I promise this is truly my BEST cake recipe ever. This gluten-free vegan vanilla cake will not fail you. It’s a no-fail, no sink, no weird flavours, one bowl, gluten-free vegan vanilla cake that is insanely easy to bake. It tastes like a normal vanilla cake. You won’t be able to tell the difference. It’s also a go-to recipe if you’re looking for a Gluten-free vegan sponge cake as it’s really light in texture.
Gluten-free baking can sometimes be a baker’s worst nightmare. We all remember back in the day when gluten-free meant we were about to embark on eating something with the texture and taste of a brick covered in a layer of cinnamon dust – early gluten-free bread gave me nightmares. Thankfully, that good old G-F has come along way and we now have the knowledge and power to create godlike goodness of everyone to enjoy. Here are my top tips to get you started.
GLUTEN-FREE VEGAN BAKING TIPS
- Use extra vanilla when baking. It will help balance out those nutty flavours that appear in gluten-free baking.
- The smaller the better. I always recommend making cakes no larger than 6 to 7 inches or smaller. I find that the smaller the cake, the better the bake.
- Don’t be afraid to under-bake your cake slightly. You want to retain extra moisture in your cake as GF cakes can be a little dry. I usually bake it for 5 minutes less and test it with a skewer. If the skewer still has a few crumbs and a tiny bit of moisture on it, it’s ready to come out of the oven.
- Use 25 percent more raising agents (baking soda or baking powder) if you’re converting a recipe to gluten free.
- Do worry about over-mixing your batter even though there is no gluten to overdevelop. It still affects the outcome of your cake. Just mix until just combined.
- If you’re finding your GF cake is coming out dry, try using a vegetable shortening as your main fat source, this can add extra moisture.
- If you’re converting a recipe to gluten free, experiment with adjusting the temperature of your oven 10C/50F lower.
WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT GLUTEN-FREE BAKING? CHECK OUT MY LATEST GLUTEN-FREE WORKSHOP.
You can bake this cake along with me and I also show you how to decorate this cake in a naked cake style.
Never Fail Gluten Free Vegan Vanilla Cake
- Total Time: 42 minutes
- Yield: 1 3 layered 6 inch cake 1x
Description
This gluten-free vegan vanilla cake will not fail you. It’s a no-fail, no sink, no weird flavours, one bowl, gluten-free vegan vanilla cake that is insanely easy to bake. It tastes like a normal vanilla cake. You won’t be able to tell the difference. It’s also a go-to recipe if you’re looking for a Gluten-free vegan sponge cake as it’s really light in texture.
Ingredients
DRY
- 1 1/2 cup white rice flour
- 3/4 cup almond meal ((almond flour is even better))
- 1/2 cup potato starch
- 3/4 cup white sugar
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
WET
- 1 1/2 cup soy milk
- 1 1/2 tbsp white vinegar
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 1 tbsp pure vanilla or 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
EGG REPLACER
- 3 tbsp ground flaxseed meal
- 7 1/2 tbsp hot water
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 160C/320F.
- Grease and line three 6-inch cake tins with vegetable oil and baking paper and then dust with a tiny amount of gluten-free flour to coat the cake tin.
- Make your flaxseed egg by mixing flaxseed and water together and set aside to thicken.
- In a large mixing bowl sieve flours, starch, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar together and give it a quick whisk to combine ingredients.
- In a large jug, mix vinegar with soy milk until it becomes thick. Then add oil and vanilla and mix together. Add thickened flax egg and stir.
- Pour liquid into flour bowl and gently fold ingredients together with a whisk until just combined.
- Pour batter into each cake tin making sure they both have the same amount of batter and tap on the bench to release air bubbles.
- Place tins into the middle of your oven and bake for 25 minutes or until a skewer poked into the middle comes out almost clean.
- Allow to sit in the cake tin for 10 minutes before turning onto a cooling rack. Run a knife around the outside of the cake before flipping it onto your cooling rack.
- Let it completely cool down and ice with your favourite vegan buttercream.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 27 minutes
- Category: Cake
- Cuisine: Dessert
Keywords: vegan cake
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Hi Sara, what kind of white rice flour do you recommend using? Glutinous/sweet rice flour? Thanks!
