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This classic gluten free red velvet cake is everything you remember red velvet to be. Moist and tender, lightly chocolate cake that is my go-to recipe whenever I want to please chocolate and non-chocolate lovers alike!
Table of Contents
What’s special about this gluten free red velvet cake
Is it age that gives us an appreciation for chocolate? I never would have thought so, until I started serving cake to small children. But it seems, given the choice, little kids will always pick vanilla cake over chocolate.
I have 3 children. Two of them love chocolate. The third, my gluten free son, simply isn’t a chocolate lover. With every birthday he celebrates, I expect the chocolate-lover in him to awake.
So far, no go. So when I make his birthday cake, and I want it be something everyone loves, I go with red velvet.
It’s also not an overly sweet cake, which means that the cream cheese frosting is all the more important. Remember that cream cheese frosting is not a stiff buttercream, so it will stay softer and more spreadable even when you slice into the cake.
Can you make gluten free red velvet cake without food coloring?
Yes! You can make gf red velvet cake without food coloring.
We’ve talked about red velvet here on the blog before, but even though I know I might upset some by using red food coloring, I don’t really tire of it. Neither does my family.
My kids love red velvet cake, and even though it’s really just moist chocolate cake with red food coloring, its real charm lies in its flavor. It’s not a deep chocolate cake.
There’s no melted chocolate in the batter, and there isn’t even an overwhelming amount of cocoa powder. It’s just right, and tends to please chocolate cake lovers and vanilla cake lovers alike.
If you’re not comfortable using red food coloring, by all means just leave it out! I know that there are other recipes on the Internet that make red velvet cake with beet powder, but that changes the entire recipe and I honestly don’t think it’s worth the bother.
Gluten free red velvet cake ingredients and substitution suggestions
I haven’t tried this recipe with substitutions and can’t promise results other than if you follow the recipe precisely as written. However, based on my experience, these are my best educated guesses for how to replace dairy or eggs in this recipe if you can’t have either of those:
Dairy free red velvet cake
The dairy in this cake is in the form of butter and milk. In place of the butter, you can try using vegan butter. My favorite brands are Miyoko’s Kitchen and Melt.
In place of cow’s milk, you can use your favorite unsweetened nondairy milk. I like unsweetened almond milk best because it has some fat, like regular milk so it adds some of the richness of cow’s milk.
Egg free red velvet cake
There are 3 eggs in this cake, and I typically only feel comfortable suggesting that a recipe with 2 eggs or less may work well with an egg replacer. In general, though, I like using a “chia egg” for each egg as a replacement (for each egg: 1 tablespoon ground white chia seeds + 1 tablespoon lukewarm water, mixed and allowed to gel).
FAQs
Red velvet cake gets its light chocolate flavor from having much less cocoa powder than chocolate cake, and a slight tang from both the apple cider vinegar in the cake and the deliciously tangy, sweet cream cheese frosting.
Red velvet cake is a lighter chocolate cake, much like devil’s food cake, but red velvet cake is made with milk or buttermilk, so it tends to have a more open, less dense crumb, and devil’s food cake is made with sour cream, so its crumb is more dense.
Red velvet cake also usually has food coloring in it, but that’s only to mimic the slight red color that the small amount of cocoa powder used to be thought to give the cake.
Natural unsweetened cocoa powder is best in this cake, as the acid in the cocoa powder that is alkalized in Dutch-process cocoa powder is neutralized here by the baking soda in the batter. Plus, Dutch-process cocoa powder tends to have a deeper, richer chocolate flavor than natural, and this is not a rich chocolate cake.
No! The food coloring is entirely optional, and is only used to give red velvet cake a deep red color, not change the flavor at all. If you do use food coloring, however, be sure to use only gel food coloring. Liquid food coloring is not concentrated enough to be used in a small amount, so it adds additional unwanted liquid to the cake—and can be bitter in large amounts.
