Almond Flour Chocolate Cake
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This fudgy Almond Flour Chocolate Cake is big on flavor with rich cocoa powder and melty chocolate chips. Naturally gluten-free, easy to make, and moist—not dry or crumbly.
This Almond Flour Chocolate Cake is proof that gluten-free baking can be every bit as indulgent as the classic version. And trust me, a deep, dark chocolate cake is definitely a desert island food for me. Despite the fact that I trained as a pastry chef, I will choose a simple chocolate cake over much more complicated desserts every.single.time. But—it has to be perfectly fudgy, and never ever dry.
This is my go-to cake for potlucks, get-togethers, or when I just want a special treat for my family. But don’t just take my word for it—with over three hundred 4.5+ star reviews, this recipe is a crowd-pleaser. Check the comments section for all the love, like this comment from Barbara: “This is a BEAUTIFUL dessert...very easy and delicious. I've made it for several dinner parties and it is always a big hit. Thank you Molly!”
Serve it plain with a dusting of powdered sugar or dress it up with fresh berries for an elegant dessert that’s as easy as it is irresistible.
Jump to:
- Why You'll Love This Almond Flour Chocolate Cake
- Almond Flour Chocolate Cake Recipe Ingredients
- How to Make Almond Flour Cake
- 👩🍳 Expert Tips for Almond Flour Chocolate Cake
- Baking with Almond Flour
- Serving Suggestions for Almond Flour Chocolate Cake
- How to Store Chocolate Almond Cake
- Chocolate Almond Cake FAQs
- Other Delicious Almond Flour Recipes
- More Recipes to Try
- 📖 Recipe
- More About Molly
Why You'll Love This Almond Flour Chocolate Cake
- So Fast: This easy almond flour cake recipe has a short list of ingredients, and doesn't require a stand mixer or even an electric mixer.
- Dark and Delicious: Rich chocolate flavor that needs only a sprinkle of powdered sugar to serve. Fresh berries take it over the top.
- Gluten-Free: This cake uses almond flour instead of regular wheat flour, making it gluten-free. But all you'll taste is your new favorite chocolate cake.
- Great Shelf Life: Using almond flour in your recipe adds fat, which adds richness and also extends the shelf life of your baked goods.
Almond Flour Chocolate Cake Recipe Ingredients
- Almond Flour: Almond meal and almond flour are terms used for the same thing—both mean finely ground almonds. The majority of almond flour products are made by finely grinding blanched almonds (almonds where the skins have been removed). Almond meal can mean finely ground blanched or unblanched almonds, and almond meal may be a coarser grind than almond flour. As a result, I always prefer to bake with fine-ground almond flour.
- Cocoa Powder: This moist chocolate cake shines with a very high-quality cocoa powder. I love cocoa powder with deep chocolate flavor, like my favorite Valrhona Cocoa Powder. But you can use whatever unsweetened cocoa powder you like best, and both regular cocoa powder and dutch-processed cocoa powder work just fine.
- Sugar: My recipe calls for regular sugar, but several people have made this cake with sugar substitutes such as coconut sugar and have reported back that it works quite well! Try replacing with maple syrup as well.
- Vegetable Oil: A neutral oil is best for this recipe. As a substitute, try coconut oil or a mild olive oil.
How to Make Almond Flour Cake
First, preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit or 180 degrees Celsius. Butter the sides and bottom of a 9-inch round cake pan and line the bottom with parchment paper.
Pour a small amount of cocoa powder into your buttered pan, and tap and turn the pan until the cocoa powder coats the sides. This will help the cake unmold easily.
Whisk together your dry ingredients: 1.5 cups almond flour, ⅓ cup cocoa powder, 1 cup sugar, ¾ teaspoon baking powder, and ½ teaspoon salt in a large mixing bowl.
In a separate bowl, whisk together 3 large eggs, 3 ounces of vegetable oil, and 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract.