Hi Deb, just standard white rice flour that you can get at the supermarket
Could I make this into a lemon cake by subbing out an ingredient for lemon juice/essence?
Or is it best to use your vegan gf lemon cupcake recipe? Thanks!!
Yes, I would just add lemon essence and lemon rind
Absolutely delicious! I am not a gluten free individual by any means and I will never make another cake recipe again 🙂
★★★★★
Thanks so much for letting me know, Cassandra!
Is there another type of flour that could be used instead of almond flour? Trying to work around allergies.
ground sunflower or ground pumpkin seeds x
Thank you for the recipe. I made muffins and they are super delicious. I used Earth Balance butter instead of the vegetable oil, 1/4 cup Xylitol since this is what I had, instead of the regular sugar, apple cider vinegar instead of white vinegar and used stone ground whole grain brown rice flour since this is what I had in my pantry. The moisture in this muffins is perfect. I am glad to have found your web site.
★★★★★
Thanks so much for letting me know!
Hi Sara, is the sugar powdered or granulated?
Caster sugar
Hi Sarah, just wondering if the cake can be baked ahead of time and put in freezer to decorate at a later date?
Yes this cake is generally okay to freeze – it’s not as great but it’s still freezable for about 1 month.
Thank you so much for your response and also for the lovely recipe! Looking forward to your new cookbook.
Not a problem at all. xox
This recipe is amazing! I’m wondering if you can sub the rice flour with almond flour though?
★★★★★
Hey Char
No unfortunately. Every flour plays a different role in creating the texture and structure of this cake.
I made this recipe and its amazing but would it work if i doubled it for 3 8inch cake for a celebration cake?
Hey Louisa
Yes it will work at that size, you will need to double the recipe
this is amazing! thank you!
Thanks a lot!! The recipe is really good! after trying many others finally
★★★★★
Can’t wait to try..but can I sub potato starch for tapioca starch? Or use fresh potato itself?
Hi, no I’m sorry this recipe only works with Potato Starch.
is this the same as cornstarch? can i substitute aquafaba for flaxseed?
Yes corn flour is the same as cornstarch. No, you can’t sub aquafaba for flaxseeds.
I am so excited to try this with some help from the FB group! I was wondering if it can be made into cupcakes?
Hey Amy
Unfortunately this recipe doesn’t work as cupcakes. I do have a GF cupcake recipe in my recipe book if you have that…
Sara x
Am not gluten intolerant, but i tried baking this for the birthday of a gluten intolerant friend. She can’t stop thanking me since 🙂
How did u do the frosting. Any gluten and lactose free frosting recipe plz?
Wonderful! I would check out Gretchen Price’s Vegan Bakery website for frostings xox
Hi Sara,
I made this recipe but with almond milk and coconut oil. It was really tasty but dry like bread. Not sure if it was the oil or the almond milk or both that made it dry. I don’t have access to vegan shortening. I’d love to make it myself if I knew how.
This is a fabulous recipe when you follow the recipe! I accidentally forgot to add sugar, wow, I have never done that before in my cake baking life. Turned out, as you imagine, a savoury cake, which was actually really yummy though, but not what I need. Luckily I was making the cake in advance and can try again tomorrow!
★★★★★
Thanks so much, Sophia!
Can you use stevia/powedered monk fruit instead of sugar?
Yes but you will need to experiment with the quantities…
I’m considering using vegetable shortening in place of oil to create more moisture as I felt it was a tad dry. Should I use the same quantity ie 1/3 cup melted vegetable shortening? Also, could you recommend a vegetable shortening to use as I’ve never used it before! Thanks so much
Yes that’s a great idea. Use the same amount. Where are you located?
Australia 🙂
I would recommend buying high quality vegetable shortening from a cake decorating shop xox
Can we sub the nuts for something else in this recipe? Have allergies here
You can try ground sunflower or pumpkin seeds x
Would it impact a strong taste though?
It should but there will be a slight taste
Did you end up making this without nuts?
