Gluten Free Devil’s Food Chocolate Cake

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If you love chocolate, this cake will be for you! Rich dark chocolate flavors are in every bite you take of this gluten free devil’s food cake.

This gluten free cake recipe can make a sheet cake, a layered cake, or cupcakes! If you love chocolate as much as we do, you will want to check out all of my delicious gluten free chocolate recipes.

Today is all about chocolate cravings. As I was going through my family’s antique recipe cards, it was really hard to figure out what to make next.

When I saw this devil’s food chocolate cake recipe in my grandmother’s recipe box, I knew I needed to convert this recipe to gluten free asap just in case my readers love chocolate as much as my family.

Devil’s food cake is a moist, rich chocolate cake. If you love angel food cake, this would be the chocolate version of that cake. This gluten free version of devil’s food cake is dense, and rich, and would be delicious by itself, or smothered in a rich chocolate frosting.

You will also notice this gluten free chocolate cake has a darker color than many gluten free chocolate cake recipes. This recipe has extra baking soda, which changes the pH level of this cake, making it a deeper dark brown color.

I love how this card is noted: “Never Fails”. If you are a chocoholic, or just love chocolate cake, this easy gluten free chocolate cake recipe is going to become one of your favorites!!

I have to agree.

When you make this cake, you will find it is a moist chocolate cake that is still light and airy. I created another delicious Gluten Free Chocolate Layer Cake that is beautiful for a party.

If chocolate isn’t your thing, or if you need both a chocolate and vanilla cake, you will want to make this Gluten Free Vanilla Cake recipe. It is the ultimate party cake!

As you can see, this cake has all of the delicious devil’s food cake traits, it is moist and rich!

Different ways to make this cake recipe:

• Make this cake in a round baking pans and you have an amazing gluten free birthday cake!
• It also makes a delicious gluten free sheet cake. All you would need is the frosting! It would be perfect for a kid’s birthday party.
• Knowing my kids, they would want a cupcake version of this so they can pile on the frosting :-).

How to make gluten free devil’s food cake

This gluten free chocolate cake is so easy to make! The first step is to make the chocolate custard in a saucepan.

The secret to this old fashioned chocolate cake is the custard. I never heard of creating a cake this way until I found my Grandma’s old recipe card.

It is a little different from your typical cake recipe because the cake is made from a chocolate custard. You want to make the chocolate custard first, and allow it to cool a little bit. This is why the cake is so moist and chocolaty!

What cocoa powder is best for baking?

In the old days, this cake was made with unsweetened chocolate baking squares. Times have changed over the years and many more devil’s food cake recipes are made with unsweetened cocoa powder now.

There are a lot of great high-quality cocoa powders out there. I tend to use this organic cocoa powder because it has great flavor, and the price is really low compared to many other brands. (And it is cheaper than most non-organic brands.)

If you want to try more recipes with this cocoa, give these Gluten Free Chocolate Donuts or this delicious Gluten Free Chocolate Cupcakes recipe a try!

Mix in the chocolate custard, remaining wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.

What gluten free flour blend is best for this recipe?

I have tested this recipe with three flour blends. That isn’t to say a lot more will work, but there are so many on the market now it is expensive to test them all, plus I would drown in chocolate cake! Avoid heavy starchy flour blends or blends with bean flours. If your blend doesn’t include Xanthan Gum, add 1 teaspoon to your blend.

• King Arthur Measure for Measure is a nice blend and it is corn-free as well in case you have to avoid corn.
• Bob’s Red Mill 1 to 1 Gluten Free Blend is a good blend as well, you will want to let your batter sit for 5-10 minutes if you use this one. It seems to help prevent graininess.
• Authentic Foods MultiBlend is another great flour blend. This company mills their gluten free flours extra-fine, which really makes a difference in gluten free baking. They make a lot of great blends and individual flours you can try.

You can see the batter is just right (sorry for the meh picture!) Bake the cake in this pan, it is a perfect size, unless you prefer to make a cute little-layered gluten free birthday cake! Then you would want these pans.

Bake your cake at 350 degrees F for 30-45 minutes. That is a big range, but it really depends on the size pan you use. I used an 8×8 pan for this recipe, but many decide to make it a layer cake and those pans are not as deep.

How do you know when this cake is done?

I like to use what I call the toothpick test for checking to see if my cake is done. Insert a toothpick into the middle of your cake. If the toothpick comes back clean, your cake is finished baking. If there are crumbs or batter on your toothpick, you need to bake it longer.

Are you ready to take a bite? I love how this forkful of cake looks like a heart!

More delicious gluten free chocolate desserts to try:

• How fun are these Gluten Free Chocolate Cake Pops? Everyone will love decorating them.
• This Dark Chocolate Custard makes a wonderful chocolate dessert that is thick and creamy.
• A Gluten Free Chocolate Layer Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting is perfect for a birthday cake, or use the batter to make cupcakes!
• Banana and chocolate go perfectly together in this easy Gluten Free Chunky Monkey Donuts recipe.

Continue to Content

Gluten Free Devil's Food Cake

Yield: 12 people

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 40 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Moist chocolaty gluten free devil's food cake.

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Ingredients

• For the Custard:
• 3/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup almond milk
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• For the Cake:
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 1/2 cup almond milk
• 1 3/4 cups gluten free flour blend
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/8 teaspoon salt

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Spray coconut oil in an 8x8 baking pan.
3. In a saucepan, add custard ingredients and cook over low heat. Allow to bubble gently, then remove from the heat.
4. In a large bowl, add all cake dry ingredients. Sift together.
5. Add wet ingredients to custard and whisk to blend.
6. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and mix.
7. Pour the batter into the cake pan and bake 30-45 minutes until done. *see notes

Notes

Baking time really will vary by pan size, if you are making sheet cake, thinner layer cakes, or cupcakes with this batter.

Recommended Products

There are affiliate links in my posts. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

• 
  Baker's Secret 1107173 Signature Square Cake Pan, 8-Inch
• 
  Organic Cocoa Powder (2 pounds) by Anthony's, Batch Tested and Verified Gluten-Free & Non-GMO
• 
  KING ARTHUR MIX BAKING ALL PURPOS GF

Nutrition Information:

Yield: 12 Serving Size: 1
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 273Total Fat: 10gSaturated Fat: 5gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 3gCholesterol: 67mgSodium: 260mgCarbohydrates: 43gFiber: 2gSugar: 25gProtein: 4g

Please note this nutrition information is calculated by a recipe plugin and is an estimate based on the ingredients used in this recipe.

(*This post was updated from an older September 2018 post when it appeared on my old blog Grandma’s Gluten Free Recipes. I moved it over to this blog when I merged my two sites.)

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