A wonderful gluten-free oat flour chocolate cake that also happens to be dairy-free. Fluffy oat flour is the only gluten-free flour you need here, keeping this cake simple as well as delicious.


Gluten-Free Oat Flour Chocolate Cake
Last week was a week. We needed some extreme comfort food which for me involves chocolate cake. For this round, I wanted to bake a cake with just one gluten-free flour rather than a unique blend. I've been having great success turning out some beautiful teff flour chocolate cakes that I'm working on refining and I am excited to share those soon. But for today's cake recipe I relied solely on oat flour to make a gorgeous, very chocolatey chocolate cake. Simple, comforting, just what we needed.
Oat flour lends itself nicely to being used as a standalone gluten-free flour especially when mixed with cocoa powder. This recipe produces a cake with a lovely tender crumb -- I used coconut oil and homemade coconut buttermilk to keep it dairy free (You can use regular buttermilk but when you do your own version with coconut milk or another non-dairy milk you can keep the cake dairy free.) Coffee in the batter makes this cake ultra flavorful and rich; if you don't do coffee you could swap hot water instead.
I have written up so many chocolate cake recipes and I think there is unlimited potential for gluten-free chocolate cakes using different gluten-free flours alone or in combination! This cake is my ultimate -- soft, cake-y, you'd be hard pressed to say it's gluten-free. Hang in there, friends.
Til next time – N x
Ingredients You’ll Need for Gluten-Free Oat Flour Chocolate Cake
- Oat flour: A wonderful gluten-free whole grain flour for baking
- Unsweetened cocoa powder: I like Hershey’s unsweetened cocoa powder
- Maple sugar and coconut sugar
- Baking soda and baking powder
- Coconut Oil
- Large eggs
- Coconut milk and apple cider vinegar
- Freshly brewed coffee: You could use hot water instead
Tips for Success
- Let batter rest for at least 15 minutes before baking. Oat flour really benefits from a rest to let it absorb liquids.
- Bring ingredients to room temperature before using.
- See “Notes” section following the recipe for substitution suggestions.
How to Store
To store, wrap the cake well and keep in the fridge for up to 5 days.

Gluten-Free Oat Flour Chocolate Cake
Ingredients
- 2 ½ cups/255 g gluten-free oat flour
- 1 cup coconut sugar
- 1 cup maple sugar
- ¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 ¾ teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
- ½ cup liquid coconut oil
- 3 eggs at room temperature large
- 1 cup homemade buttermilk or 1 cup well-shaken buttermilk, at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup fresh brewed hot coffee
Instructions
- Lightly grease two 8-inch pans with at least 2-inch sides with coconut oil and line with parchment paper rounds. Set aside.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the oat flour, sugars, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the coconut oil, eggs, buttermilk, and vanilla. Stir and whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and stir very well to combine. Stir in the coffee and stir until batter is smooth and combined.
- Pour batter evenly into prepared pans and preheat oven to 350° F. Let batter rest while the oven heats, about 15 minutes.
- Place pans in the oven and bake for 45-50 minutes, checking at 45 minutes, until a toothpick in the center comes out clean and the edges are starting to pull away from the edges of the pans. Remove from oven and let cake cool in the pans on a wire rack for 30 minutes, then turn out onto the rack to cool fully. The cake will be quite tender and soft - yum! - so it's a good idea to refrigerate it before frosting or do a crumb coat.
- Frost cake with or your frosting of choice, either as a layer cake or frost one layer and freeze the other for another time (what I did on the second recipe test). Cake will keep well wrapped in the fridge for up to 5 days.
Leave a Reply