How to make the best easy vegan cake from scratch, with absolutely NO eggs, no milk, and no butter!
This is my go-to vegan vanilla cake recipe.
It’s a perfect choice for holidays, birthday parties, or any occasion at all.
Just one taste of the ultra soft and fluffy homemade cake, and you will never go back to boxed cake mix ever again.
The recipe can hold its own against any classic nonvegan vanilla cake, because it’s made with only traditional ingredients – no chia or flax eggs, no tofu, no beans or chickpeas, and no fancy expensive flours.
Also try these Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
Not only is it easy to make a cake without any eggs or milk, vegan birthday cake can taste so light, fluffy, and delicious that you might even find yourself choosing this vegan recipe as your new go-to cake recipe…
Even if you’re not a vegan!
Vegan Cake Recipes
You can also add 1/2 cup of sprinkles to the basic cake recipe below for a kid friendly rainbow vegan funfetti cake.
Or stir 1 tsp of coconut extract and a handful of shredded coconut into the batter, then frost with coconut icing for a vegan coconut cake.
How to make vegan cake
Start by gathering all of the ingredients.
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, and grease two 8-inch pans or one 9×13 pan, then set the pans aside while you make the batter.
Combine the nondairy milk, vinegar, oil, and pure vanilla extract in a large mixing bowl, and let this sit for at least ten minutes.
Stir together the flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder in a new bowl. (For a one bowl cake, you can add the dry ingredients to the first bowl if you prefer. Just be sure to do this after letting the liquid mixture sit.)
Pour dry into wet, and stir just until evenly mixed. Overmixing cakes can activate the gluten too much and thus result in tough or chewy baked goods.
Transfer the batter to the prepared pan or pans, and bake on the oven’s center rack for 30 minutes or until the cakes have risen and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out mostly clean.
You may also like this Vegan Pizza – just 4 ingredients
Eggless Cake
Even if you’re not a vegan, knowing how to make a cake without eggs is a good idea for so many reasons:
- If you need to make dessert but don’t have any eggs on hand.
- When you’re baking for a friend or family member with an egg allergy or someone who’s watching their cholesterol.
- For those times when you want to bake a cake and eat spoonfuls of the cake batter as you work.
After all, who doesn’t love cake batter?!
Frosting Ideas
There are so many ways you can frost a vegan white cake, including Healthy Chocolate Frosting, raspberry jam, powdered sugar, chocolate chips, or chocolate ganache.
Or top it with fresh fruit and Coconut Whipped Cream.
Surprisingly, many store-bought icings are accidentally vegan, including some flavors from both Duncan Hines and Pillsbury.
To make an easy homemade vegan cream cheese frosting, simply whip together 8 oz store-bought or homemade Vegan Cream Cheese with 4 oz vegan butter, 2 cups powdered sugar, and 1 tsp pure vanilla extract.
For the cake in the photos, I used my Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting
Above, watch the vegan layer cake recipe video
The recipe was adapted from these Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes.
Vegan Cake Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cup milk of choice
- 1 1/2 tbsp white or cider vinegar
- 1 tbsp pure vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup oil
- 2 cups white, spelt, or oat flour (for low carb, make this Keto Cake)
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 cup sugar, unrefined if desired
Instructions
- The recipe makes two 8-inch cakes, or one 9×13 sheet cake, or three 6-inch cakes. To make the vegan cake, start by preheating the oven to 350 F. Whisk liquid ingredients in a large bowl. Let sit at least 10 minutes, then add remaining ingredients to form a batter. Smooth into greased baking pans. Bake 30 minutes, or until cake is risen and cooked through. (If you are a visual learner, feel free to watch the recipe video above.) View Nutrition Facts
Video
Notes
More Vegan Recipes
This looks beatiful! Must try it!!
This might be the fastest time I’ve gone from seeing a recipe online to making it. Your vegan cake recipe came up as a new recipe while I was literally on your blog looking for a vegan birthday cake for my daughter! If that’s not meant to be, I don’t know what is!
I made the double layer cake version and frosted it with a homemade vegan buttercream icing, topped with candles and it was quite perfect! Thank you so much for this gem of a recipe!
Thank you so much for making it!
Hi Katie! Love you so thank you!
Question… have you substituted the white sugar for maple syrup or coconut sugar? If so, how does it change the crumb? This cake looks in incredible!
We have never tried it with a liquid sweetener so don’t know how/if that would work. Coconut sugar is fine to use. With some brands (such as coconut secret), the coconut sugar is much finer, so be sure to pack it very tightly when measuring to get the same sweetness as sugar.
Hi Katie,
This recipe looks awesome. Have you made this into cupcakes? If so, do you have an idea for adjusted baking time? My daughter is allergic to eggs and loves funfetti and I think this could be a hit for her!
We are sure you could do cupcakes! We haven’t tried it with this recipe so don’t know the baking time, but be sure to report back if you experiment.
Would it be possible to substitute applesauce for the oil? Thank you for this recipe!
If you don’t mind a much denser/chewy texture (i.e. typical texture of fat free baked goods) and less richness to the cake, then we would think it would be fine (but we have not tried). Be sure to report back if you try it.
Do you think gluten free flour would work ?
We haven’t tried it in this recipe. In general, we have good results in recipes with Bob’s cup for cup gluten free flour, very loosely packing it because it weights a little more than all purpose. If you try gluten free flour, be sure to report back for other readers!
I tried with bobs red mill and the layers were very thin so i will try to pack more loosely – would it be the same gram weight per cup?
Hi Kate
Not only Katie is chocolate covered even the cake is ha ha.
Every recipe should be chocolate covered 😉
Thank you so much for this recipe! We made it and topped it with vegan whipped cream and sliced strawberries. It was like strawberry shortcake!
That sounds so good!
Best cake ever, keeps together and has a great texture. No funny ingredients. Perfect for my daughter who can’t eat dairy or eggs.
This made us so happy to read. Thank you for trying it!
What is the best way to store this cake and for how long? I made it yesterday and had lots of leftovers.
You can store it as you would any traditional vanilla cake – we personally like to put it in the fridge (covered) for freshness after a day.