in place of the vanilla simply because I prefer the taste of almond and orange.
I find most gluten free baked goods bland given the neutral flavors of the commonly used gluten free flours. While this cake isn’t bursting with flavor, you can certainly taste the extracts. I think this cake batter can easily be used for a variety of flavors. I don’t see any obstacles to creating flavors like lemon lavender, mocha, spice, tchai tea. Of course some recalculation will probably be necessary if cocoa powder is used to make a chocolate or mocha cake.
A major plus is this cake does NOT have that weird gluten free aftertaste, or that strange mouthfeel.
The layers baked evenly, so this cake would not need leveling. I routinely use baking strips, so I don’t know if that is the reason they were so perfectly level. But I was very pleased with the good rise (both cakes rose to the top and f the 2″ deep cake pans) and nice level tops.
The texture is about as good as it gets. Fine crumb, light and airy. No weird wormholes or tunnels. But I am obsessive about thoroughly sifting dry ingredients to ensure the leavening is evenly distributed. Still, it was great to see a uniform texture.
The crumb is a bit on the softer side, but I’m sure layers can be torted. I’m going to try it the next time I bake this cake.
I used all Bob’s Red Mill flour and starches, Trader Joe’s sour cream, organic unsalted butter, and eggs. C&H granulated cane sugar. Lactaid lactose free whole milk. The cake pans were sprayed with Wilton Bake East, parchment circles on the bottom of the pans, then dusted with Mochiko rice flour. I ran an very small offset spatula around the cake edges, and the cakes popped right out of the pans after 10 minutes of cooling. The parchment circles didn’t even stick to the cakes!!!
I highly recommend this recipe…it’s really worth baking.
This cake looks fabulous! I want to try it for my daughter but she is allergic to Nightshades, which includes white potatoes. So, of course, I can’t potato starch. Do you know a good substitute for potato starch that might do as well?
Thanks!
You can use 1/3 cup of additional brown rice flour and an additional 1/3 cup of tapioca starch to replace the potato starch. The texture will not be exactly the same, but the cake works that way too. Happy baking!
Hi there,
This cake looks amazing, very hard to find good GF recipes. I was wondering thought what I could substitute the buttermilk with? Along with being GF, I also am allergic to milk. Thank you for the help!
Almond milk should work without any issues for this recipe. It will slightly alter the flavor, but it should be fine.
This recipe is so great! I did cut the sugar down to 1 1/2c and I also substituted one of the chicken eggs for a duck egg because I ran out! But it is the softest gluten free vanilla cake that I’ve ever made and god have I made a few… I also live in Colorado, so often the high altitude can make the cakes kind of dry and sucky but this one is perfect Thank you soooo much!! 🙂
Hi Estella.. I too live in Colorado and have been searching through the comments for the best way to make this cake high altitude.. And if I should adjust anything.. I saw on man in Salt Lake say to use extra large eggs and reduce oven temp to 325.. And when you reduced the sugar.. Did the cake still rise good? One other question.. Have you tried this dairy free? Thank you!
Have you tried this using nondairy ingredients? I can use eggs but no dairy, no gluten. Do you have any ideas for substitutions?
I just made this recipe dairy free and turned out fabulous! I got 18 cupcakes and 1 9″ cake out of the recipe. I substituted the buttermilk with 1 cup of rice milk + 1 TBSP of lemon juice and 1 cup of butter with a 1/2 cup Earth Balance vegan spread and 1/2 cup coconut oil melted and cooled.
I will try sugar subs next as we try to just use natural sugars.
Hi Becky!! I have been searching through these comments wondering about thebest way to making this dairy free!!! Any new insights or suggestions you have come accrossed? Thank you!!
This cake works well with almond milk. However, I have not tested it myself with vegan butter alternatives for baking. I’ve been told that it works though. Good luck trying it and keep us posted on how it works for you!
This is great. Thank you! My gluten free husband loves white cake, but the box ones can be so dry. I’m anxious to give this a try. Thanks.
Hi. This recipe looks perfect for my daughter- who has major egg and dairy allergies. What are your thoughts on an egg substitute and replacing the buttermilk with full fat coconut milk?
I am wondering the same