Stir egg mixture into almond flour mixture until well-combined, then stir in ½ cup of chocolate chips. Batter will be thick. Use a rubber spatula to scrape into the prepared pan.
Bake for 25 minutes, or until top is springy when touched, and cake tester comes out clean.
Cool on wire rack for 5-10 minutes, then cover with a cutting board or plate and flip over. Remove pan, then parchment paper, and cover with serving platter. Then flip over again.
Dust your Chocolate Almond Flour Cake with powdered sugar to serve, if desired.
👩🍳 Expert Tips for Almond Flour Chocolate Cake
The easiest way to line your pan with parchment paper is to put your cake pan down on the parchment paper, then trace around it. Remove pan and cut out the circle, then press it onto the buttered bottom of the pan.
As an alternative, you could bake this in a 9-inch springform pan as well.
Sometimes a whole cake is too much, and you want a single serving size. In that case, check out this great recipe for Chocolate Almond Flour Mug Cake. Same fudgy flavor, but made in 60 seconds in the microwave! And if you love an easy 1-layer cake like this one, you need to try my French Apple Cake and my Lemon Ricotta Cake next.
Baking with Almond Flour
Wondering what else you can do with almond flour? Almond flour is used in many French desserts—try making macarons or making a frangipane base for a tart. Almond meal can also make a delicious crumble topping for a fruit crisp, crumble, or tart when mixed with flour, sugar, and butter.
You can also try using almond flour instead of breadcrumbs to coat chicken or tofu—just pay attention because it can burn faster than regular breadcrumbs.
You may also want to play around with using almond flour as a replacement for all-purpose flour (or for some of the flour) in other baking recipes. In some cases you can replace all-purpose flour with almond flour on a 1:1 basis. However, for other recipes, a 1:2 ratio is better—using twice as much almond flour as all-purpose flour.
In addition, almond flour won’t develop gluten as all-purpose flour will. Many recipes will increase the number of eggs used to help bind the ingredients together and create structure.
For more information about substituting some almond flour in your baking recipes, consult this almond flour baking guide from King Arthur Flour. It’s a great resource that shows you exactly how different kinds of recipes react to almond flour.
Serving Suggestions for Almond Flour Chocolate Cake
Serve this cake topped with sweetened whipped cream and berries or a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Keep it simple and just sprinkle with powdered sugar. Or double down on the chocolate by making a ganache to pour or spread over the top. To make a ganache, just heat cream and chopped up dark chocolate in a 1:1 ratio until smooth (add more cream if you want to easily pour it). You can even double this recipe to make a layer cake, or bake it in a cupcake tin (reduce the bake time if you are making cupcakes).
How to Store Chocolate Almond Cake
This almond flour chocolate cake keeps well at room temperature in an airtight container for 3 days. After that, it will start to become stale. Store in the refrigerator if you want to extend the shelf life for a couple more days. To freeze, wrap tightly in plastic wrap, then aluminum foil. Freeze for up to 3 months.
Chocolate Almond Cake FAQs
Yes! You can easily make your own almond flour with the help of a food processor. Just take a quantity of blanched almonds (you can often find these as blanched, slivered almonds in the grocery store) and blitz in a food processor until they are finely ground. For best results, make sure you stop as soon as you see the texture you want. If you grind for too long, your almond flour will turn into almond butter.
Yes! And since almond flour is expensive both to buy and to make, you should definitely freeze any leftovers for your next batch. According to Bob’s Red Mill, you can even freeze almond flour for 4-5 months after its sell by date, as long as you keep it in an airtight container.
You can also keep it in the fridge if you prefer, and in fact, if you are planning to store almond flour for over a few weeks, you should keep it in the refrigerator or freezer. Almond flour (and other nut flours) can turn rancid more quickly than traditional flour.
