Gluten-Free Angel Food Cake! The best-tasting angel food cake you’ll ever eat. Light, fluffy and perfect for your favorite desserts. Nobody will ever guess it’s gluten-free!
Hundreds of reviewers agree this is the most delicious gluten-free angel food cake recipe around! This tried-and-true recipe was originally published in 2013 and is one my #1 recipes today.
UPDATED June 2022: This is still my go-to recipe for angel food cake! People are always amazed this is gluten-free. I like using it in desserts like trifle or serving it on it’s own with fresh berries and whipped cream. Enjoy!
To me, angel food cake is more than just a vehicle for strawberries and cream.
Angel food cake is what my Mom and I would make for birthdays every year. She would mix sprinkles into the batter and top it with my Grandma’s 7-minute frosting.
If you’ve never had 7-minute frosting, imagine a cross between a fresh marshmallow and whipped cream. It is pure heaven on fluffy angel food cake!
Angel food cake is also what gets broken up to make my very favorite Gluten-Free Strawberry Trifle. That trifle is probably my favorite summer dessert of all time.
Every year my husband’s Grandma would make cherry and whipped cream fruit filled angel food cake for my mother-in-law’s birthday. I dearly love that cake too!
And though it be humble, I do love the classic angel food cake with fresh fruit and whipped cream.
Since angel food cake is the key to so many favorite desserts, I need to have perfect gluten-free angel food cake in my life! This recipe is the one.
Since angel food cake gets it’s structure from egg whites, it is really easy to make gluten-free.
It is moist and light with great height and flavor. I actually love this cake because it tastes a little more special than the regular box cake everyone is used to eating.
You also might like this gluten-free pound cake. Check out this full collection of gluten-free cake recipes!
For more tried-and-true recipes try this gluten-free pizza crust and gluten-free banana bread.
You can tell this cake is made from scratch, making it extra delicious. But nobody will ever guess it’s gluten-free.
Since there are a few steps I’ve made a visual tutorial for you with step by step photos. I hope it is helpful!
How to Make Gluten-Free Angel Food Cake
1. In the bowl of a food processor, process the gluten-free flour, cornstarch, and powdered sugar together until smooth, about 30 seconds.
2. Sift the flour/powdered sugar mixture into a bowl and set aside.
3. Process the granulated sugar slightly, about 5-7 pulses. You don’t want to turn it into powdered sugar, just a little finer than it is normally. Set aside.
4. Place egg whites (that should have sat at room temperature for at least 30 minutes) in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add the salt and cream of tartar. Using the whisk attachment, beat on medium speed until starting to foam and soft peaks form. You can also use a hand mixer.
Tip: You can separate the egg whites from the egg yolks or simply buy carton egg whites for this recipe.
5. Add the pure vanilla extract and almond extract and continue whipping on high speed.
6. Add the granulated sugar slowly, about 2 tablespoon at a time to the egg whites while they are whipping.
7. Continue whipping until stiff peaks form.
8. Slowly fold in the dry ingredients 1/4 a cup at a time with a rubber spatula. Do this carefully and slowly so you don’t deflate the egg whites. This is the key to good traditional angel food cake!
9. Spread the angel food cake batter in a ungreased, 10-inch round angel food cake pan.
Tip: An ungreased 10-inch tube pan is key for this recipe. You need a special round angel food pan for best results so the cake can have enough room to expand. Unfortunately a bundt pan won’t work the same.
10. Bake at 350 for about 40 minutes until lightly golden. Immediately invert pan onto a cooling rack when you remove it from the oven. Cool completely then run a serrated knife along the edges of the pan and carefully transfer the cake to a serving plate. Enjoy!
Original photo from 2013! I thought the blue plate was so cool – ha!
You could also top this angel food cake with gluten-free raspberry coulis.
More Gluten-Free Recipes
I hope you like this gluten-free angel food cake recipe as much as we do! If you try it be sure to leave me a comment/rating below. I’d love to hear from you!
Perfect Gluten-Free Angel Food Cake
Video
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups (330g) egg whites from 10-11 large eggs
- 3/4 cup (112g) gluten-free measure-for-measure flour
- 1/4 cup (32g) cornstarch
- 3/4 cup (90g) powdered sugar
- 3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons (175g) granulated sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon almond extract
Instructions
- Separate the egg whites and allow them to sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. In the bowl of a food processor or blender, process the gluten-free flour, cornstarch and powdered sugar together until smooth, about 30 seconds. Pour into a bowl and set aside.
- Add the granulated sugar to the food processor or blender and pulse 5-7 times. You don’t want to turn it into powdered sugar, just a little finer than it is normally. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, or using a hand mixer, beat the egg whites on high speed until starting to foam, then add the salt and cream of tartar.
- Add the vanilla extract and almond extract and continue whipping on high speed.
- With the mixer running on high, slowly add the granulated sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, until all the sugar is added and the mixture is glossy with soft peaks.
- Using a rubber spatula, slowly fold in the flour mixture, ⅓ at a time. Do this carefully and slowly so you don’t deflate the egg whites. (This is the key to a good angel food cake.) Scoop into an ungreased 10-inch round pan.
- Bake for 35-40 minutes, until lightly golden.
- Remove the cake from the oven and immediately flip the cake upside down onto a wire rack. Cool the cake completely.
- Once cooled, run a thin knife around the edge of the cake and gently tap the pan on the counter until the cake releases. Slice with a sharp serrated knife and serve.
