The Ultimate Gluten-Free Angel Food Cake Recipe

By
Stella Parks
Stella Parks
Stella Parks
Editor Emeritus
Stella Parks is a CIA-trained baking nerd and pastry wizard, dubbed one of America's Best New Pastry Chefs by Food & Wine. She was the pastry editor at Serious Eats from 2016 to 2019.
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Updated March 29, 2019
Gluten-free angel food cake topped with berries

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

Why It Works

  • Fragile starches, like arrowroot and tapioca starch, help bind the batter while minimizing the chalky taste of cornstarch, a powerhouse essential to the cake's rise.
  • Combining eggs and sugar all at once creates a dense but stable meringue.
  • Whipping the meringue in stages creates a fine network of air cells, for a more delicate crumb.
  • Plain aluminum gives the cake traction through its rise and cooling period—never use nonstick!

I love gluten-free baking, but gluten-free angel food cake is probably my favorite recipe of them all. It's phenomenally light and fluffy, perhaps even more so than the original, thanks to a blend of gluten-free flours that offers a more delicate balance of starch and protein than unbleached cake flour. The recipe itself couldn't be easier: Just throw some cold egg whites and sugar into a bowl, whip 'em up, and stop before they're stiff. For more information, and photos of vital steps along the way, check out my summary of the technique here.

Recipe Details

The Ultimate Gluten-Free Angel Food Cake Recipe

Active 15 mins
Total 3 hrs
Serves 12 to 14 servings
Makes 1 tube cake
Cook Mode (Keep screen awake)

Ingredients

  • 2 ounces tapioca flour or arrowroot starch (about 1/2 cup; 56g)

  • 1 1/2 ounces white rice flour (about 1/3 cup; 42g)

  • 1 1/2 ounces cornstarch (about 1/3 cup; 42g)

  • 1 ounce coconut flour (about 1/4 cup; 28g)

  • 1 teaspoon (4g) baking powder

  • 15 ounces cold egg whites (about 2 cups; 425g), from 12 large eggs

  • 15 ounces granulated sugar (about 2 cups; 425g)

  • 1 tablespoon (15ml) vanilla extract

  • 1 ounce freshly squeezed lemon juice (2 tablespoons; 30ml), from 1 small lemon

  • 1/4 teaspoon (1g) Diamond Crystal kosher salt; for table salt, use half as much by volume or use the same weight

Directions

  1. Adjust oven rack to the middle position and preheat to 350°F (180°C). Sift tapioca flour or arrowroot starch, white rice flour, cornstarch, coconut flour, and baking powder into a large bowl. Whisk together until homogeneous, then sift mixture one more time to ensure total uniformity prior to mixing.

  2. Combine egg whites, sugar, and vanilla extract in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Mix on low to loosen, about 1 minute, then increase to medium-low (4 on a KitchenAid) and whip 3 minutes; the whites will be dense and dark.

  3. With the mixer still running, add lemon juice and salt. Immediately increase to medium (6 on a KitchenAid) and whip 3 minutes more; the meringue will be thin but foamy. Increase to medium-high (8 on a KitchenAid) and continue whipping until the meringue is glossy white and thick enough that you can see the pattern left by the wire whisk. This can take between 2 and 4 minutes, depending on the freshness of the whites and the horsepower of your mixer. When meringue is ready, it should be soft enough to run off the wires when the whisk attachment is removed, but thick enough to mound up on itself like soft-serve in the bowl.

  4. Sprinkle flour blend on top and stir with a flexible spatula to roughly combine. Switch to a folding motion, scraping from the bottom up and folding through the center, until no pockets of flour remain. Scrape batter into a 10-inch aluminum tube pan (do not butter or grease pan); if you notice any small pockets of unincorporated flour, simply pause to mix them in. Bake until the cake is puffed, golden blond, and firm to the touch, about 45 minutes, or to an internal temperature of 206°F.

  5. Invert pan onto its stilts, over the neck of a wine bottle, or onto a trio of cans (see note) and cool upside down until absolutely no trace of warmth remains, at least 2 hours. Slide an offset spatula around the sides of cake to loosen, remove the insert, and slide spatula under the bottom as well. Flip onto a serving plate, pulling gently on the sides of cake to release it from the center tube. To serve, cut with a chef's knife, using a gentle sawing motion and only the slightest downward pressure. In an airtight container, leftovers will keep up to a week at room temperature.

Notes

The success of this recipe depends on a delicate balance of protein and starch, both strong and weak. Do not expect similar results with a different blend of flours and starches.

If your tube pan does not have stilts for inverted resting and cannot rest over the neck of a wine bottle, before you begin to bake, set up a trio of cans of the same height to suspend the tube pan on. The cans should be arranged so that the inverted pan just rests on their edges (the cake will rise above the top of the pan).

Special Equipment

Stand mixer, flexible spatula, 10-inch aluminum tube pan, offset spatula

This Recipe Appears In

Nutrition Facts (per serving)
205Calories
0gFat
46gCarbs
5gProtein
×
Nutrition Facts
Servings: 12 to 14
Amount per serving
Calories205
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 0g0%
Saturated Fat 0g1%
Cholesterol 0mg0%
Sodium 117mg5%
Total Carbohydrate 46g17%
Dietary Fiber 1g4%
Total Sugars 31g
Protein 5g
Vitamin C 1mg4%
Calcium 32mg2%
Iron 1mg4%
Potassium 77mg2%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.
(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)

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