This vegan coffee cake is tender layers of cinnamon and cake with the most delicious streusel topping. Perfectly paired with your favorite coffee or tea.
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Coffee cake isn’t one of those things that most kids relish as being their favorite cake, but as you grow older, you have a fond appreciation of its delicate cinnamon layers with crumble topping that falls as you bite into it. This vegan coffee cake gives you all the same vibes without the addition of milk or eggs.
For many around the world coffee cake is literally cake that has been flavored with coffee. However, in the United States, it’s more of a sweet cake that is meant to be enjoyed as an accompaniment to your tea or coffee (or hot chocolate in our house and maybe yours).
This cake in this post is the Americanized version. It does not actually contain any coffee. Rather, it’s a single layer cake that has cinnamon inside. It is make with a streusel topping that crumbles around your plate as you eat it.
Some believe that this version of cake is actually a variation of a German cake called kaffekuchen without using yeast.
We hope you enjoy this vegan version.
Vegan Coffee Cake INGREDIENTS:
Below are notes about the ingredients before we get into the full recipe located lower in this post on how to make this vegan coffee cake:
- Flour – The star of the show, we only used all-purpose flour here because we wanted this recipe to be as accessible as possible for everyone.
- Sugar – Cane sugar is what we are using. If you want to learn more about why your sugar may not be vegan, you can learn more by clicking on the link.
- Salt – to help the flavors pop and really bring our the cinnamon and richness from the vegan butter
- Cinnamon – The standard American coffee cake flavor and yes, there’s a lot of it in this recipe
- Vegan butter and oil – Oil helps the moisture in your cake but also helps by slowing down the formation of gluten that yields a very tender and fluffy cake – isn’t that what we all want! The butter in the streusel is for richness
- Dairy Free Milk – Using milk instead of water adds more flavor into the recipe. We have tried this with both oat and almond and there’s not much of a difference honestly. Use either unsweetened plain or unsweetened vanilla flavored milk, but you don’t want any sweetened milk in this already sweet recipe.
- Applesauce – This helps to replace our eggs, but also acts in the cake to add more moisture
SUBSTITUTIONS AND VARIATIONS:
- Dairy Free Milk – Any dairy free milk that you like can be used in this. The important thing is just not using a sweetened milk in this already sweet recipe.
- Flour – Cake flour could be swapped for all or half of the all-purpose flour. Also an all-purpose or 1:1 gluten free flour could be used.
- Vegan Cane Sugar – While we haven’t tried, you could replace this with a coconut sugar or date sugar
- Oil – Melted coconut oil could also be used here and it is normal for it to resolidify when mixing. It will melt back down again when baking.
How do I make the best vegan coffee cake?
- Follow the instructions pretty please. Cake baking is a science, especially when making a dairy free/vegan cake. Every step has a purpose to ensure the perfect vegan coffee cake.
- Spoon the flour into the measuring cups for accurate measuring, then you a butter knife to evenly level the flour. This ensures the right amount of flour has been added.
- If you are new to baking or it’s not your favorite thing, we highly recommend sifting the ingredients into the bowl. This loosens the ingredients and make sure there are no clumps leading to a more airy cake.
- Do not just add the dry ingredients on top of the wet ingredients. Again, you want an airy cake and you get this by properly combining ingredients first.
- Make sure to line with parchment paper and/or grease your pans. No one likes a cake that can’t come out of the pan. It’s one of the most frustrating things and doing these two things will help.
- When the cakes are cooked, remove from oven and place on a cooling rack to allow the cakes to cool evenly.
- Let the cakes cool as instructed. DO NOT RUSH. Let it cool completely.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Yes! Use any safe for you non-dairy milk. For the butter, use a soy free version like Flora or Earth Balance soy free. And finally, use a gluten free 1:1 flour blend, like King Arthur or Bob’s Red Mill. You want to make sure to use a blend and not just almond or oat flour.
You can absolutely make this into cupcakes. Simply make the recipe as normal and then instead of greasing a loaf pan, spray a cupcake pan or liners. Fill each one up ¼ of the way, then some streusel, then ¼ way more, the sprinkle more streusel on top. You’ll want to reduce the cooking time to 15-20 minutes.
