Gluten-Free Coconut Cake (Dairy-Free)

Gluten-free coconut cake has to be the most popular cake I make. It is rich, fluffy and coconutty. This cake is dairy-free, gluten-free and soon to be one of your favorites. It passed my taste test when it became one of my most requested cakes by people gluten-free and not.

For more of my gluten-free and dairy free cake recipes, check out my gluten-free lemon cake and gluten-free vanilla cake.

Gluten-Free Flour Blends

There are several options for a gluten-free flour for baking. My custom blend of sorghum, millet and brown rice flours. Some of the depth of flavor in this cake comes from the variety of gluten-free flours I use. I know it’s a little more of a hassle to have a bunch of different flours lying around but I think it’s worth it. And us strictly gluten-free people really need to branch out beyond the regular rice flour blend. Vitacost.com has an excellent selection of CERTIFIED gluten-free flours at great prices and has all the flours I use in my blend.

Here is my special flour blend that I love for this cake recipe and many more of my gluten-free recipes:

• 1 c sweet white sorghum flour
• 3/4 c millet flour
• 1/4 c brown rice flour
• 2/3 c potato starch
• 1/3 c tapioca starch

See the notes in the recipe for a super simple DIY gluten-free flour blend or my blog post on gluten-free flour mixes. You can save quite a bit by mixing your own.

Store Bought Gluten-Free Flour

If you prefer a store-bought blend, I recommend King Arthur Flour All Purpose Gluten-Free flour or their Measure for Measure Flour. I have tested the recipe with both. Cup4Cup (best prices usually at Target) and Pamela’s Artisan Flour Blend are also good certified gluten-free options. Omit the xanthan gum in the recipe if your flour blend contains guar gum, xanthan gum or inulin.

Coconut Cake Ingredients

When I developed this recipe I had trouble getting the coconut flavor to survive the baking process. But canned coconut milk along with plenty of coconut extract does the trick. To get a noticeable coconut flavor in the cake, canned coconut milk is key. Be sure that you use regular, not light coconut milk. In addition to the coconut milk, I use 2 TABLEspoons of coconut extract or flavoring.

Shredded Coconut – I like to coat my gluten-free coconut cake with a combination of unsweetened toasted and untoasted coconut. With a sugary frosting, I feel like sweetened coconut is too much. To toast the shredded coconut, place it in a dry pan and toss until it begins to turn golden. Remove from the pan as soon as it browns! The residual heat of the pan will burn it quickly.

Cake Frosting

This cake is fantastic with my vegan chocolate cream cheese frosting, vanilla buttercream frosting, cream cheese frosting or my 2 ingredient vegan chocolate frosting. Check out my full list of frosting recipes.