Notes
Nutrition
Recipe Source: Inspired by King Arthur Flour
Angel food cake is my boyfriend’s favourite cake. I’m going to make this for his birthday this Sunday which is also Father’s Day. Do you use organic cane sugar as the granulated sugar? And do you make your own powdered sugar from organic cane sugar? Look forward to your reply!
I use regular powdered sugar from the store. I’ve never been able to get it quite as fine homemade! I hope he liked the cake! 🙂
Where does the cornstarch fit in? I have liquid cornstarch
That won’t work unfortunately!The cornstarch is used to lighten up the flour mixture.
Made this for my daughter in law, who absolutely loved it. Can i use liquid egg whites?
Has anyone ever used egg whites from the carton?
How long will it take for the eggs to form peaks? Feels like forever!
It usually takes 5-10 minutes depending on your mixer! I hope it turned out 🙂
I use this recipe all the time. I love it. I’ll stick with the original because I’m allergic to corn. Thank you so much for having gf recipes that actually work and taste good. You are my go-to site for my gf lifestyle.
I’m so glad you love the cake! Thanks for the comment 🙂
Do you think I could replace the rice flour with coconut flour?
Hi Amy! Unfortunately I don’t think so – coconut flour has really unique properties and easily makes things dry. Oat or sorghum flour would be the best substitutes. Are you trying to make it grain-free? I would try arrowroot powder if so.
No, I’m just trying to avoid a trip to the store and use what I have in the house 😉 But thanks for the heads up re: coconut flour!
Also, what’s your favorite kind of “all purpose” blend for gluten free baking? I’ve been using bob’s, but find it a little gritty and dry sometimes.
Haha. Maybe I should’ve poked around on your site a bit more. Found your recipe for all purpose blend. Can’t wait to try it!
what a wonderful recipe. this is my daughter’s favorite birthday cake. thanks so much.
Hi, and thanks for the great recipe! I followed it as written, except that I had to substitute sorghum flour for the brown rice flour (I live in Hawaii, and some things are just hard to find in a pinch). It came out great. Really delicious. The only thing–after allowing the cake to cool upside down on a bottle for an hour and then separating it onto a plate, there was 1/4″ hard gelatinous/plastic-like layer at the bottom (now the top). It came right off but was the weirdest thing. I tasted it, and it was sweet–kinda tasted like the cake but in plastic-y form. Do you know what this is or what I might’ve done wrong? Like I said, the cake is delicious and wasn’t affected at all (so it seems)–I’m just confused by the plastic ring.
I made this today (my first time ever making angel food!) and it was AWESOME! Like the previous commenter, I used carton egg whites, but unlike her mine turned out fine! Maybe different brands act differently? I just checked my carton and it does say they’re not recommended for angel food, but I couldn’t tell a difference from fresh when I was whipping them. I could have gotten them a little stiffer, but that was my fault, not theirs. 🙂 The cake still turned out great. I served it with the first strawberries of the season and it tasted just like I remember from when I was still eating gluten. Delicious, and definitely a keeper! Thank you!
Thanks Josie! What brand of egg whites did you use? I’m glad it turned out for you!
I made this cake! My family loved it. My aunt is gluten free so I made this for everyone to enjoy on Easter Sunday. You cannot use liquid egg whites. It says so on the carton. I used them on saturday night and I almost had a nervous brake down because my cake came out horribly wrong. I had never made an angel food cake before or eaten one so I had no idea what it was supposed to be like. I had to wake up super early on Sunday to make it with fresh egg whites. Separating egg whites is fairly easy and kind of fun, so don’t be scared. I would give this recipe five stars. Very delicious.
Thanks Ashley! I haven’t tried it myself with the carton egg whites so I’m glad you reported back about this! I’m glad you tried it again and it worked out!
We have made this twice now. The first one was cooked in a preheated 350-degree oven for 45 minutes. When the oven was opened, the cake had shrived up and separated away from the pan. We made this cake a week later. The second cake, we put it in the oven for 30 minutes. It looked spectacular and the stick test came out dry. As we took it out of the oven it started to come away from the sides of the angel food cake pan. When turning it over on to the bottle, the whole cake fell out of the pan and collapsed.
All the ingredient preparations were done correctly for both cakes.
We really would like a successful cake with this recipe; please may we have your suggestions.
Many thanks, Gretchen
Hi Gretchen! Sorry you’re having trouble with cake. I can think of a few things that would cause this. Are you greasing the pan before you pour in the batter? Any remnant of fat (even from a little egg yolk) will make it fall. Also angel food cake is better a little over-done that underdone, so I would err on the side of more cooked. If you’re using the convection setting to bake, it might not be done all the way in the inside and cause it to fall. Are you baking at altitude? That could also effect it. I hope you can make it work!
Absolutely wonderful cake. My daughter had brought mini store bought angel food cakes for the gluten eating people. They all ended up eating the cake and throwing out the store bought ones.
I used the carton of egg whites I also use them for pavlova too, they work great and so much easier.
5 stars
Lynn
This is great to hear! Also so good to know about the carton egg whites. Thanks Lynn!
Thank you!!! This is our new go-to GF cake when we are entertaining. We’ve made it 5 times now and it’s always perfect. So delicious, and useful for crowds that include non-gf people because they can’t tell the difference.
Also, we’ve realized this is a fabulous recipe to make along with homemade ice cream. You’ve got to do something with all those egg yolks! =)
This is so great to hear! Good idea about the egg yolks 🙂
I don’t suppose you could sub carton egg whites for the egg whites?
I’ve never tried it so I couldn’t say! Sorry about that.
I have and they worked just fine!
Great to know!
That was my first thought. Glad to know it worked!! 🙂