How to make classic gluten free red velvet cake, step by step
Classic Gluten Free Red Velvet Cake
Tell Google you trust GFOAS!
Equipment
- Electric mixer
Ingredients
For the red velvet cake
- 2 cups (280 g) all purpose gluten free flour blend, (I used Better Batter; please click thru for full info on appropriate blends)
- 1 teaspoon xanthan gum, omit if your blend already contains it
- 6 tablespoons (54 g) cornstarch, (or try arrowroot)
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 ¼ teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 6 tablespoons (30 g) natural unsweetened cocoa powder
- 11 tablespoons (154 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1 ¼ cups (250 g) granulated sugar
- 3 (150 g (weighed out of shell)) eggs, at room temperature, beaten
- 1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 ¼ teaspoons apple cider vinegar
- 1 cup (8 fluid ounces) milk, at room temperature
- Red soft gel paste food coloring, optional
For the cream cheese frosting
- 16 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
- 4 tablespoons (56 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 5 cups (575 g) confectioners’ sugar
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350°F. Grease two 9-inch round baking pans, and set them aside. (See Recipe Notes.)
Make the cake batter.
- In a medium-size bowl, place the flour, xanthan gum, cornstarch, salt, baking powder, baking soda and cocoa powder, and whisk to combine well. Set the bowl aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or a large bowl with a handheld mixer), beat the butter on medium-high speed until light and fluffy.
- Add the granulated sugar, followed by the eggs and vanilla, beating to combine well on medium-high speed after each addition.
- Add the vinegar and then about a scant 1/8 teaspoon of the food coloring, if using, and beat to combine very well. The mixture may look a bit curdled, and that’s fine.
- Add the dry ingredients, alternating with the milk, and beginning and ending with the dry ingredients, mixing to combine after each addition. The batter should be smooth and relatively thick.
Bake the cakes.
- Divide the cake batter evenly between the two prepared pans, and smooth into an even layer with a wet spatula.
- Place both pans in the center of the preheated oven and bake, rotating once during baking, for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of each cake comes out mostly clean, or with a few moist crumbs attached.
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the pans for 10 minutes before inverting the cakes onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Make the frosting.
- While the cakes are cooling, in the clean bowl of a stand mixer or a clean large bowl with a hand mixer, place the cream cheese and butter. Beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy.
- Add the vanilla and salt, and beat to combine. Add about half of the confectioners’ sugar, and beat on medium-low speed until the sugar has been absorbed by the butter and cream cheese mixture.
- Add the rest of the confectioners’ sugar about 1 cup at a time, beating on medium speed to combine after each addition.
- Once all the sugar has been absorbed into the mixture, increase the mixer speed to high and beat until light and fluffy. The frosting should hold its shape when scooped, but should not be completely stiff.
Assemble the cake.
- Place one of the cooled cakes upside down on a serving platter. Place about 1 1/4 cups of frosting on top and spread into an even layer. Invert the second cake place on top of the frosting and press gently to adhere.
- For the neatest frosted cake, cover the entire top and sides of the cake in a very thin layer of frosting (this is called the crumb coat), and place in the freezer until very firm (about 15 minutes).
- Remove the cake from the freezer and cover the top and sides with the remaining frosting, spreading into an even layer.
- Swirl the frosting around randomly with a butter knife or offset spatula. Refrigerate the frosted cake for at least 15 minutes before slicing with a sharp knife into generous slices, and serving.
Notes
You can of course use 8-inch round cake pans. You will need to increase the baking time slightly (by a few minutes, likely). You could also use 8-inch or 9-inch square pans, too. If you are baking the cakes in 8-inch round cake pans, you may need to increase the baking time by a few minutes as your cakes are thicker.
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Thank you once more for your work to develop GF recipes. I was living at altitude for 18 years. but now am back in TN.
SO far the recipes do fine in both altitudes. learning at 80+is a trial!
Thanks again.
