Classic vanilla cake, sounds boring? Never! Vanilla cake is always delicious no matter how extravagant it actually sounds. Do you have a fool-proof gluten-free recipe yet? I hope not, because this recipe will knock your socks off! It is unbelievably gluten-free, very light and fluffy, not too sweet, extremely simple to make, and the perfect, delicious blank canvas for ANY frosting. What more could you want in a cake recipe? You can make this cake with vanilla, chocolate, cream cheese, whipped cream, meringue buttercream, or ANY flavor/kind of frosting you can think of.
In this recipe I share my Earl Grey Swiss meringue buttercream frosting, but feel free to make any kind of frosting you desire! I love vanilla frosting on vanilla cake but felt like Earl Grey tea and ultra silky frosting, so I ended up making this one. Swiss meringue frosting does take more time to make, but to me it’s worth it because it is so smooth, not too sweet, it is the dream consistency for frosting cakes, and the tea flavor is subtle which pairs amazingly with vanilla cake. Whether you make the Earl Grey frosting or not, I’m sure you will LOVE this cake and I truly hope you will make it!
This post contains affiliate links to some of my very favorite ingredients. This way it is easy for you to find the ingredients I used at the best price I’ve found. If you click one and purchase anything from Amazon, I will receive a very small percentage of the sale, to support what I do here. Thank you!
Link to my favorite gluten-free flour blend is here.
Link to my favorite organic, flavorless coconut oil is here.
The 8 inch cake pans I use are linked here!
Gluten and Nut Free Vanilla Cake
Ingredients
- 2 ⅓ cups Bob's Red Mill Gluten-Free 1:1 Baking Flour spooned and leveled not scooped
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- ¾ tsp salt
- 1 ⅓ cups sugar
- ¾ cup avocado, canola, or melted coconut oil
- 3 large eggs room temperature if using coconut oil
- ¾ cup milk of choice room temperature if using coconut oil
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- Any frosting recipe of choice (dairy-free if needed) I share a delicious Earl Grey Swiss meringue buttercream below
Earl Grey Swiss meringue buttercream frosting:
- 2 Earl Grey tea bags
- 3 tbsps boiling water
- 4 large egg whites
- 1 ⅓ cups sugar
- 1 ⅓ cups (2 sticks plus ⅓ cup) very soft unsalted butter
- The seeds scraped from a vanilla bean or 1 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
- Grease two 8 inch cake pans and line the bottoms of each with a circle of parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (177 C).
- In a medium-large bowl whisk the GF flour, salt, and baking powder together.
- In a separate large bowl using a hand/stand mixer, mix the sugar and oil together. Add all three eggs and mix on high very well for a couple minutes. Add half of the dry mixture and beat until combined. Add the vanilla and only ¼ cup of the milk and mix well. Add the rest of the dry mixture and mix until combined. Add the remaining ½ cup of milk and mix well. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl with a spatula. Give the batter one last good mix. Evenly distribute the batter between the cake pans. Bake for 27-34 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let the cake layers cool completely at room temperature. While the cake layers cool, make whatever frosting you wish.
Earl Grey Swiss meringue buttercream frosting:
- In a very small cup, pour the boiling water over the tea bags, squishing them down to fully submerge the tea bags. Set this aside and let it steep until completely cool.
- Bring a small saucepan of shallow water to a bubble (hot but not boiling). In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix the egg whites and sugar together with a hand whisk or spatula. Place this bowl on top of the saucepan, turn the heat to low, and mix often until the sugar dissolves. You’ll know it’s dissolved when you stick your fingers in, rub them together, and don’t feel any sugar granules. Remove from the saucepan, attach the bowl to the stand mixer, and whip on high using the whisk attachment.
- Continue whipping until a very stiff meringue forms and the bottom of the mixing bowl feels room temperature. If it’s been whipping for over 10 minutes and the bowl still isn’t room temperature but the meringue is very stiff, stop mixing and place the bowl in the freezer for 6 minutes (6 minutes should be perfect even if the bowl is ever so slightly warm).
- Chop the soft butter into small chunks (no larger than 1 tbsp). Squeeze the tea bags to get every last bit of flavor then carefully tear one of the tea bags open and add three generous pinches of the tea leaves into the brewed tea.
- Once your meringue is cooled/room temperature, mix on medium speed adding one small chunk of butter at a time, mixing about 5 seconds in between each addition. It might deflate or get soupy at some point but that’s okay, just keep mixing until you’ve added all the butter and a frosting consistency forms.
- Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl. While mixing on medium-high speed, pour in the tea/tea leaf liquid and the vanilla seeds/extract and continue whipping until well mixed. Switch out the whisk attachment for the paddle and mix on high until smooth and silky (this just helps get rid of little air bubbles, but it's not necessary if you don't mind the bubbles when frosting).
Assembly:
- Carefully remove the completely cooled cake layers from their pans and remove the parchment circles. If necessary, trim the domes off of the cake layers using a bread knife.
- Smear a small dollop of frosting onto a plate (set on top of a turntable if you have one) and place one cake layer (domed/trimmed side down) on top of the dollop. Spread a relatively thin layer of frosting on top (it tends to look like less than it actually is). Carefully place the 2nd cake layer (domed/trimmed side down) on top of the frosted one. Spread frosting on the top and sides of the cake. Decorate however you wish, and enjoy!
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