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
Perfect recipe! I just baked my cake and ate a slice plain and it was so soft, light, and tasty! Better than gluten filled.
Yay! That’s the best compliment. Glad it turned out for you 🙂
Thank you, Erin! My Mom used to make Angel Food cake often for my Birthday parties as a kid. Once she also made it for New Year’s Eve to go with Chocolate Fondue. Honestly I don’t know if I’ve ever made one! I’m excited to make a delicious gluten free one in honor of my Mom for New Year’s. 🙂
Angel Food Cake with fondue sounds delicious! I hope it turns out great for you 🙂
How big is the cake?
What if you don’t have a food processor?
Will a mixer do the trick?
Hello!
I was wondering if you know if this can be transferable to cupcakes? And if so, what the temp and time would be? Thank you!!
What if I wanted to make one with no rice, no corn, and no potatoe? Can I use tapioca and oat flour for the gluten free flower and arrowroot for the corn starch? Or should i use tapioca starch in place of corn starch?
For us folks who can’t eat egg whites, might there be an alternative?
There isn’t anything that will work in place of the egg whites unfortunately!
Do you think tapioca or arrowroot flour would work as a substitute for cornstarch?
Loved this cake! Question, I would like to make it less sweet and put a sweeter topping on it. If I cut back on the sugar, do I need to add extra dry ingredients like GF flour?
Thanks
My mom always inverted angel food cake onto a wine bottle to that it would not deflate at all.
I am so excited to try this recipe!!!!!
I made this since I have chickens and did not know what to do with all the eggs, LOL! My daughter picked this recipe. I used Bobs Red Mill 1 for 1 GF flour and it turned out great EXCEPT i had a hard time getting it out of the ungreased bundt pan. Otherwise, besides it looking terrible, tastes great and not even GF.
Would the gluten free recipe for the angel good cake work as a jelly roll rather than the cake?
Unfortunately I don’ think so! I’ve never tried that before.
I believe this was my very first attempt at making a gluten-free cake. I used the egg whites in the carton, followed the directions exactly, and the cake turned out great. I do not have an angel food cake pan so I used two different sizes of spring form pans which meant I needed to adjust the baking time a little. I got great results. I cooled the cakes upside down as directed. The cakes pulled away from the sides of the pan easily when completely cool and were easy to transfer to cake plates. I should note that while the cakes rose, they didn’t rise a huge amount. Even so, they came out light, airy and nicely browned. Be careful not to overbake.
Thanks for your feedback! Glad it worked out for you! 🙂
The BEST!! I also used carton egg whites, it was fantastic. I impressed my self 🙂 First time making angel food cake. Needs no topping.
I’m in the middle of making your GF angel food cake with all purpose gf flour. Your recipe calls for corn starch but the instructions does not have corn starch in it any. Probably won’t get my answer very soon, huh?
So sorry! You add it along with the flour in the food processor.