Whether you’ve got flour in the cupboard or not, the magic of a home-baked cake is never out of reach. In place of traditional wheat flour, sub in almond meal, polenta or semolina. Each lends its own character to a flourless cake — a nutty richness here, a toasy flavour there. While they behave differently in the bowl, they reward the baker with textures that range from lush and fudgy to light and cloud-like — perfect for everything from a rich torte to an airy roulade.
Flourless cakes invite endless flavour possibilities that morph beautifully with the seasons. In the cooler months, few things rival the comfort of Flour and Stone’s famed flourless chocolate cake — dark, gooey and deeply satisfying. Alongside it, you’ll find a syrup-soaked ricotta and polenta cake strewn with almonds, a delicately spiced semolina cake best paired with thick yoghurt and tea, and O Tama Carey’s irresistibly fragrant love cake.
Gooey, mousse-like, syrupy or citrus-laced — these are our most irresistible flourless cake recipes for you to try.
Please note that not all flourless cake recipes are gluten-free. As semolina is made from durum wheat, any cakes using semolina are not gluten-free. If baking with for dietary requirements, please be aware and always check ingredient packaging.Â
Before you bake…
Ricotta-polenta cake with lemon-rosemary syrup
Torta Caprese
Apple, ginger and almond cake
Mike McEnearney’s blood orange cake
Flour and Stone’s chocolate Manjari cake
Hazelnut and blood orange cake
Phil Wood’s semolina cake with orange ice-cream and eggnog custard
Jaci Koludrovic’s rocky-road cake
The Cooks Larder’s flourless apple, almond, raisin and ginger cake
Flourless fig leaf and pistachio cake with rose and raspberries
Fennel-spiced semolina cake with yoghurt
O Tama Carey’s love cake recipe
Date, coconut and chocolate slab
Jaclyn Koludrovic’s lemon polenta cakes with pistachio nuts and mascarpone
Chocolate sour cherry cake
Gerard Yaxley’s Persian love cake
Flourless chocolate cake with hazelnut and buttermilk
Flour & Stone’s blackberry and chocolate meringue roulade
Chocolate, prune and walnut cake with sherry and chocolate ganache
Choc-orange cake with Jaffa buttercream
Black Forest chocolate roulade
Lemon and almond cake with roasted plums
Revani Cake
No flour? No worries. There are quite a few great substitutes for flour in cakes, including: almond flour, semolina or even polenta. You’d be surprised at how good these cakes can taste. Next time your gluten-free friends are over for dinner, use one of our flourless cake recipes as a guide and earn yourself host-with-the-most status.
Depending on the recipe, flourless cakes are often called gluten-free cakes. If you’re talking about a flourless chocolate cake, this is often referred to as a Torta Caprese as it originated on the island of Capri.
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