Gluten free red velvet cake

Updated 30th August 2025

It’s year ago today since my blog went live, so I thought it would be nice to pop together a special cake to mark the 1^st Birthday of Coeliac by Design!

There’s quite a few things, that have only become popular since I was diagnosed with coeliac disease. Red velvet cake being one of them. And until now, it’s something I’ve neither eaten, or made before.

This gluten free red velvet cake recipe was adapted from a ‘standard’ recipe for red velvet cake by RecipeTin Eats. When picking out recipes to use, I can generally tell how well they’ll work by the ingredients list. And the ingredient list for this cake looked spot on… and the cake turned out GREAT!

Now, I hold my hands up, if there’s a shortcut to a recipe, I’ll take it! However, I’ll only skip things if there’s no compromise to the end result. When I was checking out the method for this red velvet cake, the thought crossed my mind if it would work out if I used the all in one method? I gave it a go – and great news it worked an absolute treat!

Ingredients (Serves 10 -12)

For the cake
400g gluten free plain/all purpose flour
½ teaspoon xanthan gum (no need to add if your flour already contains this or guar gum)
10g *cocoa powder
5g *bicarbonate of soda
330g caster sugar (sounds a lot but go with it!)
115g Lurpak full fat spreadable butter
2 large eggs – room temperature works well in baking
250ml vegetable oil (silly fact – did you know a lot of vegetable oils are made from rapeseed – check the ingredients on the bottle)
1 tsp white wine vinegar
2 tsp *vanilla extract
250ml buttermilk
1 tube of Dr Oetker *red food colour gel (gel is recommended as it’s a more vibrant in colour – however it’s your choice if you wish to use natural red food colouring instead)

For the cream cheese frosting
250g Philadelphia (original) cream cheese
115g softened unsalted butter
1½ tsp *vanilla extract
450g icing sugar, sifted

To finish
*Cocoa powder to decorate – optional

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4/160C Fan.

Lightly grease and line 2 x 20cm sandwich tins with baking paper.

Sift the gluten free flour, xanthan gum, cocoa powder and bicarb into a large mixing bowl. Add the caster sugar and mix well until the ingredients are blended.

Add the remaining ingredients into the bowl and give it a quick stir, then at this point you can either pop the bowl onto your mixer or if like me you don’t have one, get your electric hand mixer in there and whisk well until all the ingredients are incorporated and you have a nice smooth batter.

To ensure you get an even bake, it’s best to distribute the batter evenly between the 2 tins. You can either do this by using a ladle and count out how many you put into each tin or do as I did and pop the tins onto the scales and put the same weight of batter in each tin.

Pop them in the oven and bake for 40 minutes before you check in on them. To see if they are done, gently press the top of the cake. If it’s firm and bounces back that’s great, but if it’s still a bit wobbly bake for a few minutes longer.

Once baked remove the cakes from the oven and allow to cool for about 15 minutes before removing from the tins and allowing to cool on a cooling rack.

To make the cream cheese frosting: Pop the cream cheese, softened butter and vanilla extract in a large bowl and beat together well. Gradually add the sifted icing sugar in stages. Mixing well after each addition. Once all the icing sugar has been added it’s time to get the electric hand whisk out again to whip a little air in there and make the frosting velvety smooth.

Once the cake is cold you can assemble and decorate it with the frosting. With a pallet knife spread a generous amount of the cream cheese frosting onto one of the cakes and then pop the other cake on top. Smooth the frosting over the top of the cake. You can please yourself whether you choose to have frosting on just the top or all over the cake. I have done both ways for you to have a look at, to see which you prefer. Frosting the whole cake will prevent it from drying out.

I wasn’t too sure what to decorate the top of the cake with, but I eventually opted for sifted cocoa powder. You may like to add something else that is gluten free or simply leave it plain.

This yummy gluten free red velvet cake is extremely soft. I recommend eating it with a spoon!

Recipe notes and suggestions:

Because of the cream cheese frosting, the cake is best stored in a fridge if not being eaten straight away. It will keep well in there for 2-3 days.

I tested the recipe with Lurpak spreadable butter. However the original recipe does list softened unsalted butter, so feel free to use this instead if you’d prefer and then simply add a pinch of salt to the flour.

Thanks for checking out my gluten free take on Recipe Tin Eats red velvet cake, who must take full credit for such a fab recipe.  It’s a yummy bake… let me know if you give it a whirl!

For now,
Liz x

*Check this product to ensure that there are no gluten containing ingredients, ‘may contain’ or ‘not suitable’ for a coeliac/gluten free diet warnings on the pack.