Hi, Carol, you’re very welcome. That’s a long time to have been living at altitude, but it should be much easier not having to make adjustments!
Hi Nicole,
Would it work to bake the red velvet cake in a 9 by 13 inch oblong pan? I do have two round 9 inch pans. If so what would the baking time be? Thanks so much!
Hi, Debbie, I don’t love baking cakes in a 9×13 inch pan because the cake tends to burn on the bottom center before it’s finished baking all the way through. The recipe is written for 2 9-inch round baking pans, so the baking time is what the recipe states.
I am interested in making this and wondering if a small amount of beet root powder might help with the red velvet color?
Hi, Christine, no you’d need a recipe designed to be made with beet root powder, which would change the chemical composition of the batter.
Do you have any suggestions for replacing the sugar with stevia or monk fruit?
I’m afraid I really don’t know, Sophia. Sugar alternatives tend to be quite drying, and sugar itself locks in moisture, so you’d need to add moisture somehow. Instead, I’d really recommend a keto recipe that’s developed to be made without sugar.
I’d like to make this in a Bundt pan for a Christmas holiday party. Have you tried that yet?
I don’t think you’d get particularly good results, Christy, since I don’t think this cake is dense enough to come out of a bundt pan in one piece.
Hi Nicole: I’m planning to bake this scrumptious looking cake, and have a question. My daughter is the one with Celiac’s, and I have a sensitivity to corn, so cornstarch will not work for me. I saw you suggested arrowroot starch. What do you think of substituting tapioca starch? I keep that on hand for the GF flour blend that I mix. It would be one less thing I’d need to purchase.
Hi, Jenny, I don’t recommend using tapioca starch as a substitute for cornstarch. It has extremely different properties. Cornstarch is very inexpensive and available in every grocery store, so I’d really recommend buying some, or simply using more all purpose gluten free flour, by weight. You’ll have a more dense cake, though.
Okay. Thanks for the help on this :).
Excellent cake! Made in a 13×9 and still came out great.
Would like to know what kind (brand) of gel food coloring you use? The cake wasn’t red at all, still tasted good, just not red and I was worried about putting in too much and changing the consistency of the cake.
Thank you for an awesome recipe!
So glad you enjoyed it, Amy! I always use Americolor brand gel food coloring. You can find it at larger craft supply stores and on Amazon.
Hi Nicole Thanks for sharing this recipe :) I’m hoping to surprise my partner with this cake since they are intolerant to gluten.
If I baked this cake and stored in the fridge (or freezer) for 3 days before serving, would it be okay? Thanks!
Hi, Sarah, you can definitely let the layers cool, wrap them tightly, and store in the freezer for 3 days. The refrigerator tends to dry out baked goods, so I would avoid that. Defrost at room temperature, still covered, then frost and serve.
Hi Nicole, I’m a big fan of your website and recipes! I’m thinking about trying the red velvet recipe and I have 8″ cake pans. I also like thinner layers (ie more icing to cake ratio) and wonder if I could make this into a 3 layer cake using the same amount of ingredients but just getting thinner layers. Any advice?
thanks, Colleen
Hi, Colleen, thanks for the kind words and for commenting! This recipe is written for two 9-inch round cake pans. The volume that a standard 9-inch cake pans can hold is 8 cups, for a total of 16 cups between 2 cake pans. 8-inch round pans hold about 6 cups each, for a total of 12, and will make thicker cakes if you use the same amount of batter in 2 pans. If you were to use a total of 3 8-inch cake pans, you’d have about 5 1/3 cups of batter per cake pan, which should work for thinner 8-inch cakes. I can’t know how long they’ll take to bake, though, since smaller cake pans generally take longer to bake with the same amount of batter, but you’re using much less. You’ll have to experiment with timing! I hope that’s helpful!
Have you ever tried this recipe with buttermilk instead of milk + vinegar?
No, and I wouldn’t advise that, Patty. Actual buttermilk has a lot less moisture than milk. You need the milk here.