Though this is a gluten-free chocolate cake, it is not a keto chocolate cake. Using almond flour does reduce the carbs in this cake, compared to making it with regular all-purpose flour. But it still contains more carbs and sugar than you'd like if you were practicing a strict keto diet.
Yes! Easily done. Just replace the butter you would use for greasing the pan with a non-dairy baking spray or margarine. And, make sure the chocolate chips you use are also dairy-free. Many brands are, though some are not. The cake itself is totally dairy-free!
Other Delicious Almond Flour Recipes
If you enjoyed this chocolate cake with almond flour recipe, you might also want to check out this round-up of my favorite Almond Flour Dessert Recipes. Here are a few favorites:
If you try this Almond Flour Chocolate Cake recipe, I would love to hear from you! Leave a comment below—I read them all, and your feedback is invaluable to me.
And please follow along on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook or subscribe to my newsletter. I'd love to inspire you with more delicious, healthy, and seasonal recipes!
More Recipes to Try
📖 Recipe
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Chocolate Almond Flour Cake
Equipment
Ingredients
- Butter for greasing pan
- 1 ½ cups almond flour (packed) (150g)
- ⅓ cup cocoa powder (38g)
- 1 cup sugar (217g)
- ¾ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 3 large eggs
- 3 ounces vegetable oil (89ml)
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- ½ cup chocolate chips (90g)
- Powdered sugar if desired, to serve
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit/180 degrees Celsius.
- Butter the sides and bottom of a 9-inch round cake pan and line the bottom with parchment paper.
- Pour in a small amount of cocoa powder and tap and turn the pan until the cocoa powder coats the butter-covered sides. This will help the cake unmold easily.
- Whisk together almond flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl.
- In a separate smaller bowl, whisk together eggs, oil, and vanilla extract.
- Stir egg mixture into almond flour mixture until well-combined, then stir in chocolate chips. Batter will be thick.
- Use a rubber spatula to scrape into prepared cake pan.
- Bake for 25 minutes, or until top is springy when touched, and cake tester comes out clean.
- Cool on wire rack for 5-10 minutes, then cover with a cutting board or plate and flip over.
- Remove pan, then parchment paper, and cover with serving platter. Then flip over again.
- Dust with powdered sugar to serve, if desired.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Instagram Users: Now that you've made this gluten-free chocolate cake recipe, tag me @vanillabeancuisine or #vanillabeancuisine because I'd love to see your results!
More About Molly
Cooking healthy(ish) meals with seasonal ingredients is my passion. Trained as a French pastry chef, I spent over 10 years as a personal chef. Here you'll find well-tested recipes that you and your family will love!
I made this cake and it was very, very good, I did reduce the sugar and added some instant coffee powder, I was wondering if I could swap out the cocoa powder for cacao??. I served it with raspberries and some thickened cream, delicious. Thank you for a great recipe. 😃
Sounds lovely! The cocoa powder is unsweetened so I think you could swap it out for cacao. The cacao might make it slightly more bitter though, so you might put some of the sugar back in? But I think it would be close. Thanks so much for commenting!
I add 1 Tablespoon of espresso powder, which gives the cake even more depth of flavor. And I like to serve it with raspberry coulis. great recipe!
Yes, and yes! Excellent additions!
this is a BEAUTIFUL dessert...very easy and delicious. I've made it for several dinner parties and it is always a big hit. Thank you Molly!
I'm so thrilled to hear that! Thanks so much for letting me know.
...Also I incr the Special Hershey's Dark Cacao to 1/2 c, just about. I love a very dark, almost bitter chocolate taste. I have def saved this recipe, thanks again!
Blessings!
yum! I love that extra dark chocolate flavor too! glad you're enjoying all the delicious variations with this recipe.
I love this recipe! I also used half sugar, (1/4 c brown, 1/4 c white) used teas almond ext, teas vanilla ext, about a teas cinnamon, 1/2 cup sour cream, & little bit of walnuts. So much variation. Thank you!
