cake Archives - A Calculated Whisk

Gluten-free Pumpkin Sheet Cake

October 26, 2018 By Becky 2 Comments

This easy gluten-free pumpkin sheet cake with whipped cream frosting is the ideal dessert to feed a crowd at Halloween or Thanksgiving.

My most perpetual pregnancy craving has been and continues to be cake. Last week I was desperate for some, and became fixated on making a sheet cake. Sheet cakes are really the best kind when you’re baking to satisfy a craving. Why? They’re huge and fast. There’s no need to prep more than one pan or stack and fill layers. It’s a snap to make them look nice with no piping. They also bake and cool super quickly because they just have one relatively thin layer.

Gluten-Free Strawberry Buckle

April 12, 2017 By Becky 46 Comments

This gluten-free strawberry buckle is easy to whip up and a great way to showcase spring berries for Easter or any occasion. Thanks to for sponsoring this post!

Crisp, crumble, cobbler, buckle, brown betty, pandowdy, grunt, and slump…it’s easy to get mixed up with all the delicious fruit-based desserts out there! I did a bit of research, and discovered that a buckle is a cake made with berries in which the batter buckles up around the fruit, making the surface bumpy.

While sometimes buckles call for the fruit to be mixed into the batter, this one is made with the strawberry slices on top for a more elegant presentation. Leave the slices of each strawberry grouped together when you cut them so you can fan them out on top of the batter.

This buckle is another super easy recipe made with Gluten Free 1-to-1 Baking Flour. (In case you missed it, last month I shared easy gluten-free vanilla cupcakes made with this flour blend that are also perfect for Easter!)

This gluten-free flour blend is my go-to for converting recipes that are not gluten free. Every time I’ve tried using this in place of all-purpose flour, it has worked perfectly! The taste and texture are spot on, so no one will miss a thing.

Grain-free Lemon Cake with Whipped Cream Frosting

March 13, 2017 By Becky 39 Comments

This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

This grain-free lemon cake with whipped cream frosting is made for Easter dinner, spring birthdays, or any other special occasion. It’s super lemony thanks to lemon zest, juice, curd, and extract!

It’s the roughest Monday of the year, but I brought cake to ease the pain! If springing forward has taken some of the pep out of your step, this grain-free lemon cake will put it right back in.

When my future sister-in-law asked for a lemon cake to celebrate her birthday, I was excited. A few months ago for a styled wedding shoot, my friend Lindsey and I made a lemon layer cake with blood orange curd and blood oranges on top. I’d been wanting to try something similar with a lemon curd filling, and this was the perfect opportunity. For this cake, I adapted my lemon olive oil Bundt cake recipe to create two round layers. (Before you can even ask, no, you can’t taste the olive oil! It’s just a super healthy, easy to work with fat for baking that creates a wonderfully tender crumb.)

I used homemade lemon curd for the filling, and then frosted and decorated the cake with stabilized whipped cream. The result is a festive, richly lemon-flavored cake with tart curd and pillowy clouds of cream. It’s so good, and was a huge hit with my entire family, including my three young future nieces. I can’t wait to make it again next month for Easter!

No-Bake Gingerbread Buche de Noel

December 19, 2016 By Becky 5 Comments

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This gluten-free, no-bake gingerbread buche de noel is an icebox cake yule log that’s beyond easy to make and tastes amazing. No one will guess you didn’t even turn on your oven!

A few years ago when I spent my first Christmas with Ben’s family in Chattanooga, we started a tradition of making a yule log cake. These cakes are the modern-day version of an actual yule log, a giant piece of wood that for centuries was placed on the hearth and burned for all of the 12 days of Christmas in many European households. Since we don’t have a hearth or even a fireplace and since I really like cake, I’m glad this tradition went the way it did.

Every year for the past three years we’ve made this Chocolate Peppermint Roll from Joy the Baker, but this year I laid eyes on her Chocolate Peppermint Icebox Yule Log Cake. My ears perked up, because “icebox cake” means no baking is involved. I like to make Christmas cakes with my three nieces and while they all love baking, it’s a lot of work to bake both the cake and the meringue mushrooms while making sure everyone gets a turn to do everything at each stage of the process. I wanted to roll with the icebox idea but change up the flavor profile, so I created this no-bake gingerbread buche de noel.

Grain-free Spiced Chocolate Torte

November 30, 2016 By Becky 40 Comments

This grain-free spiced chocolate torte is a great to end a festive dinner. It will satisfy any chocolate lover, but also has a delectable hint of spice.

Thanksgiving is over, and I’m planning to top everything with pomegranate arils from now until the end of the year. This grain-free spiced chocolate torte, of course, is no exception.