We would not recommend making this completely oil free. There is oil in the streusel topping and in the actual cake. You could replace some of the cake oil with applesauce, but note that the more you replace the more dense your cake will be.
A vegan coffee cake is better for animals and the environment; however, we still use flour, sugar, and oil in this recipe. We are not claiming that this is a healthier alternative to a cake that contains dairy based milk and traditional eggs.
We’ll let you in on a little secret. You can’t even tell the difference. In fact, we’ve served vegan cake to many non-vegans and they had no idea!
What other vegan cake ideas could I make?
- (Pictured Above) Vegan Strawberry Cornbread Cake
- Vegan Carrot Cake Cupcakes
- Vegan Coconut Cake
- Dye Free Red Velvet Cupcakes
- Vegan Strawberry Cake
- The Best Vegan Chocolate Cake
- Vegan Apple Pie
- Vegan Carrot Cake
- The Best Vegan Chocolate Lava Cakes
- Vegan Lemon Pound Cake
Pin this vegan coffee cake for later!
🥳 Get the Full Recipe
Vegan Coffee Cake
Ingredients
Filling/Streusel Topping
- 3 cups all purpose flour (carefully measured)
- 1 ¼ cup brown sugar, packed
- ½ cup vegan cane sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoon cinnamon
- 1 cup vegan butter, melted
Cake Batter
- 1 ¼ cup non-dairy milk
- 1 cup neutral oil
- ⅔ cup unsweetened applesauce
- 2 teaspoon vanilla
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1 cup vegan sugar
- 3 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 9×13-inch pan with baking spray. Set aside.
For the Filling/Streusel Topping
- In a bowl, add flour, both sugars, salt, and cinnamon. Whisk together. Add in melted vegan butter and use a fork to stir until it clumps together like sand, making sure to moisten all the crumbs. Set aside.
For the Cake Batter
- In a large mixing bowl, add non-dairy milk, oil, apple sauce, and vanilla. Whisk together.
- In a separate bowl, add sugar, flour, baking powder and salt. Whisk together.
- Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and carefully fold with a spatula. Do not over mix.
- Into prepared pan, pour half the batter and use spatula to spread out into an even layer. Sprinkle half the streusel filling on top. Spread the remaining batter over the cinnamon filling moving from the center to the edges.
- Top with the rest of the streusel topping and bake for about 50-55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Allow to cool in the pan for 20 minutes before cutting. Cut into 24 pieces (or desired size).
- Store any leftovers in an air tight container until 3-5 days.
Nutrition
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Made this and everyone loved it. However, I want to make a smaller one and want to if it can be frozen?
Yes it can!
We used to make the boxed coffee cake mix from Trader Joe’s until I found this recipe. This recipe blows that mix out of the water! Light, tender, just the right amount of sweet and ample crumbly topping. Also, it makes A LOT. Be prepared to share and have your popularity sky rocket. Your friends and family will thank you. Perfect for brunch or a holiday. Another excellent, failsafe recipe! Thank you for all you do.
yayyyy!! That makes us so happy
Hi
Thanks for another great recipe. I made a half recipe with some modifications. Used a 9 inch round pan. Instead of applesauce I substituted with 6 tablespoons of flaxseed (mixed with 10 tablespoons of water). Cake batter was not so fluid, more like a soft wet pile. I did two layers. Baked for 35 mins. Tasted good.
Glad it came out well with the substitutions!
So DELICIOUS!!
Similar to another commenter, I did not have unsweetened applesauce and chose to use two tablespoons of the Bob’s Red Mill egg replacer. Worked perfectly! I could eat this for dayyss. The level of sweetness was absolutely on point, unlike some of the coffee cake I’d eaten in my pre-vegan days.
So happy to hear that! Glad that you enjoyed
I followed the recipe to a T but I ended up with about half the crumble topping left over? Maybe I didn’t spread enough in between or on top, but it really did look heavily covered and I didn’t want to overdo it either. I wonder if I can store it an use it in a different recipe later this week, hopefully the crumble will stay in the fridge!
Yes you can. Maybe on muffins or something 🙂
Excited to make this! Any suggestions for yogurt substitute?
Hi! Are you asking can you replace the applesauce with yogurt? If so, yes, same amount. We’d recommend a vanilla or plain variety.