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An easy gluten free cake mix recipe for classic chocolate and vanilla cakes and cupcakes. Keep them on hand and you’ll always be able to celebrate a birthday (or a day ending in “y”) in style!
What makes these homemade cake mix recipes special
These incredibly versatile cake mix recipes will come in handy time and again. When my gluten free son was in grammar school, it seemed like there was a birthday party 8 days a week.
It was incredibly helpful to have a stash of chocolate cupcakes and vanilla cupcakes in the freezer at all times, for just such an emergency!
How to make cake from these mixes
Each of the recipes is formulated to work by adding water, not milk, to the dry ingredients, along with either oil or butter and eggs. The result is a moist, tender cake with a perfect crumb every time, whether you bake cupcakes, a cake or a dump cake.
Chocolate cake made with cocoa powder, not melted chocolate, lends itself especially well to being made with oil in place of butter. You can use whatever neutral oil you like best: liquid coconut oil, vegetable oil, canola, or grapeseed oil all work fine.
Can you make cakes with egg replacers?
I haven't tried these recipes with an egg replacer, but my favorite egg replacer is a “chia egg” (1 tablespoon ground chia seeds + 1 tablespoon water, mixed and allowed to gel). I don't recommend a flax egg, since that has a strong flavor and color.
I definitely would not use applesauce or water. You need to replace not only the moisture of eggs, but also the structure that the egg white provides.
To make the vanilla cake dairy-free
If you'd like to replace the butter in the vanilla cake mix with something dairy free, I recommend trying butter-flavored nonhydrogenated vegetable shortening (I use Spectrum brand) as a 1 to 1 replacement by weight.
The buttermilk powder in the vanilla dry mix can also be replaced with finely ground blanched almond flour, again 1 to 1 by weight. You can also try powdered coconut milk, which tends to work quite well as a replacement for nonfat dry milk.
The vanilla mix is best for cupcakes or cookies (not a whole cake)
I do have to be honest with you, though, about the vanilla cake mix: If you're making gluten free vanilla cupcakes, this mix is amazing. The cupcakes have the most tender, perfect crumb (more tender with the buttermilk powder than with almond flour, but still) and perfect vanilla taste.
If you're making a straight-up vanilla cake, though, I really prefer my recipe for The Very Best Gluten Free Vanilla Cake. Creaming the butter and sugar first, as we do in that cake, plus sifting the flour is really the only way to get a perfect vanilla cake.
Simple buttercream frosting
Wondering how to make a quick and easy buttercream frosting? Just use exactly half as much room temperature unsalted butter, by weight, as confectioners' sugar. For example, 16 tablespoons (8 ounces) unsalted butter, and 4 cups (1 pound) confectioners' sugar.
Beat them together, along with a splash of pure vanilla extract and a pinch of salt, until light and fluffy. Add milk by the half-teaspoonful and beat until it holds its shape when you scoop it but is smooth and creamy.
Want to make a chocolate version? Replace some of the confectioners' sugar with cocoa powder!
Uses for gluten free cake mix
Below are the Make-Your-Own Gluten Free Chocolate Cake Mix and the Make-Your-Own Gluten Free Vanilla Cake Mix from my second book, Gluten Free on a Shoestring Quick & Easy. They're so useful!
Of course, you can use them whenever you need a quick gluten free chocolate or vanilla cupcake. But they're also perfect for other types of recipes that call for a gluten free cake mix, a dump cake or cookies.
In the photo just above, the vanilla cupcake is made with this cake mix, and the instructions below. The two cookies are cake mix cookies.
The cookie above is a gluten free cheesecake cookie, which tastes just like cheesecake but without any of the trouble.
Gluten Free Cake Mix Recipe
Ingredients
For The Chocolate Cake Mix
- 1 ⅛ cups (157 g) all purpose gluten free flour blend, I used Better Batter; please click thru for full blends info
- ½ teaspoon xanthan gum, (omit if your blend already contains it)
- ⅞ cup (70 g) unsweetened natural cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 ⅛ cups (225 g) granulated sugar
For The Vanilla Cake Mix
- 1 ½ cups (210 g) all purpose gluten free flour blend, I used Better Batter; please click thru for full blends info
- ¾ teaspoon xanthan gum (omit if your blend already contains it)
- ½ cup (43 g) cultured buttermilk blend powder (I use Saco brand), or 1/3 cup (43 g) whey powder or milk powder
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar
Instructions
To make the cake mixes.
- For either mix, place all the ingredients for that mix in a large bowl and whisk well. Store in an airtight container until ready to use.
To make gluten free chocolate cake or cupcakes.
- Preheat your oven to 350°F.
- Grease or line 18 of the wells of two standard 12-cup muffin tins or 9-inch cake pan and set it aside.
- Transfer the dry ingredients to a large bowl and create a well in the center.
- Add 6 tablespoons (84 g) of neutral oil, 3 eggs (150 g, weighed out of shell) at room temperature, beaten) and 3/4 cup (6 fluid ounces) lukewarm water, mixing to combine well after each addition.