I love using warming spices like cinnamon and cardamom to make desserts smell and taste extra festive during the holiday season. However, I’m also a huge lover of chocolate. I didn’t want to choose between my love of chocolate and my love of a little seasonal spice, so I decided to combine the two into a spiced chocolate torte.

This torte has a perfect texture and crumb thanks to a combination of almond flour and tapioca flour from Bob’s Red Mill. Those two flours are my go-to for grain-free baking year round. The almond flour, which is made of whole, blanched sweet almonds, provides the tenderness and richness that every torte needs. And since Bob’s Red Mill almond flour is super finely ground, there’s no need to sift it before using! As an extra bonus, almonds are packed with healthy monounsaturated fats and protein, but are low in carbohydrates (and are naturally gluten free).

Grain-free Chocolate Cake with Mocha Buttercream

October 28, 2016 By Becky 8 Comments

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This grain-free chocolate cake with mocha buttercream is super decadent and perfect for the coffee-drinking chocolate lover in your life.

It’s Friday, and I brought cake! Grain-free chocolate cake with mocha buttercream, to be exact. It’s my favorite paleo chocolate cake base (from the Black Forest Cake recipe in Paleo Planet) with a classic, very non-paleo mocha buttercream frosting. The cake layers are rich and tender, and the mocha buttercream hits you mainly with chocolate, but has just enough of a coffee kick sneaking up from behind to keep things interesting. The chocolate-covered coffee beans on top provide a welcome crunch and yet another layer of chocolate and coffee flavor.

I made this cake a couple of weekends ago for my future mother-in-law’s birthday. She grew up in Brazil, which grows a huge portion of the world’s coffee and cacao, and is a big fan of both. This cake was a hit with her and with the rest of the family. It’s so rich that we got a full 20 slices out of it.

Grilled Pound Cake with Lemon Curd + Summertime BBQ recipes

June 16, 2016 By Becky 18 Comments

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Grilled pound cake with lemon curd and berries is the perfect way to finish off any summer BBQs, and since it’s gluten free and grain free, more people can enjoy!

Summer is finally here, almost officially! I’ve already gotten in my first swim and am loving all the summer produce. I am such a summer person that I even enjoy basking in the heat of days that are 90+ degrees and humid–I find it kind of comforting!

Also, it’s BBQ season. To get ready for all the cookouts that are in store this summer, I teamed up with a few of my favorite bloggers to bring you five delicious paleo-friendly recipes that are perfect for summer BBQs. My contribution is this grilled pound cake with lemon curd and berries.

Grilled pound cake is the ideal way to end any grilling sesh. You bake the pound cake and make the lemon curd ahead of time, so all you have to do when the dessert hour rolls around is quickly grill the pound cake, spoon the lemon curd onto plates, and add a handful of fresh berries. I used local blackberries, but if strawberries are still in season near you, those would be fabulous, too! Later in the summer I’m looking forward to enjoying this with blueberries.

This pound cake recipe is super simple and comes together in one bowl with just one kind of flour–Otto’s Cassava Flour. It’s a grain-free, gluten-free, nut-free flour that makes paleo baking super easy. The cake is lightly sweetened with maple syrup and flavored with vanilla extract. It’s the perfect foil for tart and creamy lemon curd and juicy summer berries!
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Easy Texas Sheet Cake

June 6, 2016 By Becky 20 Comments

When you need grain-free, dairy-free cake for a crowd, this easy Texas sheet cake is here for you! It’s simple to make (no mixed needed!) and impossibly delicious. This post is sponsored by Dream in partnership with Honest Cooking.

This easy Texas sheet cake is perfect for times when you need a cake that serves a lot of people, but is simple and straightforward to make. It’s ideal for feeding folks with dietary restrictions since it’s paleo-friendly and free of gluten, grains, and dairy. And it’s also just the thing for when you suddenly need chocolate cake on a random afternoon and don’t want to wait too long to get your fix. With a chocolate sheet cake, you don’t have to worry about un-molding, stacking, or leveling multiple layers of cake. And since sheet cakes are thin, they cool quickly so you don’t have to wait long to frost them. You can make this whole thing, start to finish, in less than an hour. It’s also just really fun to look at such a vast expanse of cake!

This cake also has the best texture of any paleo-friendly chocolate cake I’ve ever made–it really tastes just like a regular cake! But, like a really good, homemade regular cake–not a store-bought one, of course. I looked to classic, gluten-laden Texas sheet cake recipes for guidance in developing this recipe, and discovered that they are usually made with buttermilk. Buttermilk works together with baking soda to help cakes rise, and also helps create a tender crumb. For this recipe, I made a super simple dairy-free buttermilk replacement using Dream Ultimate Almond Unsweetened Almond Beverage and a little bit of apple cider vinegar.

