This insanely easy vegan pumpkin cake will be the showstopping centerpiece of your dessert table this holiday season. Perfectly spiced, soft, and melts in your mouth. Paired with a maple glaze on top.
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We all know that pumpkin season is the best season. Well, I guess if you aren’t a fan of pumpkin you may disagree. However, this delicious vegan pumpkin cake may change your mind.
Today, we’re showing you how you can make a showstopping centerpiece for your holiday get togethers dessert table.
However, don’t worry if you don’t have any of those to attend. This also looks perfect on a fork and you indulge in the entire cake by yourself if that’s your thing too.
No judgement happens around here.
This vegan pumpkin cake recipe is super easy to make and everything happens in just one bowl.
We are super excited to share this with you today and add it to our fall line up of vegan pumpkin recipes goodness.
What ingredients do I need to make a vegan pumpkin cake?
There are two parts to this vegan cake recipe. The first is obviously the cake, but there is also a maple glaze as well.
The ingredients that you need for both parts are:
- Flour
- Baking Soda
- Baking Powder
- Salt
- Cinnamon
- Ground nutmeg
- Ground Ginger
- Allspice
- Ground Cloves
- Brown sugar
- Maple syrup
- Pumpkin puree
- Vanilla
- Vegetable Oil
- Apple Cider Vinegar
- Unsweetened applesauce
- Powdered sugar
- Dairy free milk
What is pumpkin puree?
Pumpkin puree is blended up pumpkin that has been roasted or softened. Similar to how you get applesauce from blending softened apples. It only contains the mashed pumpkin, there should be no added sugars or spices to your can.
Canned pumpkin with added sugar and spices is called pumpkin pie mix and that’s not what we are using for this recipe.
Do I have to make a glaze for this recipe?
Absolutely not. We prefer a glaze when we make a recipe in a bundt pan because it shows off the design of the pan.
However, you can use any frosting of your choice as well. You could try our vegan cream cheese frosting (scroll to the bottom) or vegan buttercream frosting.
How do you make vegan pumpkin cake?
First, preheat your oven to 350 degrees F (180 C).
Add all your wet ingredients and beat together just until combined.
Then, add all your dry ingredients to your bowl and mix together with a spatula.
Liberally grease your bundt pan and then pour your batter inside.
Bake for 45-55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
While it is baking, you can make your glaze by beating together all your glaze ingredients.
When your cake is done, carefully invert the pan to get the cake out. Then pour the glaze over top.
Serve immediately or store in an air tight container for up to 3 days. Best served warm. W
Do I have to use a bundt pan to make this vegan pumpkin cake?
Nope again! You can use this batter in any type of cake pan that you prefer, we just think it looks prettier in this.
What bundt pan are you using?
The design for this one is the Nordicware crown pan. However, you can use any type of bundt pan design that you like.
Can this vegan pumpkin cake be prepped ahead?
Yes! You can make the cake up to 3 days in advance.
We don’t recommend making it more than that advance because this cake Is so moist, you run the risk of mold growth.
Can this be Top 8 Allergen Free Pumpkin Cake?
We only have two ingredients in this cake that are top 8 allergens. The flour and the milk.
You can swap the milk for any Top 8 free milk like hemp, flax, or rice.
For the flour, you can swap out the flour for Measure for Measure flour from King Arthur. (Note, we haven’t ourselves made this vegan cake gluten free; however, we’ve had successful trials working with this flour.)
What other vegan pumpkin recipes should I try?
In case you missed our note above, we love pumpkin and if you are still reading this part, it’s likely that you also love some pumpkin recipes.
Here’s some more vegan recipes with pumpkin that you should try:
- No Churn Vegan Pumpkin Ice Cream
- Vegan Pumpkin Roll
- Vegan Pumpkin Muffins
- Epic Vegan Pumpkin Cheesecake Pancakes (can make these regular pumpkin pancakes too)
- Vegan Pumpkin Bread
- The Best Vegan Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls
- Vegan Pumpkin Pie
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Vegan Pumpkin Cake
Ingredients
For the Cake
Wet Ingredients
- 1 15oz can pumpkin puree
- 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
- ½ cup maple syrup
- ¼ cup vegetable oil (can use melted coconut oil if no allergies)
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla
- 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
Dry Ingredients
- 2 cups flour (see post if GF)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ tsp nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- ½ teaspoon ground cloves
- ¼ tsp allspice
For the Maple Glaze
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- ¼ cup maple syrup
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- ½ tsp vanilla
- 2-3 tablespoon unsweetened vanilla dairy free milk
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 C).
- Add all wet ingredients and beat together just until combined.
- Add all dry ingredients to a large bowl and mix together with a spatula.
- Liberally grease a bundt pan and then pour batter inside.
- Bake for 45-55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
- While it is baking, make your glaze by beating together all your glaze ingredients.
- When cake is done, carefully invert the pan to get the cake out.
- Pour glaze over top.
- Serve immediately or store in an air tight container for up to 3 days. Best served warm.
Notes
Video
Nutrition
Is it a mistake to put the glaze on the hot cake?
Yes, it will just soak in
Hi, all! I don’t have apple sauce on hand. Can you tell me what it does for the cake? 🙂
It replaces the egg in traditional cake. You can sub flax egg if you have that or would you like another suggestion?
Can you share what you used for the milk?
Our go tos are oat or almond
Covid got me having a lot of canned pumpkin. So delicious with my morning coffee, definitely stayed moist and amazing! I subbed a lot – the oil in this recipe and replaced it with hemp milk and it was not an issue, whole wheat flour, coconut sugar and it still tastes rich and decadent. Great for those like me who suck at baking. Thank you for this! Namaste
Thanks so much for sharing your subs Dom, it will sure help some others. Thanks for taking the time to leave a review, we appreciate it. have a great day!
What adjustments can you suggest if we use an airfryer? mine does not have a baking mode and I’m afraid that it’ll dry the outside of the cake out due to the strong air circulation.
Also, I’m out of sugar so I’ll use sweetened pumpkin + some simple syrup but in that case I’d assume I should add more flour to keep the dry and wet ingredients in balance, right?
These would be a lot of changes that we couldn’t account for without testing. An airfryer without a bake option circulates a lot of hot air much quicker therefore you typically need to lower the temp and shorten the cook time, but we haven’t tested that to give an accurate account of what you’d need, also all air fryers vary so it would be difficult to do that (size for example is a big factor). As far as the sugar, not necessarily, again depending on the ratios this could widely vary.