This gluten free coconut lime cake is the dessert nobody at The Wilds Cafe has to skip. It’s dairy free as well! Bakes as one big bundt or a medium plus nine little ones, and it finishes with a sharp lime glaze with toasted coconut.

Yes, The Wilds Cafe lives on in Sydney, Australia.

Where The Wilds Cafe Began

The Wilds Cafe was born in my home kitchen in New Jersey, USA. It was where I fed my family, invited friends over, baked sourdough bread and spent many, many lonely hours doing what I, the Reluctant Housewife, had found myself doing day after day. From my window, I could watch the deer, the squirrels and, ever so often, a racoon and foxes. All while I did copious amounts of cleaning, washing up, and cooking, both out of necessity and for entertainment. As a city girl, this rural sort of living felt like being out in the wilds. I lived there for six years and over the course of that time, I named my home cafe “The Wilds Cafe”.

The Wilds Cafe Comes to Sydney

Now we’re in Australia, where being a housewife seems like a less reluctant role. I still do all the same things. Somehow they feel less monotonous. Maybe it’s because I’m not living so far out in the wilds, and there are more forms of amusement to be had. We went from a “fixer-upper” to a top-floor apartment overlooking gum trees. Even so, I wouldn’t say much has changed. Cockatoos screeching their way across the sky, have replaced the squirrels and deer. Cooking and cleaning still happens — a newer, more convenient space just makes them easier. But I will still call my home kitchen The Wilds Cafe, because life, in my opinion, truly is wild.

A Gluten Free/Dairy Free Coconut and Lime Cake for Everyone

Reconnecting with friends and family has been the best part of coming home, so I’m starting the blog again with this gluten free/dairy free coconut and lime cake. I created it because nobody dining at The Wilds Cafe should ever have to skip dessert. So many people I know and love have intolerances or allergies. I’m becoming well-versed in finding recipes that cater to everyone, with the help of AI, of course. More on that to come as well!

While each little cake was not perfect (could have probably baked a bit longer), I served generous slices of the larger cake at the end of a gluten free, dairy free laksa night (a blog for another day). With a generous pour of the glaze and a scoop of dairy free (Street’s Blue Ribbon Plant Based) or gluten free (Peter’s Original Vanilla) ice cream, it was a great ending to a lovely evening.

You can watch me put this cake together on my Instagram reels.

Baking Notes

I used White Wings Gluten Free Plain Flour. The batter fills a 10–12 cup bundt tin, or a smaller bundt plus a tray of mini bundts. When baking, please keep an eye on the time and on the cook — every oven is different. Bundt pans were on sale at Aldi, but here is the Amazon equivalent: the Nordic Ware Original Bundt, 12 cup.

Download the Vanilla Beige Recipe Card with the recipe here or continue to read the recipe below.

Make sure you oil every bit of the bundt tin and dust it with gluten free flour. Be careful to shake out the excess because if you don’t, you might get globs of flour stuck to your cake when you turn it out. It still ate well, but I’ll be more careful next time. I also had a bit of panic when I thought the cake would not release from the molds. Letting it sit upside down while it cooled seemed to do the trick. I think I left both the large one and the mini ones to sit for about half an hour and had to give them a good tap so they would drop out.

For someone who has a collection of bundt pans, I must say how much I dislike cleaning them. My hot tip is to get a little brush, soak the pan for a few minutes in water then brush it with the brush. My brush is a mushroom cleaner from William Sonoma (unfortunately, no longer sold). I did have a bundt brush but I didn’t think it worked very well so I won’t link it here.

Gluten-free/Dairy-Free Coconut and Lime Bundt cake Cake

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 55 minutes

Additional Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 25 minutes

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Ingredients

• FOR THE CAKE
• 300 g gluten-free plain flour (I used White Wings Gluten Free All Purpose Plain)
• 100 g almond meal
• 50 g desiccated coconut
• 2½ tsp gluten-free baking powder
• ½ tsp bicarb soda
• ½ tsp salt
• 4 eggs
• 300 g caster sugar
• 200 ml neutral oil or light olive oil
• 300 ml coconut milk
• Zest of 3 limes, juice of 2
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• FOR THE GLAZE
• 150 g pure icing sugar
• 3 tbsp lime juice
• 2 tbsp toasted coconut flakes (optional)

Instructions

1. Heat the oven to 170°C (160°C fan). Brush every ridge of the tins generously with oil, then dust with a spoonful of gluten-free flour and tap out the excess.
2. Whisk together the flour, almond meal, coconut, baking powder, bicarb and salt.
3. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar for 2 minutes until pale and thick. Whisk in the oil, coconut milk, lime zest and juice, and vanilla.
4. Fold the dry ingredients into the wet until just combined.
5. Fill the 22 cm bundt tin about two-thirds full, then divide the rest between the mini tins.
6. Bake the minis for about 20 minutes and the 22 cm bundt for about 40 minutes, until a skewer in the thickest part comes out clean. A single large 10–12 cup bundt takes 45–55 minutes.
7. Cool in the tins for 15 minutes (about 5 for the minis), then turn out onto a rack.
8. Once completely cool, whisk the icing sugar and lime juice until thick but pourable. Drizzle over so it runs down the ridges, then scatter with the coconut flakes.

Notes

• The flour: I used White Wings Gluten Free All Purpose Plain Flour. It's endorsed by Coeliac Australia and is also dairy-free. Other gluten-free blends may behave differently; if yours doesn't contain xanthan gum, add 1 tsp.
• The tin: gluten-free batter sticks far more than regular batter. Getting oil into every ridge matters more than anything else in this recipe.
• Make ahead: bake it the day before and keep it covered on the bench, not in the fridge, which dries it out. Glaze on the day.
• Label checks for coeliacs: use gluten-free baking powder, as some Australian brands contain wheat starch. Use pure icing sugar, not icing sugar mixture, which often contains wheaten cornflour.
• Your oven may vary: start checking the minis at 15 minutes and the 22 cm bundt at 35.
  

On a side note, if you want to stay organised while planning meals, my weekly meal planner keeps all of it straight.

More planners can be found at my ETSY SHOP.

Disclosure: some links in this post are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you. I only link to things I actually use in my own kitchen.

Use of AI: I got Claude to help me generate this recipe but I baked it myself in my kitchen, served it to friends and ate it myself. I also wrote this blog myself but had AI edit it for SEO. Photos and video were taken on my phone, sorted and edited for size by AI.