Grain-free Carrot Cake

March 21, 2016 By Becky 21 Comments

This grain-free carrot cake gets wonderful flavor from hazelnut flour, lemon zest, and just the right balance of spices. It’s perfect for Easter, birthdays, or an impromptu spring celebration.

Carrot cake–how do you feel about it? I’ve changed my tune over the past few years. As a kid, I thought carrot cake was a huge disappointment. I’d take a few bites if it was the only cake available, but just because even carrot cake was better than no cake whatsoever. As I grew older, I came to appreciate carrot cake as a vehicle for cream cheese frosting, which I do like, despite finding most store-bought versions way too sweet.

When Ben and I first started dating, I was flabbergasted to hear that carrot cake was his FAVORITE kind of cake. Because I love him so much, I started experimenting with homemade carrot cake and was gradually won over. This grain-free carrot cake is good enough to often get stuck in my head like a song, with the memory of its flavor playing over and over until I give in and bake it again. I won’t say carrot cake is now my number one cake, but it might actually be one of my top three. I like how the carrots keep the cake from drying out, and how the subtly spiced cake contrasts with the subtly tangy frosting.

Apple Honey Upside-Down Cake

September 18, 2015 By Becky 22 Comments

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Apple Honey Upside-Down Cake (Dairy free, Paleo) | acalculatedwhisk.com

Dairy free, paleo apple honey upside-down cake is perfect for cool fall days. Subtly spiced and not too sweet, it’s great for breakfast or dessert!

The tradition of dipping apples in honey to celebrate Rosh Hashanah inspired me to bake this apple honey upside-down cake. Apples and honey represent the double dose of sweetness that’s hoped for in the year ahead. I didn’t get this post ready in time to share before the holiday, but this cake is an ideal dessert for anytime in the fall. Whether or not you celebrate Rosh Hashanah, everyone can use a little extra hint of sweetness as the air turns crisp and the nights begin to fall sooner.

I based this recipe on my lemon olive oil cake, which is a dessert I’ve made again and again for all sorts of occasions. This apple honey upside-down cake is the perfect fall twist on my go-to cake.

To make this cake, I poured copious amounts of honey into the bottom of a parchment-lined pan, and then arranged apple slices on top. Since the apples and honey are so sweet, I only used a tiny bit of sweetener in the cake batter itself, and included a few hints of savory flavors to balance things out. Using extra virgin olive oil instead of butter makes the cake dairy free and provides a complexity that keeps the cake from being pure, unadulterated sweetness. And ginger and cardamom, spices that play on both the sweet and savory teams, are a welcome change from the usual cinnamon.

Brown Butter Cacao Nib Skillet Cake

July 27, 2015 By Becky 38 Comments

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Brown Butter Cacao Nib Skillet Cake (Gluten free, Grain free) | acalculatedwhisk.com

It cooled down just enough in Boston this weekend for me to feel good about cranking up the oven and baking a cake. And boy, was I glad I did! This grain-free skillet cake is so easy to whip up, looks and smells like a giant cookie, but boasts a unique and sophisticated flavor thanks to the browned butter and cacao nibs. I highly recommend making it today–it’s perfect for dessert or simply as a snack cake!

This recipe is adapted from Selma’s Table, my assigned blog for this month’s Secret Recipe Club reveal day. I had a hard time choosing a recipe because Selma has so many tantalizing options. I almost bought anchovies for the first time because this walnut, herb, and anchovy sauce sounded so delicious (I wanted to pair it with some zoodles!). This Italian version of shepherd’s pie looks fabulous, too. Also, what sounds better than black summer truffle pesto roast chicken?

Golden Cake with Strawberries and Whipped Cream

April 11, 2015 By Becky 6 Comments

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Golden Cake with Strawberries & Whipped Cream (Gluten free, Grain free) | acalculatedwhisk.com

How were your Easter and/or Passover celebrations? Ben and I had a few people over on Saturday and then went to another Easter dinner on Sunday. I won a pork crown roast from Snake River Farms over at Rhubarbarians, and it was pretty great. I also made this cake–we enjoyed one of the layers on Saturday, and brought the other one, pictured here, to the party on Sunday.

So, yes, I’ve been sitting on this cake recipe for an entire week. I apologize! I had one of those very busy weeks that I should have seen coming, but instead somehow managed to take me completely by surprise. Am I the only one that happens to? Between papers and evaluation reports and trying to get at least a little shuteye, it took me all week just to edit these photos.