A gluten free mint chocolate cake with mint buttercream and sugared cranberries that is fit for your holiday celebrations – a winter wonderland!

Two pretty insane things happened this weekend.

1. I made what is quite possibly the cutest cake of my entire life. Am I ever going to be able to top this?! I mean the mini evergreen trees, the sugared cranberries. Gah I’m OB-sessed with it. And apparently you were too!
2. I was officially diagnosed with Celiacs – #insertsobbingfaceemojihere. It’s a long story, one that I will get in to very soon; but I had an upper endoscopy to confirm what the blood tests were saying and yes it was conclusive. So no more gluten for this girl.

I actually made this cake last Thursday, a mere 6 hours after my upper endoscopy. I was recovering on the couch, watching The Great American Baking Show, of course saw the ‘Cake Week’ episode, and decided that I needed to make cake right then. So I did! I decided to be safe and swap out my traditional all-purpose flour for my GF all-purpose flour just in case the test came back positive. And I probably would have cried if I wasn’t able to eat this cake.

My favorite place for cake inspiration is Molly Yeh. Her blog and Instagram are littered with cake recipes and her decorations are absolutely wonderful! I had the opportunity to meet her in person in November and she baked a cake THAT I ATE. Like I actually ate a cake that Molly Yeh baked and damn, it was so good. And you might remember this cake I made for Mother’s Day this year – that was one of her cupcakes recipes turned cake.

I adapted Molly’s recipe to bring you this mint chocolate cake. I made some pretty significant changes and adore how it turned out. As I mentioned before, I used gluten free all purpose flour. A common complaint with GF baking is the texture – it’s dry, crumbly, and nothing like what you want your mint chocolate cake to be like. Let me tell you – this is NOTHING like that! It is super moist, really fluffy and light, and gluten free!

I don’t think the holidays would be complete without this Winter Wonderland Mint Chocolate Cake! If you make this or any of my other recipes, post a picture on social media and use the hashtag #imhungrybynature for a chance to be featured!

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Winter Wonderland Mint Chocolate Cake

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• Author: Ellie
• Prep Time: 30 mins
• Cook Time: 28 mins
• Total Time: 58 mins
• Yield: 1 3-tiered 6 inch cake 1x
• Category: Dessert
• Method: Oven

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Description

A gluten free mint chocolate cake with mint buttercream and sugared cranberries that is fit for your holiday celebrations – winter wonderland!

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Ingredients

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For the cake:

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 and 3/4 cup all-purpose gluten free flour
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 cup almond milk (I used Califia Farms unsweetened almondmilk.)
• 1/2 cup flavorless oil, like canola
• 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon mint extract
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup boiling water

For the frosting:

• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon mint extract
• Tools needed: 6 inch cake ring, acetate paper

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Instructions

Make the cake:

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Grease a 9×13 inch rectangular cake pan and line the bottom with parchment.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients – sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a medium bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients – almond milk, oil, vanilla, and eggs.
4. Whisk the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and then stir in the boiling water. Pour into the cake pan and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Begin checking for doneness at 25 minutes. (Mine took 28 minutes.)
5. Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes and then turn the cake onto a cooling rack.

Make the frosting:

1. Use an electric mixer to beat the softened butter it until it becomes pale and fluffy.
2. Add in the powdered sugar and mint extract. Beat until combined.

Assemble:

1. Use cake ring to punch out two 6″ rounds from cake – make sure to punch the rounds out from opposite corners. These will serve as your bottom and top layers. Use the same round to punch out two half-moon shapes. The half-moon shaped will not be a full half circle; these will be combined with the other scraps to form your second layer.
2. Line a sheet pan with a clean piece of parchment. Clean the cake ring and place it in center of the pan. Using 2 acetate sheets, line inside of cake ring and tape the sheets in place. This will create a “wall” to keep the cake in place and the sides clean. Place one full cake round inside the ring pressing until it reaches the bottom.
3. Spoon just under 1/3 of the frosting onto the cake and spread until even.
4. Place the two half moon pieces on top of the frosting. There will be a gap approximately 1 inch wide in the middle. Fill the gap with cake scraps and press down to make sure it is even.
5. Spoon just under 1/3 of the frosting onto the cake and spread until even.
6. Add your last full cake round on top of the frosting. Spoon the rest of your frosting on top and spread until even.
7. Transfer the cake to the fridge or freezer to set and decorate as you would like. My cake is topped with sugared cranberries and miniature evergreen trees.

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Keywords: cake, gluten free baking, mint

The cutest, right?!