The best vegan cake recipes include all your favorites plus some you didn’t even know you needed. You’ll definitely impress anyone with these recipes!
When you tell someone you made the best vegan cake, they may look at you sideways at first. That’s because a cake to most people needs flour, eggs, and milk. So when you say you are making a dairy free and egg free cake recipe, they are utterly confused (pun intended).
Whether you are looking for cake to satisfy that sweet-tooth of your own or you are looking for a vegan cake recipe that will wow and impress the most vegan skeptic, we have you covered with all the vegan cake recipes you could be looking for (and maybe some extras).
Cakes are perfect for so many celebrations and truly special for those random spur of the moment days where you surprise the people you love.
Listen, we don’t judge. Whether you want vegan cake, vegan cupcakes, vegan mug cake, vegan cake in your milkshake, vegan cheesecake, or you stumbled here looking for vegan pancakes – we have it all and we will get you a recipe. I mean even if you crossed this cake post, but really you want vegan pie recipes – we still got you!
When you first go vegan, plant based, or dairy free, you may be thinking that you could never have cake again. We’re here to tell you that not only can you have cake, but we have the best vegan cake recipes right here for you.
Our recipes are already tried, tested, and approved by both vegans and non-vegans alike, so we know these recipes for cake from scratch will be perfect for you!
Best Egg Substitutes for Vegan Cake
One of the biggest things you’ll have to figure out is swapping out chicken eggs for a plant based substitute. Luckily, there are a lot of options. It’s best to follow a recipe already written out for you, but if you have to pick your own for say a family recipe you’ll want to pick one of the following:
- flax egg
- chia egg
- applesauce (usually unsweetened)
- non-dairy yogurt
- pumpkin puree
- aquafaba
- other puree (like banana, sweet potato or pear)
- silken tofu
- liquid egg replacement (like Just Egg)
If you’d like to learn more, check out our vegan egg substitutes for baking.
Best Dairy Substitutes for Vegan Cake
When it comes to dairy, butter and milk substitutes for vegan cake are needed for almost every recipe. More often than not, you will do a 1:1 replacement for both milk and dairy in vegan cakes.
It is important to note that not all vegan butters are the same and you’ll want to check out our vegan butter review to pick a vegan butter replacement for cake that will suit you best.
*Note: Oil is typically used versus butter in cakes because of butter solidifying, but every recipe will be different and it’s important to note how they switching or omitting will alter the recipe. Vegan butter is mostly oil so you may still see it called for often.
For milk, you can almost use any type of non-dairy milk. It’s important to note that sweetened versions or flavored versions will affect the taste outcome. Some examples include:
- almond milk
- oat milk
- soy milk
- cashew milk
- hemp milk
- rice milk
- coconut milk (canned coconut milk is thicker and may require adjustments)
- plant based milk blends
- 2% or Whole Plant Based Milks
Vegan Sugar Options
Every time we say “vegan sugar” we get asked about 150 times “what do you mean vegan sugar?” “isn’t all sugar vegan?”. The truth is it should be, but it’s not, especially if you live in the United States.
Within the United States, many refined sugars – included white, brown, and powdered sugar are processed with bone char. It’s important if you want a truly vegan cake to look for “bone char free” on the packaging or “organic” sugar options as manufacturers cannot use bone char in organic products.
Learn more about “is sugar vegan“.
Frequently Asked Questions about Vegan Cake
Vegan cake is a cake recipe from scratch made without eggs or dairy milk or butter. Sugar that is bone char free is also important. Vegan substitutes for all of these ingredients are used to replace them to still have moist, decadent crumb layers.
For most options, 1/4 cup of vegan egg replacer equals one egg. You will want to limit it to no more than 3 eggs using this method. A liquid vegan egg product (like Just Egg) is 3 tablespoons per egg). Trying to convert cake recipes that use more than three eggs will require more trial and error.
If you’d like to learn more, check out our vegan egg substitutes for baking.
Omitting the oil in the recipe is going to alter the taste and texture of the cake crumb. Oil is needed to add a richness, but also tenderness.
Usually 1/2 of the oil can be replaced with a fruit puree like applesauce, noting that it will be a more dense cake.
Often times if cake recipes have more than 1 cup of sugar total, you could successfully reduce the sugar by 1/4 of a cup without noticing a drastic difference.
However, it’s important to note that sugar is just for sweetness, so reducing is more can affect the texture as well.
Sugar crystalizes during the cooking process to add moisture to the cake, so reduces it too much can lead to a more dry and more dense cake.
The short answer is yes. Almost all of recipes have been tested to be gluten free with a 1:1 all purpose flour blend.
It’s important to note that you shouldn’t try to replace with a single gluten free flour like almond flour or coconut flour.
