How to make a delicious and easy vegan chocolate cake recipe, with just a few basic ingredients. It’s perfect for any occasion!
The best vegan chocolate cake
This simple vegan cake is a great recipe to keep on hand for any time an occasion calls for you to make a chocolate cake.
With no crazy ingredients or flax eggs required, the recipe will never let you down. It can easily be customized to create many different flavors, and non-vegans love it too – so you know it must be good!
Also try these Black Bean Brownies – NO flour required
The cake works well at any of the following:
Birthdays
Barbecues
Potlucks
Graduations
Anniversaries
Baby Showers
Family Reunions
Sleepovers
Holiday Gatherings
Dinner Parties
It tastes like a classic chocolate cake because it is a classic chocolate cake!
Unlike many other vegan cake recipes, this one does not require a single ingredient not found in traditional chocolate cakes, such as flax or chia eggs, avocado, or black beans.
Baking soda helps it rise, and applesauce or banana or nondairy yogurt binds the cake without eggs, also keeping it delightfully light and fluffy. The recipe can be dairy free, egg free, whole grain, and even oil free.
No one ever suspects it’s healthier and vegan.
Single serving version: Chocolate Mug Cake
Above, watch the vegan chocolate cake recipe video
Chocolate cake flavors
Mounds Bar Cake: Frost with coconut cream or Vegan Chocolate Mousse, and top with more shredded coconut.
Nutella Chocolate Cake: Frost each cake layer with store bought chocolate hazelnut butter or my plant based Homemade Nutella Recipe.
German Chocolate Cake: Add a homemade or store bought caramel frosting, mixed with chopped pecans and toasted coconut.
Black Forest Vegan Chocolate Cake: Frost with Coconut Whipped Cream or cashew cream, and decorate with fresh cherries or cherry jam.
Mocha Cake: Add a small spoonful of instant coffee to your favorite vegan chocolate frosting or to my Chocolate Avocado Mousse.
Vegan Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake: Use peanut butter in place of the oil for an oil free cake. Frost with the vegan cream cheese frosting recipe from my Easy Cinnamon Rolls post, and beat a half cup of peanut butter into the frosting.
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How to make a vegan chocolate cake
Start by gathering all of the ingredients.
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, and grease two 8-inch round or square pans, then set the pans aside.
In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour, cocoa powder, salt, baking soda, sweetener, and optional chocolate chips until evenly mixed.
If using almond butter, gently warm it until soft and easily stir-able. Whisk the nut butter or oil, applesauce, yogurt, or banana, water, and pure vanilla extract in a new bowl. (If you want it to be a one bowl cake, it technically does work to just add all of the liquid ingredients into the dry mix instead.)
Pour the wet into the dry mixture and stir until just combined. Don’t over-mix. Smooth into the prepared 8-inch pans, dividing the batter evenly between the pans.
Bake on the oven’s center rack for 25 minutes, or until the cakes have risen and a toothpick inserted into the center of a cake comes out mostly clean.
Let cool before frosting. (It’s not required, but if you can wait, I recommend letting the cake sit overnight and not tasting until the next day, because the flavor is richer and sweeter after sitting a day.)
When ready to frost, go around the sides of the cake pans with a knife, then invert the chocolate cake onto two plates. Frost separately, then place one cake on top of the other. Add icing to the sides, then serve and enjoy. The cake can be frosted ahead of time if you prefer.
I like to store leftovers in the fridge for freshness (especially if iced with a perishable frosting) for up to a week, but you can store them covered at room temperature for a day or two if you wish. Cake slices can also be frozen.
Vegan cake frosting recipes
I recommend this shortening-free and vegan Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting.
Or feel free to use your favorite homemade frosting or one of the options listed above in the “chocolate cake flavors” section of this post.
Surprisingly, there are also many store brand frostings that are accidentally vegan, including some of the flavors from Duncan Hines, Pillsbury, Simple Mills, Miss Jones, and Betty Crocker. Look on the labels to see which flavors don’t contain milk products.