- Fill the 18 wells of the cupcake tin each 2/3 of the way full, or transfer the cake batter to the prepared 9-inch pan.
- Place in the center of the preheated oven and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out mostly clean, or with a few moist crumbs attached (about 19 minutes for cupcakes; about 28 minutes for the cake).
- Remove from the oven and allow to sit in the pan for at least 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Makes one 9-inch cake or about 18 cupcakes.
To make gluten free vanilla cake or cupcakes.
- Preheat your oven to 350°F. Grease or line 18 of the wells of two standard 12-cup muffin tins or 9-inch cake pan and set it aside.
- Transfer the dry ingredients to a large bowl and create a well in the center.
- Add 8 tablespoons (112 g) of melted and cooled unsalted butter, 2 eggs (100 g, weighed out of shell) and 1 egg white (25 g) at room temperature, beaten, and 2/3 cup (5 1/3 fluid ounces) lukewarm water, and 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract, mixing to combine well after each addition.
- Fill the 18 wells of the cupcake pan each 2/3 of the way full, or transfer the cake batter to the prepared 9-inch pan.
- Place in the center of the preheated oven and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out mostly clean, or with a few moist crumbs attached (about 19 minutes for cupcakes; about 28 minutes for the cake).
- Remove from the oven and allow to sit in the pan for at least 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Makes one 9-inch cake or about 18 cupcakes.
Video
Notes
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I use skimmed milk powder and it works perfectly.
Could I use regular powdered milk instead of the powdered buttermilk?
For the chocolate cake recipe I tweaked it a little: 1 1/2 cups of gf
oat flour, 1/3 cup of cocoa powder (still very chocolate-y), 2 fiber
capsules instead of xanthan gum (better for you and cheaper), 1/2 cup of
warm water, and added a tsp of vanilla extract. Turned out delicious!
how COOL! i love to here tweaking of recipes and them being successful. This is the 1st time i have heard this about fiber capsules :D neato! Lil’ L i just got a laugh off of your private account saying “Deal with it” too funny but your mixtures are interesting & what recipe were you making these substitutions from?
Hi, PC: I didn’t go by any other recipe, just got lucky, I guess! Next time I might try cutting the oat flour with rice flour, and/or some other gf flour (no garbanzo flour, tho) so its not so oat-y. I tend to o.d. on oats at times and don’t need another food allergy. I saw my friend baking with fiber and I asked her why. I had no idea what xanthan gum was made from; kinda scary. Do not use the fine white fiber powder like citrucel, use psyillium husk. Good luck and glad I could help!
For the chocolate cake recipe I tweaked it a little: 1 1/2 cups of gf oat flour, 1/3 cup of cocoa powder (still very chocolate-y), 2 fiber capsules instead of xanthan gum (better for you and cheaper), 1/2 cup of warm water, and added a tsp of vanilla extract. Also, this took over 30 minutes to bake, not 19 minutes. Turned out delicious!
Why do you prefer chia egg substitute over flax?
I made the chocolate cupcakes with the Better Than Cup4Cup blend and they were amazing! This is now my go to cupcake recipe – and believe me, I’ve tried a lot!
Which one of your gluten free blends do you recommend for the chocolate and vanilla cupcakes?
Just made the chocolate cupcakes for my non-gf husbands birthday as a surprise (he has to have gf surprise bakes or I wouldn’t be able to test them to check they’re okay ?) and they’re *so* good. May have eaten two while they were warm out of the oven… So soft and springy – delicious!! Can’t wait to try them iced tomorrow. Thanks for having the best GF recipes – they never fail me!
I made the chocolate today for my son’s 8th bday…I had just ordered your recommended ingredients last week and received them yesterday, just in time! This is the 1st recipe of yours that I’ve tried, and it was such a BIG hit at our house! My husbands 1st bite response was, “Wow! That’s good!” Everyone agreed this was THE BEST gluten free baked good we’ve had since transitioning to gluten free last year. I spent a lot of time on your website last week, and you convinced me that I could be confident in your methods, but I am super stoked about it after today’s success :) My gf daughter is highly anticipating your Hawaiian sweet rolls, which is next on our agenda! Although my daughter is the only one gluten intolerant in our home, I do my best to cook/bake everything gf. I’ve had a lot of expensive disappointments over the last year, mostly in the baked goods area, but I just saw the tide turn! Following your gf methods is going to take the guesswork out of this journey for me…I’m not good at guesswork. I believe I can finally be confident in my cooking skills again. It’s been a while. Thank you so much for all of your time and energy put into sharing this info with us. Really appreciate you!
If I wanted to use a 9×13 pan, would I just double the recipe?
Hi, Sarah,
Depending upon how deep the pan, you might actually just want to multiply the recipe by 1 1/2, which should be pretty easy if you’re measuring by weight. Even the eggs can be multiplied by 1 1/2 by beating multiple eggs in a bowl and then measuring out the precise amount by weight.