I just made this recipe using 1/2 cup of sugar. I added chocolate chips Nx walnuts to the batter. it's really good.
I'm going to make it again subing flax eggs for the eggs for my vegan, gluten free friends.
Love the idea of walnuts in there! And would love to know how the flax egg substitution works--if you can report back, I would love it!
do you know how it would turn out using swerve instead of sugar?
Hi Sarah, I think it will work. I had a commenter say they used erythritol as a sugar substitute with good results, and someone else who used coconut sugar with good results too. You could also reduce the sugar content in the recipe a little as well. Good luck!
Molly, this is such a fantastic recipe. my best friend is on gluten free and dairy free diet , combining them both is hard and you have nailed it. I made this twice and she cudnt be more happier. you really made her birthday so special.
Aww, so glad to hear that! I always want my gluten-free friends to have delicious birthday cakes too, and this is a favorite recipe of mine.
This is exactly what I was looking for. It was so easy and turned out perfectly. The only change I made was to reduce the sugar from 1 cup down to 2/3 cup because generally I try to reduce the sugar content in recipes and see if it works. I'm going to try 1/2 cup next time. This was delicious served with a dollop of cream and fresh strawberries....my GF step-daughter LOVED it. Thanks for sharing 🙂
So glad you liked it, and great to hear that you were able to reduce the sugar and still really enjoy it! Great tip!
delicious, satisfying! I used 1 rsp. almond extract and 1 tsp. vanilla.
I often do this too! So glad you enjoyed this.
Hi Molly,
Im based in Australia- this recipe and cake is fantastic!! The only changes I made was to use dairy free butter and use Lindt 70% chocolate and chop it up into chunks...worked perfectly because it was sweet but not overly so! Thank you !! Its not easy been dairy free and gluten free.
Oh great! I bet that chocolate was fantastic in this cake. Dairy free and GF is hard! Glad to be of help to you with this recipe.
Wow! Incredibly delicious! A little soft and moist, especially in the middle. I doubled the recipe. I also added two table spoons of instant coffee, after I saw Jean Alletag's tip. I had no idea how long it would take to bake this cake, once I doubled the recipe. I left it in the oven for 1 hour. The center of the cake was very soft. Also there were some chocolate chips left at the bottom of the cake without melting. Even so the flavor and texture came out very delicious. I don't know if the altitude affects the baking results.
I'm in New Mexico. The altitude here is 7,634' above the ocean level. Perhaps I would need to make some adjustments. But I'm happy with my first attempt.
Thank you Molly! Your recipe is wonderful!
So glad you enjoyed this recipe! I would look up how you might alter the recipe a little for high-altitude baking because at 7600 feet above sea level, you're definitely in a high-altitude zone. (I am not an expert on that unfortunately.) Doubling the recipe will also impact the results, depending on the size pan you use. If you put the batter in a pan that is the same width as the original recipe so that the liquid batter is much deeper, it will be hard to get the middle baked by the time the edges are done. I would guess maybe a 9x13 pan would work best if you double the batter? Hope your next attempt is even better than the first!
This cake was easy to make and very tasty! Loved the level of salt in the recipe. I did reduce the sugar as one of the reviewers suggested to 160 g as I do not like overly sweet desserts- the sweetness level was perfect for me. The inside was nice and moist. Would consider adding an alcohol or sliced almonds next time!
I added a tablespoon of instant coffee. This was outstanding! I’ve made for years and lost the recipe … but this one is fabulous ‼️
So glad to hear it--I bet the instant coffee in there is delicious! I love that trick for bringing out more chocolate flavor too.
You had me at almond and chocolate! These are my two favorite ingredients to work with. I love this almond flour chocolate cake. Fantastic flavor and the almond flour brings it to a new level of deliciousness.
I served it with whipped cream, and I added a splash of Amaretto in it.
Thank you for the recipe.
Ooh yes to the splash of amaretto!