Gluten-Free Strawberry Cake

Author Casey Colodny

Prep: 10

Cook: 40

Total: 50

Servings: 9 bars

A vanilla bean cake that's so moist and fluffy you'd never suspect it to be gluten-free! Topped with a luscious strawberry cream cheese frosting and freeze-dried strawberries for the ultimate summertime cake.

Ingredients

Gluten Free Vanilla Cake

2 large eggs
½ cup pure maple syrup
¼ cup coconut oil melted & cooled
⅓ cup organic cane sugar or sub coconut sugar
¼ cup almond milk or sub any other dairy free milk or whole milk
1 tbsp vanilla bean paste or sub 2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups super fine almond flour spooned & leveled
1 cup gluten-free flour must be 1:1 replacement (I used Bob’s red mill 1:1 GF Baking Flour)
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt

Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting

1 cup freeze-dried strawberries ~¼ cup once pulsed
5 oz cream cheese softened
3 oz butter softened
1½ cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla bean paste or sub vanilla extract
⅛ tsp salt

Instructions

Gluten Free Vanilla Cake:

Preheat the oven to 350F and line the bottom of a 8” square pan with parchment paper, and spray the edges with baking spray.
In a medium-sized bowl, beat eggs, maple syrup, coconut oil, coconut sugar, almond milk, and vanilla bean paste.
In a separate small bowl, whisk together almond flour, gluten free flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
Add dry ingredients to the bowl of whisked wet ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon or spatula. Batter will be thick.
Add the batter to the parchment-lined 8" square pan, using a spatula to spread into a smooth layer.
Move to the oven and bake at 350F for 35-40 minutes (mine took ~38 minutes) or until the top is browned, edges are pulled away from the sides, and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out crumb-free. Let cool completely.

Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting:

While the cake is cooling, start on your frosting. Add freeze dried strawberries to a mini food processor and blend until smooth. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, add softened cream cheese and butter. Use a hand mixer to blend together until evenly combined and smooth.
Add powdered sugar, vanilla bean paste, and salt and use a hand mixer to blend together. Stir in powdered freeze-dried strawberries until evenly combined.
Once cake has cooled, spread strawberry cream cheese frosting in an even layer on the vanilla bean cake bars. Optional: decorate with extra finely chopped freeze-dried strawberries or slices of fresh strawberries. Serve and enjoy!

Notes

For measuring the almond flour, make sure you spoon and level for accurate measuring (if you pack in the almond flour to the measuring cup you will have too much for this recipe)
You can also bake in a 9” square pan, time would be 30-35 minutes
If you don’t have access to freeze-dried strawberries, you could substitute ¼ cup strawberry jam, adding more to taste as desired
To keep this recipe dairy free, you can substitute dairy-free cream cheese and dairy-free butter for the frosting, the consistency will be a little runnier. (If you go this route, I like using Kite Hill plain dairy-free cream cheese and Earth Balance unsalted butter baking sticks)