My Favourite Gluten Free Chocolate Cake
My Gluten Free Chocolate Cake:
First up, I should tell you what to expect from my favourite chocolate cake!
Think “chocolate Victoria Sponge” – that makes total sense in my head, I hope it does in yours too haha!!!
This isn’t a super duper rich, Bruce Bogtrotter style chocolate cake recipe. It has allllll the velvetty deliciousness you’d expect from a chocolate cake, but its much fluffier and lighter than Bruce’s.
Sold?! Lets go…
One thing (of many things!) I love about this kind of cake is how easy it is to decorate. Here, I’ve just spooned on a couple of dollops of buttercream, added some choc curls (or you could use flake) and bit of fruit and taaa dahh… 5 mins max but I think it looks pretty effective!
Gluten Free Chocolate Cake Ingredients
As with all my recipes, all of the ingredients are very simple and easily accessible. Here’s all you need for the chocolate cake:
The only one you might not have used before in a sponge recipe is the “light brown sugar”. It adds a caramel note to the cake mix and makes it slightly richer than if I’d just used all caster sugar.
That said, if you haven’t got any light brown sugar to hand, just replace it 1:1 with caster sugar and you won’t notice a huge difference.
My Favourite Gluten Free Chocolate Cake
Ingredients
Cake
- 420 g spread/butter - – I use a tub of Flora – original or dairy free
- 300 g caster sugar
- 150 g light brown sugar - – substitute with extra caster sugar if you haven't got this
- 6 eggs
- 450 g self raising flour
- 5 tbsp cocoa powder
Butter Icing Ingredients
- 250 g spread/butter
- 500 g icing sugar
- 2-3 tbsp cocoa powder - – use as much as you like, to your taste!
Decoration
- 5 strawberries - optional
- Some chocolate curls/a flake bar - optional
- Squeeze of chocolate sauce/spread
Instructions
Prepare
- Preheat your oven to 175oC (fan).
- Line your tin with baking paper.>See my pic for how I do it :a. Cut a piece of baking paper in circle, slightly larger than the tin.b. Put a piece of paper into the base of the tin and push it around the edges so the excess forms a little lip around the sides of the tin. This makes it easier to remove the cake when its cooked.c. Remove the paper from the tin, cut small lines around the edge (zoom in on the pic below to see), to help it sit in the tin nicely and then place the paper back into the tin.
Cake Time!
- In a large bowl, whisk together the butter & both types of sugar until fully combined >You’re looking for the mix to be paler, smooth & creamy! I use an electric whisk for 2 mins.
- Crack all the eggs into a separate bowl & beat together until just starting to froth up, like the picture. >Takes 10 seconds. You can use the electric whisk for this too.
- Place the flour and cocoa powder in a bowl and mix together (you can just use a spoon).
- Add 1/3 of the beaten eggs and 1/3 of the flour to the butter/sugar and whisk together until JUST combined (10 seconds). >Don’t over whisk, otherwise you’ll lose the air bubbles & your cake won’t be quite so fluffy!
- Repeat for the next 1/3 eggs and flour and whisk in. Then repeat for the remaining 1/3. >Again, only whisk until JUST combined. 10 seconds again.
- Scrape right around the sides of the bowl to pick up any excess flour. Give the mixture one final whisk, making sure you reach right to the bottom of the bowl and everything is fully combined. >Still try not to over whisk! 5 seconds at most.>Don't panic that your cake mix doesn't look as dark as the cake you're expecting. You don't need more cocoa powder – it'll just make it dry! This is the colour of mine and you can see from the pictures above what the final cake looked like
- Pour roughly half the mix into each tin. GENTLY spread the mix around until its even and right to the sides.
- Place the cakes into the centre of the oven. Bake for approx 27-30 mins. >If you cant fit two cakes onto one shelf in the oven, put one in the middle ish and one near the bottom. Avoid the top as it gets hot! >Do not open the oven door in the first 25 mins at least otherwise you'll end up with a flat-as-a-pancake cake. >You’re looking for them to be firm on top but springy to touch and a knife/skewer poked into the middle of the cake should come out relatively clean! If its not, pop the cake back into the oven for 3 mins and repeat.
- Once the cakes are cooked, immediately run a sharp knife around the very edge of the tin to loosen the cake from the sides.
- Leave it to cool for 5 mins in the tin, then carefully remove it and place onto a cooling rack until COMPLETELY COOL. >I use a springform baking tin. I open the spring to remove the sides of the tin, then place a cooling rack upside down on the cake. Flip the cooling rack so the cake is upside down and then remove the base of the cake tin and the baking paper.
Make the Buttercream
- Add the “buttercream ingredients” to a bowl. Whisk until smooth. This will take at least 2 mins.
- How to fix a common compliant: “my icing went too runny and the top layer of cake was sliding around on it!” My tip: Scrap right around the outside of the bowl and gather the butter icing together in the middle. Leave the butter icing to sit at room temperature for at least 30 mins. At that point, give it another little mix with a spoon. If it feels REALLY soft and like it couldn’t hold a the weight of a cake, add some more icing sugar and whisk again until it feels thick.
Construction – Do not attempt to move onto this stage until the cakes are completely cool
- Before actually constructing your cake, very carefully put the two layers together to see which way they sit the best. Sometimes one side is slightly higher than the other or they might sit more evenly together if they’re turned upside down.
- Pipe/spoon the buttericing onto the bottom layer
- Sandwich the second layer ontop.
Decoration
- If you want to, and you’ve got some buttercream left, make a flower of buttercream on the top tier of the cake. Add some strawberries, chocolate curls, dust with icing sugar… whatever you fancy!
Fancy some cupcakes instead?
I use the same recipe for these 😉 Chocolate cupcake, vanilla buttercream, melted chocolated and strawberries. YUM!
Click here for my Gluten Free Chocolate Cupcakes with Melted Choc Strawberries
