Gluten Free Chocolate Cake Recipe {Easy From Scratch Birthday Cake} (2024)

FAQs

How do you keep gluten free cake moist? ›

Add extra liquid: Gluten-free flours tend to absorb more liquid than regular flour, so you may need to add more liquid to your recipes to compensate. This can help to keep your baked goods moist and prevent them from becoming dry and crumbly.

We recommend covering your batters and doughs and letting them rest for at least half an hour.

2 teaspoons of baking powder per cup of gluten-free flour is necessary to ensure proper leavening. Baking soda and buttermilk can be used to leaven instead of baking powder, but 1-1/8 teaspoon of cream of tartar should be added for each 1/2 teaspoon baking soda used.

Common ingredients used in our gluten free mixes include rice flour, almond flour, coconut flour, tapioca starch, potato starch, and xanthan gum or guar gum. Each of these ingredients serves a specific purpose, from providing structure and texture to helping baked goods rise.

Sorghum flour: great for cakes

Because sorghum is often processed on shared equipment with wheat products, you need to be careful about finding a product that is certified gluten free. Sorghum flour is a great option for cookies and cakes, but it is best combined with other gluten free flours because it is so heavy.

Gluten-free flours often contain fine starches, so they absorb more liquid than conventional flour. To address this, gluten-free recipes usually call for more liquid and produce looser batters. They may also call for a larger quantity of leavening, like baking powder, to help add volume and lighten the texture.

If the original recipe calls for 260 grams of all-purpose flour, substitute with 260 grams of your blend. Beat the batter more. Because gluten-free flours provide less structure than all-purpose, the batter or dough you make with them may require more beating than that which you are accustomed.

Adding slightly more gluten-free baking powder than the recipe requires can help make a lighter and fluffier cake. Adding more liquid than stated in the recipe may be necessary in order to rehydrate gluten-free flour.

Gluten-free baked goods often benefit from extra liquid to hydrate the flour blends, eliminate grittiness, and achieve a less dense or dry texture. However, it's very important to drive off this extra moisture during baking, or you'll wind up with a gummy texture.

Why is my gluten-free cake sunk in the middle? ›

It's very common for gluten free baked goods to sink in the middle and sometimes it's even gummy or looks like it isn't fully cooked. Here's some ways to help avoid that: -Don't over-mix your dough. Mix it until everything is just incorporated and be done.

Xanthan gum is used to improve the texture and shelf life of gluten free products. It mimics gluten in terms of keeping the baked products moist and the texture soft.

The Duncan Hines gluten free cake mix is free of fat and cholesterol. It comes in a 19.4 oz box with vanilla creme and chocolate glaze mixes included.

Fat tenderizes the gluten. Examples of fat are butter, margarine, hydrogenated vegetable shortening, or oil. Leavening agents are added to most shortened cakes to make the cakes rise and become porous and light.

Try adding anywhere from ¼ to ½ cup of liquid or fat to the recipe and see if that helps. My go-to moisture-enhancing ingredients are sour cream, canola oil, or butter. Use a different gluten-free flour: While I am firm on my stance to not use all-purpose blends, I realize not everyone has jumped on this bandwagon.

Some gluten free flours will produce a cake which is on the dry side. This might be due to the lack of gluten but can be for many other reasons. Lots of gluten free flour is rice based and this can result in a dry and slightly gritty texture.

Moisture – for some reason gluten-free cakes tend to get a little dry. Any gluten-free cake will dry out super-fast and get hard on the outside if it's not properly refrigerated and covered. I swear by always using buttermilk and adding a little more fat into the batter to compensate for the dryness.

The most common culprit in a gummy gluten-free cake is white rice flour. This flour is widely used in gluten-free baking. Maybe overused. It is not a bad flour, but it should always be paired with other flours such as sorghum flour to counteract its tendency to clump.

The simplest version of simple syrup, or soak, is nothing more than equal parts granulated sugar dissolved into water. The basic soak alone will do great things for your cake, especially in terms of moisture.