You need a blend that has been designed to cook in baking recipes and usually always includes xanthan gum. Our favorites are Pillsbury or King Arthur 1:1.
Most of the cakes can be made Top 8 Allergen Free. Since they are already free of dairy and eggs, the other concern is soy. Usually soy is in vegan butter or maybe vegan chocolate.
However, there is a lot of vegan chocolate that is already soy free (like Enjoy Life) and as far as the vegan butter, we always recommend using Soy Free Earth Balance, it comes in a red tub.
The only other exception is a cake like our vegan coconut cake, that obviously has coconut and we wouldn’t recommend changes there.
Every post has instructions to make Top 8 Allergen Free.
Yes! You can always just increase or decrease the amount of batter to make one or the other.
Most of our cake recipes are 3 layers, so you could just do half or a 1/3 of the ingredients to make a smaller amount of cupcakes (or just make them all).
Cupcakes need a reduced amount of time – typically 15-25 minutes. A toothpick inserted should come out clean.
What are some vegan frosting ideas for these cakes?
One great thing about cakes is that you can mix and match frostings! We absolutely love doing this. Some ideas for vegan cake frostings are:
- Vegan Vanilla Frosting
- Vegan Buttercream Frosting
- Vegan Chocolate Frosting
- Vegan Strawberry Buttercream
Many of the recipes below also have their own individual frosting combinations.
Leave a comment below and tell us what frosting flavor you want to see next!
Classic Vanilla Vegan Cake Recipes
While there will always be a debate over the best vegan cake flavors, especially vanilla or chocolate, we believe that there’s nothing quite like a slice of classic vegan vanilla cake.
You’ll love these four vanilla based vegan cake recipes!
1. Vegan Vanilla Cake
2. Vegan Vanilla Birthday Cake (Funfetti Cake)
3. Vegan Caramel Cake
4. Vegan Coconut Cake
The Best Chocolate Vegan Cake Recipes
Rich, decadent, scrumptious – these are all words that we use when we finally have a piece of amazing vegan chocolate cake that hits the spot and satisfies that craving (even if we didn’t know we had a craving).
These 6 takes on vegan chocolate cake will blow you away no matter which one you pick.
5. The Best Vegan Chocolate Cake
6. Vegan Red Velvet Cake
7. Vegan Brooklyn Blackout Cake
8. Vegan Black Forest Cake
9. Vegan Hot Fudge Pudding Cake
10. Vegan Chocolate Lava Cakes
The Best Fruit Flavored Vegan Cake Recipes
While many fruit flavored cake recipes are also vanilla based, they deserve a category all their own. Berries often can be interchangeable, so feel free to swap strawberries for blueberries, raspberries, or even blackberries.
Get creative and have fun with these delicious vegan cake recipes.
11. Vegan Pineapple Upside Down Cake
12. Layered Vegan Strawberry Cake
13. Layered Vegan Lemon Cake
14. Vegan Strawberry Sheet Pan Cake
15. Vegan Cherry Pineapple Dump Cake
16. Vegan Strawberry Lemon Loaf Cake
17. Vegan Strawberry Cornbread Cake
The Best Vegan Spiced Cakes
While we can enjoy a spiced vegan cake year round, they are primarily focused on during the fall months when the weather is cooling down. You will love how these cakes warm you up from the inside.
18. Vegan Coffee Cake
19. Vegan Carrot Cake
20. Layered Vegan Pumpkin Cake
21. Vegan Gingerbread Cake
22. Vegan Coconut Carrot Cake
23. Vegan Apple Upside Down Cake
The Best Vegan Bundt Cakes
There is nothing more impressible than walking into someone’s house and seeing this truly stunning showpiece even if you are just joining them for coffee talk.
Vegan bundt cakes are easy to make, and usually any recipe will work, but we’ve crafted these four versions specifically to showcase bundt pans.
24. Vegan Banana Bundt Cake
25. Vegan Apple Cider Donut Cake
26. Vegan Lemon Pound Cake
27. Vegan Pumpkin Cake
Even More Vegan Cake Recipes!
While the vegan cake recipes below may or may not fit into a category above, we are combining them here to fit in their own categories. We’d still argue they are the best vegan cake recipes around for their specific niche and we know that you’ll love them!
Easy Vegan Mug Cakes!
Milkshakes with Cake
Not technically cake but cake -HA
And if you truly did get here looking for pancakes – you can see our dozen vegan pancake recipes too 🙂
What vegan cake flavor to you want to see next?
Vegan Baking Tools
Before we go, if you want to see the best tools that we use for baking, then make sure to check out our must have baking essentials for a vegan kitchen!
Kathy
Date and walnut..
LarishaCampbell
Is that a cake you’d like us to make?