Searching for how to make an easy gluten free yellow cake with a mix? We have a suggestion for you, it is a very moist and pretty tasty treat for your next gathering.
Growing up I recall my grandfather loved yellow cakes with chocolate icing, it was his favorite. Of course my grandmother made every cake from scratch, using a box mix would be a sin! You would never even consider purchasing an already made icing... and you would absolutely make every aspect of your dinner and dessert from scratch, no questions asked...
In her opinion, if you even think about making something from a box, you are committing a crime! Good thing times have changed! I do enjoy making some cakes from scratch, but I do not think I would want to make every cake like that. Sometimes, you need a quick mix to make and move on with the rest of your dinner. There is no reason to kill yourself to prepare for a family gathering, or dinner, or just when you feel like making something extravagant.
Several years ago I made a yellow cake with chocolate icing for her birthday, it was gluten free of course... when she tried the first bite, I held my breath since she always has an opinion... she asked if I had made it and I said yes. She then asked if it was from a box. I so wanted to say nope, I made it from scratch, but I nodded my head yes and said it did come from a box. She said hmm... well, it tastes like an old scratch cake. I took that as a win... knowing I would never get anything closer to that as a compliment on my cake.
So after Grandma's approval, I knew I could share this cake mix with y'all, you know it's good if she gives it a thumbs up. Even Mr. Vintage liked it when I made it for Easter this year, and he is not always keen on gluten free foods. I've mentioned before, if he passes it then I know it is okay to share with you too.
This cake is really easy to make. All you need is the cake mix (really obvious huh), 3 eggs, 1 stick of melted butter, and 1 1/4 cups of milk. I used almond milk on Easter, it is the only milk we buy.
I preheated the oven to 350 degrees, greased our pans and set them aside. Then got all of our ingredients out and prepped the butter by melting it in the microwave (30 seconds on high since it was right out of the fridge), time was of the essences on Easter if you read about our deviled egg debacle... if you missed it, you can click to read Easter and Deviled Eggs.
I poured the mix in my large Pyrex mixing bowl (I see they have changed them since we got ours, I am loving the new design with the locking lids!). Then poured the almond milk in our kitchen aid measuring cups and set it aside. I love them, no more bending over to see the measurements, you can see the measure marks from above and I find that quite handy, plus the aqua color handle? Yep, loving that vintage vibe. I have been picking up pieces in this color here and there for our kitchen.
Since I had all of my ingredients measured and prepped... all I had to do was add them all to the mix, and add the 3 eggs to the mixture. I only whisked the cake batter by hand until it was smooth. It was kind of nice to not get the big mixer out with all of the other chaos going on. Then I divided the cake mix into two 8" cake pans.
These are my old Wilton pans (my cakes never stick, yeah for me) I have had for many, many years... they do hold up, I can attest to that, many things have been baked in them... cakes, chicken breasts, tortillas... the list goes on and on... I do not always use pans for what they are intended to be used for since I use them in our Nuwave oven often because they fit in there perfectly. I could tell you in an entire post all on it's own the wonderfulness of a Nuwave oven, but we are talking about cake today...
So I placed both cake pans in the oven at 350 degrees, set the timer to 27 minutes and got to forget about them for a while. When the timer went off, I removed them from the oven, a toothpick in, came out clean so I let them cool for 20 minutes, then removed the cakes from the pans.
I continued to let the cakes cool until I was able to ice them. Now, I had planned to make my own icing, then decorate the cakes with my cake tips, but if you recall, I could not locate them. Icing from the grocery it is... roll with the punches... I have had to learn this over the years, and believe me when I tell you it was so difficult for me to do! I tend to be somewhat of a perfectionist... sometimes it is still difficult for me to just go with the flow, but I am a work in progress... hey, like our home! I knew we had a lot in common, (chuckling to myself).
I iced the top of the first cake, then added the second cake on top. I then began icing the cake with our straight handle icing spatula. It was not exactly the pretty icing flowers I had hoped for, but it was pretty tasty, and so moist!
I used a plain glass cake plate and added the vintage glass cake dome that goes with the milk glass cake stand in the background to the right. If you would like to see a better picture of our cake stand, click to read $15 backsplash make over. My favorite cake plates have glass domes that go with them. Then there are no worries about your icing getting messed up and we all know I like for things to look pretty around here.... even if my food presentation is not an A+...
Searching for more gluten free goodness? Below are more desserts for you to take a look at.
P.S. If you have questions about the Nuwave, let me know. We absolutely love ours. I use it everyday!
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