This gluten free, egg free, dairy free vanilla cake recipe will surprise your guests. This cake is so light and moist. This cake can be made soy free and nut free as well by insuring your ingredients do not contain nuts or soy. This is a very simple recipe to make. Enjoy!
Gluten Free Vegan Vanilla Cake
This recipe is made especially for individuals who are vegans and prefer eating gluten free foods.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups sorghum flour
- 1 1/2 cups tapioca flour
- 1 cup white rice flour
- 2 cups white sugar
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- 2 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 teaspoon xanthan gum
- 1 cup rice milk (or coconut milk, soy milk, or almond milk)
- 2 cups warm water
- 6 Tablespoon canola oil (or coconut oil)
- 2 Tablespoon pure vanilla
- 2 teaspoons vinegar
- 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 375F (191C). Measure the non-dairy milk into a liquid measuring cup & add vinegar (set aside for now).
- Whisk together all dry ingredients.
- Add all liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix with electric mixer until smooth and fluffy.
- Fill the greased cake pans.
- Bake the cake for 30-35 minutes. The cake is ready it will be light brown on top and spring back when you press it lightly.
Notes
This recipe will make two 9 inch cakes, or 9x 13 cake, or 24 cupcakes.
Happy Caking!
Diane
So I read a lot of terrible reviews and was deterred. Like one of the above comments said, they tried it anyway and I am so glad I did. The flavor is spot on. Light and fluffy. The only “adjustments” I made. I hate saying that too because I didn’t alter the recipe, I made it exactly as it was laid out. I had to make the sorghum flour. I was going to sub for oat flour, but decided if I had to grind flour I might as well grind the sorghum versus the oat.
I grinded it twice, I grinded all the flours and sugars together primarily because organic (which is vegan sugar) isn’t as fine as regular cane sugar. I hate grit. There’s nothing worse than gritty gluten free cake. So I grinded it all together with the flours blended. And because I might be a little overboard I blended all of the ingredients together until it was smooth. Let it rest and bake accordingly. I obviously tried a small cupcake first to make sure the flavor and rise was right because you don’t want to bake a whole cake and then realize you have to make adjustments and waste all ingredients. End result: perfect.
From one GF-V Baker to another. Thank you. God knows how many attempts there were to make this recipe come to fruition.
Most disgusting waist of time and ingredients
My mixture is very very liquid so can’t see it being “smooth and fluffy” – any suggestions before I try baking it?
Not sure what I did wrong, the flavore was good but the cupcakes didn’t rise much at all and retained the weird cookie dough scoop drop shapes from filling the pan. They were like tough dense doughnut holes. Any suggestions?
Thanks for such a cool recipe! Made this in cupcake form, subbed water for the milk portion, and they turned out wonderfully.
Has anyone used this recipe for a 14-inch cake, specifically as the base of a tiered cake ? If so, was it sturdy enough to incorporate additional cake layers, and hold additional tiers?
WHAT DID YOU ICE THE CAKE WITH??
I’d like to make this cake for my Birthday coming up in a couple week but am allergic to vinegar and lemon juice would I be able to substitute this out for lime juice and it work the same way?
Yes, lime juice will work. The recipe just needs an acid to help with leavening, so do sub in another acid, and lime juice is acidic enough for a sub
Just out of curiosity if it just needs an acid would citric acid, a vitamin C capsule or cream of tartar work as well?
Can this recipe be made with lime juice instead of vinegar? I have an allergy to vinegar
After reading the numerous negative comments I was a bit apprehensive about trying this recipe. However, having thirteen years experience in gluten free vegan baking I read through the ingredient amounts and found them to be comparable to those in my go-to cake recipes so I decided to give it a go. I’m so glad I did! I followed the recipe with only one substitution: since I didn’t have any white rice flour I replaced it with an equal amount of a blend of brown rice flour, millet flour, and almond flour. The result was a moist, delicious cake with a great rise and a lovely golden hue. The flour substitution gave the cake a hearty taste with a light texture so I’m sure the white rice flour would result in a perfect white cake. My recommendation to those who are less experienced with this type of baking and had bad results with this recipe would be to follow directions EXACTLY. There is always some room for substitution with gluten free flours but when baking a vegan cake you simply cannot experiment with the amount of leavening ingredients. They are vital if you don’t want a flat, goopy cake. Anyway, this recipe is definitely a keeper. Thanks!
Hello there. Do you have any experience freezing this cake?
In regards to freezing gluten free vegan cake, I do it all the time. Cut the cake into individual pieces first and place it in an airtight container. It will thaw perfectly in the fridge or on the counter but not as well in the microwave (unless you like melted frosting!)
I followed the recipe exactly and what I got was a cake that had snotty looking insides. I baked it for over an hour and it still hasn’t firmed up inside. It’s a complete shame because the taste was spot on and it looked pretty from the outside. I can’t believe I wasted so many ingredients on this. Horrible recipe.
Can this recipe be made with regular milk? I am gluten free but not dairy free.
Non dairy milk is healthier and cruelty free.
Experienced bakers don’t reduce baking soda from 2t to 1/2t. No wonder your cake failed.
Looking forward to trying this recipe.
Where’s the recipe for the icing?
Thank you!
I made this a few days ago in cupcake form for my daughter’s birthday. I used coconut milk and coconut oil and cut the salt in half. I got about 30 cupcakes out of the recipe and they were quite tasty with chocolate frosting. The cake was soft and moist and not too sweet. I’m so glad to finally have a decent egg free, gluten free vanilla cake recipe. Thanks!
I made this for my birthday — the recipe is simple and the cake is moist and springy (not spongy or soggy as another baker experienced) and lovely. I blew the vegan aspect though with a (Philadelphia) cream cheese raspberry frosting. Tofutti might work instead… Thanks!
I am an experienced gluten, egg an soy free baker n normally free form cook but for my husbands birthday I wanted to make something special for him. I was happy when I found this recipe and followed it to a T. I omitted the sea salt though because I don’t think desert needs THAT much salt. This recipe is not sweet at all. It is extremely salty as most recipes I only use 1/2 a teaspoon of baking soda. If the extreme saltiness wasn’t bad enough it was soggy and spongy. Gluten free ingredients are very expensive don’t waste your time with this horrid cake.
Charlotte — I am sorry you didn’t like the recipe. Eliminating the salt is fine, completely optional. But changing the baking soda amount would effect the livening agent of this cake. Because this cake uses different flours and has no eggs, the baking soda is required. Again, I am sorry you didn’t like it.
A light, moist and gluten free cake? Sold! The cake looks beautiful as well, time to get out the shopping list!
I’ve been looking for a gluten-free, tree nut-free, vegan-friendly cake recipe for ages – I think this might work! Thank you SO much!!
Hi, I am looking for a vegan royal icing recipe in order to make detailed flowers. Please help if you can! I need to replace the meringue…
Gorgeous cake, Diane – I have friends with gluten allergies, so this will be great for them!
It’s surprising how many people are requesting gluten free, egg free or dairy free cakes these days. Great to have a lovely, moist cake recipe to try. Most GF recipes I have tried tend to be a very dry texture!
What frosting did you use on this cake?
Does sea mean sea salt?
Hi Lisa. You mean so that you just have an egg free, dairy free recipe? I don’t think it would — I have never tried it. When using gluten free flours, their consistencies are different so you use more or less than a typical recipe. Also the combination of the other ingredients make up for the absence of eggs and dairy. Not too sure how they would work with flour.
Could you replace the gluten free flours with regular flour? Would it be the same total amount? Just curious. Thanks.