Vegan Chocolate Cake Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 cups spelt or white flour (for low carb, try this Keto Cake Recipe)
- 3/4 cup cocoa powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup mini chocolate chips, optional
- 1 1/2 cup sugar, or xylitol for sugar free
- 1/2 cup applesauce, banana, or yogurt of choice
- 1/2 cup oil, almond butter, or allergy-friendly sub
- 1 1/2 tbsp pure vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cup water
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease two 8-inch pans. Set aside. Stir together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt, optional chips, and sweetener in a bowl. If using almond butter, gently warm it until soft and easily stir-able. In a new bowl, whisk the oil or nut butter, applesauce or yogurt, water, and vanilla. Pour wet into dry and stir until just combined (don’t over-mix). Pour into the pans.Bake on the center rack for 25 minutes or until batter has risen and a toothpick inserted into the center of the cakes comes out mostly clean. (I like to take them out when still a little undercooked, let cool, then set in the fridge overnight. This prevents overcooking, and the cakes firm up nicely as they sit.) If you can wait, I highly recommend not tasting until the next day… this cake is so much richer and sweeter after sitting for a day! When ready to frost, go around the sides with a knife, then invert each cake onto a large plate. Frost separately, then place one cake on top of the other if a double-layer cake is desired. At this point you can also frost the sides if you wish. I linked a few of my favorite frosting recipes earlier in this post.View Nutrition Facts
Video
Notes
More Vegan Dessert Recipes
Vegan chocolate cake looks so amazing
It is AMAZING!!!! so moist and so good!! I made with apple sauce (homemade) and used avocado oil .. a must to try..
Hi! Do you think this cake would be freezeable if I were to use gluten free flour (Bobs Res Mill)?
Did you try GF flour? Love to know if it worked well!
Works
I love to use Maple Syrup as my sweetner. Is it possible to swap out the dry sweetener for syrup by increasing the flour?
Love, love your recipes, by the way!!
Debbie
Hmm you will have to experiment as there’s no way to know unless it’s tried. Be sure to report back if you do try!
Will do!
This is the best chocolate cake recipe I have ever made with my own two hands. I am not vegan but my daughter is and she gave it two thumbs up and went for seconds.
Debra, I would lessen the amount of watwr, not add more flour to compnsate for the maple syrup.
Thanks for the tip!
Hi! I have vegan butter and also all purpose flour. Can I use these to make the cake?
You can 🙂
I’m dying right now! That looked exactly like a glorious chocolate cake with buttercream frosting my mom used to make, which I loved before we went off sugar! I want it so badly right now.
Question: would it be possible to swap the oil/nut butter with Greek yogurt? Or maybe do 1/2 oil+1/2 yogurt?
Thanks again, Katie!
She already did that in the recipe 😉
I am not vegan but I like to cook vegan for my daughters school so excuse the ignorance but wouldn’t yogurt disqualify it from being vegan?
Thanks!
Hi, there are many brands of dairy free yogurt, such as almondmilk, coconutmilk, or soy . Look in whole foods or ask at your regular grocery store, as most grocery stores will carry at least one brand.
Hello Kattee,
Your store should carry yogurt made with alt milk, such as soy or almond. This should work well in this recipe. (I realize you asked this question in 2018, hope it still helps 😉)
~Tina
Katie,
Your recipes are, by far, the MOST BEAUTIFUL I’ve ever seen…. now, for someone that can have ZERO OIL, ZERO FAT, if you could figure out a way to do that, then you’d really have a winner!!! (not that you’re not a winner already, because you ARE!)… but much too much fat in your gorgeous recipes for our family, but oh, how I want them!!
Do you think Applesauce alone or even Zucchini would work? I have made a chocolate cake with zucchini that was super moist… would love to figure out how much to use in your recipe?
Thanks Katie…
Hi! Maybe this recipe would be good for what you’re looking for? It has an oil free option 🙂
https://lett-trim.today/chocolate-zucchini-bread-recipe/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
The cake is amazing! Super easy, rich, and fudgy! I didn’t have two 8 inch pans so I used one 13×9 glass dish and cooked it at 325 for the same amount of time (25 min). So good. I want to eat the whole thing!
Thanks for the tip! I also did it in a 9×13 pan but I cooked it at 350 for 30 minutes because I used a stoneware pan. In an effort to reduce added oil, I used applesauce instead of oil and some soured oatmilk in place of yogurt. I topped it with warmed chocolate sauce. I will definitely make this again.
Thank you, Katie for an excellent recipe!
❤❤
This looks incredible! I have to try making it very soon! I might replace the applesauce with pumpkin or butternut squash!
Chocolate!! Now this my type of dessert as I am chocolate freak and i love frosted dessert but i am vegan as well.But this recipe is amazing idea for vegan chocolate freak. I am surely going to try this.What if i use white chocolate for layering in between?
Do you have any alterations for someone who is gluten free?
Try bob’s gf all purpose mix!
Isn’t spelt – which is mentioned in the recipe – gluten free? I used that it did turn out fine.
Hi, I didn’t see anyone answer your question.
No, Spelt is NOT gluten free. It is a type of wheat.
Thanks for asking. 🙂
By the way, everyone likes cake, but i like something more. I have eaten a lot of cakes but it look very good and tasty. Today is my fast ,i’ll definitely try this tomorrow
Thank you
I made this cake for my son’s birthday yesterday, Katie, and it tasted wonderful, even on the same day! I’ll definitely make it again. Thank you for the recipe!