Get ready to embark on a flavor packed adventure that will have your taste buds dancing with delight! I’m about to unveil the ultimate Gluten Free Spice Cake recipe, and it’s not your average cake. Bursting with aromatic spices and crowned with a luscious cream cheese buttercream, this dessert is a DELICOUS masterpiece that proves gluten free it can be downright glorious. Whether you’re a seasoned Baker or a kitchen newbie, this recipe is your golden ticket to cake heaven. So, roll up your sleeves, dust off your apron, and let’s bake up some sweet magic!

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Ingredients You’ll Need:

Spice Cake

Unsalted Butter: This adds moisture, richness, and flavor to the cake. It also helps in tenderizing the crumb.
Light Brown Sugar: Provides sweetness and a subtle caramel flavor, contributing to the cake’s overall taste and texture.
Dark Brown Sugar: Similar to light brown sugar, but with a deeper molasses flavor, it enhances the cake’s richness and moistness.
Vanilla: Adds a delightful aroma and flavor to the cake, enhancing its overall taste.
Eggs: They act as a binding agent, providing structure and stability to the cake while also contributing to its moisture and texture.
Gluten-Free All-Purpose Flour: This is the key to making the cake gluten-free. It provides structure and helps the cake rise.
Salt: Enhances the flavors in the cake by balancing the sweetness and other flavors.
Baking Powder: A leavening agent that helps the cake rise by creating air bubbles in the batter, resulting in a light and fluffy texture.
Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Allspice: These spices add a warm, aromatic, and flavorful profile to the cake, making it a “spice” cake. They also provide depth and complexity to the taste.
Heavy Cream: Contributes richness and moisture to the cake batter. It also provides the DREAMY light and fluffy texture that the cake has after baking.

Cream cheese Buttercream

Cream Cheese: Forms the base of the frosting, providing a creamy and tangy flavor that complements the sweetness of the cake.
Unsalted Butter: Adds richness and a smooth texture to the frosting.
Powdered Sugar: Sweetens and thickens the frosting, giving it a desirable consistency.
Vanilla: Enhances the flavor of the frosting with a hint of sweetness.
Heavy Cream: This helps in achieving the desired consistency of the frosting, making it creamy and easy to spread on the cake.

Helpful tips to make Gluten Free Spice Cake:

Gluten Free spice cake

ALWAYS use room temperature ingredient: this is SO IMPORTANT for the overall outcome of the texture of your cake. For a light, fluffy, and moist cake, make sure the butter, eggs, and cream cheese come to room temperature before mixing the cake batter and frosting.
Don’t overmix: once the flour has been added to the batter, mix just until combined. overmixing can lead to a very sad dense cake.
Gently fold in the heavy whipping cream: This recipe calls for whipped cream to be folded into the recipe and let me tell you the outcome of this cake is MAGICAL because of it! Gently fold in the whipped cream into the cake batter with a rubber spatula. It’s important to make sure that we don’t deflate all those beautiful air bubbles that will create this cake’s extremely light and fluffy texture!
Use parchment paper: for easy removal, line the bottom and sides of your cake pan with parchment paper, making sure that some of the parchment comes above the sides of the pan. Once the cake has finished baking and cooling, you can easily pull the cake up and out of the pan with the little bit of parchment paper that is above the sides of the cake pan.
Serve the cake at room temperature: if you’re making this cake and storing it in the fridge before serving, remove the cake from the fridge 30 minutes before enjoying allowing it to come to room temperature. That way the texture of the cake will be nice and soft and delicious for all to enjoy!

Cream cheese Buttercream

Emulsify the cream cheese: For an extra smooth cream cheese frosting, emulsify it with a small amount of warm heavy cream before adding the powdered sugar. This prevents lumps and results in a silky-smooth texture.

single slice of gluten free spice cake on a plate

Frequently Asked Questions:

What is Spice Cake made of?

Spice cake is a delightful combination of cake batter plus a mixture of spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and/or allspice. Cinnamon is most times the more noticeable flavor of the spices in spice cakes, but the combination of the spices together really compliments each other. Some spice cakes may use more brown sugar than white sugar as well to enhance the deep aromatic flavors of the spices.

Are Spice Cake and Carrot Cake the same?

Spice cake and carrot cake are not the same, although they both share similarities. Both cakes have a moist texture and rich flavors, but they differ in their primary ingredients:

Spice cake: a cake that derives it’s flavors from a blend of spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice. It doesn’t contain carrots and relies on a mixture of spices for its flavor.
Carrot cake: contains carrots as a primary ingredient. While it also includes the same spices, the dominant flavor comes from the carrots. Carrot cake will often include other ingredients like pineapple, raisins, and/or chopped nuts for added texture and flavor.

Which Gluten Free Flour is best for cakes?

I HIGHLY recommend King Arthurs Measure for Measure Gluten Free Flour Blend! Since going gluten free, I’ve found that with using this flour in cakes you can’t even tell that it’s gluten free! No need to compromise on texture, this gluten free flour blend is the best! Gluten free desserts don’t have to be weird when you have flour substitutes that are this good.