I feel better eating dessert that emphasizes fruit more than anything else. Fresh fruit + a dollop of freshly whipped real cream is lovely, or how about the gloriously fudge-like coconut cream concentrate? Still, I know that many people, including myself, like to have good gluten free cake recipes on hand for special occasions, whether we personally eat what we bake or not.

The 7 free online resources for recipes, below, will expand your knowledge about health and gluten free baking.

I chose these sites because they, unlike most gluten free recipe sites, reflect a deeper knowledge of both subjects.

Also, gluten free baking is an art as much as a science, and these recipes are creative yet they respect the rules of chemistry which is why they produce good textures and tastes. There are adjustments to be made, and new ingredients to explore, but the wonderful things is that when you bake from scratch, or close to it, there can be both cost savings and health benefits that you won’t get as easily if you rely on gluten free cake mixes. Enjoy!

7 Good Online Resources for Gluten Free Cake Recipes From Scratch

TIP read all of the visitor comments for a recipe on a blog before you make the recipe, and post any questions you have if they haven’t been answered.

1. The Spunky Coconut

‘Marble Cake’ from The Spunky Coconut

The Spunky Coconut by Kelly Bozyna is a great recipe resource if you have multiple allergies and intolerances, like I do, and are looking for gluten, grain, casein, soy and reduced sugar recipes. Some of the ingredients in the cake recipes are surprising, but, as you’ll see if you read the comments under each recipe, they are enthusiastically ooo’d and ahh’d over because the results are delicious. As you can guess from the title of the blog, there are lots of recipes that use coconut products.

Kelly also has a cookbook for sale: The Spunky Coconut Cookbook

2. Gluten Free Day

‘Cake With Blueberries and Crème Fraîche’ from Gluten Free Day

Gluten Free Day offers exquisite photographs of inventive gluten, grain and dairy free recipes by the thoughtful Emilia Stark of Finland. Emilia often uses quinoa flour in her recipes. Her older recipes sometimes call for soy milk, which I recommend you substitute with another dairy free milk if you’re avoiding dairy, such as almond, due to the health risks of unfermented soy foods (and fermented soy foods above a certain level).

3. Wasabimon

‘Easy Gluten Free Carrot Cake’ from Wasabimon

Wasabimon by Stephanie Stiavetti offers a nice collection of gluten free cakes recipes using easy-to-find ingredients along with cookbook and kitchenware reviews. I am delighted to see several macaron recipes on the site – I am famous (among my family and friends) for my own macarons. The carrot cake recipe, pictured above, is chronicled step-by-step in clear photos.

4. Elana’s Pantry

‘Homemade Starbucks Orange Cake’ from Elana’s Pantry

Elana’s Pantry is a popular blog that offers delicious gluten/grain free (and often dairy free) cake recipes based largely on almond flour and agave syrup. I avoid agave syrup, even though Elana feels that the brand she uses isn’t problematic, but you can decide for yourself based on the information that Elana provides and your own research.

Elana also has a cookbook for sale: The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook

5. Straight into Bed Cakefree and Dried

‘Lemon Meringue Cupcakes’ from Straight Into Bed Cakefree and Dried

Straight Into Bed Cakefree and Dried (do you know where that line is from?) is a quirky, insightful blog by Noami Devlin. Noami offers many creative gluten free variations of classic cakes. Many of the recipes are also grain free. Naomi follows the SCD (Specific Carbohydrate Diet).

6. Healthy Indulgences

‘Red Velvet Cake’ from Healthy Indulgences

Healthy Indulgences offers amazing grain free and sugar free recipes by Lauren Benning, a health researcher and self taught amateur chef who follows a low carb diet using whole foods (I’m impressed with her knowledge about fatty acids – few people know the truth about them) and low calorie sweeteners. The recipes sometimes call for dairy products, but she offers substitutions. If not, post a question on her blog.

Thanks to Lauren I learned about a sugar subtitute that can be used in baking that doesn’t seem to have the negative health effects of other low calorie alternative sweeteners. The sweetener is called erythritol. It’s a sugar alcohol, but unlike most sugar alcohols it doesn’t cause digestive upset (oh boy am I sensitive to sorbitol, malitol and similar, so that is incredible). Erythritol has been used in Japan for many years and studies have shown that it has no negative health consequences or side effects, much like stevia. I’ll be ordering Now Foods Erythritol soon because the source of the erythritol is from non GMO corn, unlike other brands.

7. Comfy Belly

‘Cream Filled Cakes’ from Comfy Belly

Comfy Belly is a wonderful collection of recipes by Erica Kerwien. Erica has done an excellent job adapting popular foods like pizza, pancakes, crackers and Twinkies (see the picture above) to make them suitable (and still delicious!) for people with a variety of health issues such as Celiac, Crohn’s and diabetes. I also encourage you to follow Erica on Twitter. I’ve learned a lot of interesting things and found several excellent health blogs thanks to her tweets. http://twitter.com/comfybelly

And remember, always read the visitor comments on recipe blogs before you make the recipe. There are often valuable tips that will help to ensure success.

PS Also, please see my post: How to Make Nuts, Seeds, Beans and Whole Grains More Digestible