No not yet…
First, let me rave about this fabulous cake! As long as I followed the cup measurements. Mostly I bake following weight measures, but your converter does some strange things when selecting Metric or US Imperial. In metric the volumes for the default single 3 layered 6 inch cakes adds about 25% volume. Selecting US Imperial (being Canadian, I assumed that was the default cup measurements), it now shows to measure flour in fl oz, and I can never get back to the initial cup measurements. Just fyi. And, many thanks for the extra tips.
Hey Milvi!
Thank you and yes I know I just noticed this the other day. I’m looking into it. I will add gram measures to the recipe this week. Thanks for letting me know. xox
Are the weight measurements still going to be added? Thanks!
Soon! Sorry, I just haven’t had time.
I just made this cake again and referred to the metric measurements, assuming they were now correct. Sadly, I started with 237g of white rice flour and then started measuring 19g of almond flour – not a chance that 3/4 c (almond meal or almond flour) weighs 19g … it was about 69g, so I used the cup measure for the almond flour. Similarly, 96g of potato starch is about 3/4c, but I didn’t reduce the amount of starch as the ratio seemed too low. At this point, I was so far along with combining and sifting the flours that I didn’t want to toss everything out and start again. And, reading through other recent comments (to see if anyone else reported this), I noticed that caster sugar was one of the answers to powdered or granulated. I used granulated. 🙁
I was making this for a gift but I will reduce it by a layer if the sample (3rd layer) tastes satisfactory. Otherwise, I’ll start again. And, when I was pouring out the soy milk, I noticed it had some curdley bits and was 2 months past its best before date. Luckily, I did have a newer carton on hand. Does it ever seem that a cake just doesn’t want to be made?
★★★
Hey Milvi
I’m so sorry you’re having trouble with the cake. I didn’t realise to would change it to the metric measurement. I’m using Australian measurement and I think it’s changed then into US measurements. I’m currently upgrading my site and still fixing bugs. Lots of people have made this successfully just sticking to the cup measurements. I have updated this recipe but not on the website yet. Here are my gram measurements and in this version I use xanthan gum instead of flax – but you can use either or. This amount is perfect for 1 layer 8 inch cake or you can still do 2 layered 6 inch. I really hope this helps. You can send me a direct email if you need help hello@sarakidd.com
Ingredients
265 g (1 ½ cups) white rice flour
80 g (¾ cup) blanched almond flour
60 g (½ cup) potato starch
170 g (¾ cup) caster sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon sea salt
¼ teaspoon xanthan gum
375 mls (1 ½ cups) plain soy milk
1 tablespoon white vinegar
125 mls (½ cup) vegetable oil
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Hi! Thank you for this recipe! Could I use almond milk instead of soy milk? I know that soy milk “curdles” better than almond milk when blended with vinegar, but I need a cake recipe that is both gluten free & soy free.
I would recommend using a thin coconut milk that you get in a box not a can
Fabulous recipe! I made this into cupcakes and added raspberries…yum!
Just wondering, was I meant to add extra water mentioned in step 5…couldn’t spot it in the ingredient list…or is this the water that is in the flax egg? Either way, it was delicious!!!
Hey Brooke
Ah that’s a tiny typo. Sorry about that. There is no extra water. So great to hear these worked as cupcakes! Thanks for sharing. Please rate the recipe if you have a spare moment. xoxo
Thank you! I baked this again on the weekend and it was even more popular this time 🙂
Fantastic!
Is tapioca flour the same as tapioca starch?
yes xox
Can I make this cake and decorate it two dates in advance and refrigerate it before serving?
Hey Awill
I would recommend making it the day before. If you’re refrigerating it put it in a cake box that is completely sealed and I would recommend using a sugar syrup between layers to keep it moist.
I’ve made this cake a couple of times and it’s simple and yummy. I only have one 6 inch tin, so I did 2/3 of the recipe and cooked it slightly longer, it worked beautifully. So wonderful to have a recipe that my whole family can enjoy (I’m vegan, sister is gf, MIL is gf and dairy free).
Thank you so much xoxo