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
I have been making this vegan chocolate cake for my grandson’s birthday since he turned two. He is allergic to dairy, eggs, and peanuts. This year he will be six, and he wants this cake again. It is so delicious, moist, and “chocolatey”, I get rave reviews from everyone. Thank you, Katie!
I made this tonight after work for my friend who was visiting me for the first time since started. She’s vegan so I knew I needed to make a vegan dessert on a whim. After reviewing a few other bloggers, I knew I could Not go wrong with trying this in high altitude (Denver) since Katie’s 100 calorie recipe is one of my faves & also works well in Denver. This vegan chocolate cake was incredibly delicious. My friend took half of it home for her and her boyfriend. I even Put candles on it since we didn’t get to celebrate her birthday due to restrictions. I used The Peanut butter Chocolate vegan frosting recipe by Katie which worked incredibly well in combination with this cake. It also helped that I had Home made unsweetened apple sauce on hand. Thank you so much for saving the day & helping me make my friend feel so special.
This made us so happy to read 🙂
This has been my favorite chocolate cake recipe for years. I’ve made it at least two dozen times and the carnivores and vegans can never get enough! Thank you for this recipe!!!
I’d give the recipe ten stars if it let me. We made the cake for my daughter’s birthday (she helped) and everyone loved it. It was the first vegan chocolate cake we found and only one we now need 🙂
This is the cake recipe I was looking for all my life, and I didn’t even know it. So moist, so rich, so chocolaty, so delicious that I am still dreaming about it! Thank you so much for creating this delicious cake!
We made this for our daughter’s 16th birthday party and everyone was raving about it! Even the boys at the party were eating it, and no one could believe when my daughter revealed that it was vegan!
Thank you for sharing this recipe, we enjoyed making it. We are in the UK and I used plain flour and although it tastes nice, it’s quite flat and doesn’t look as airy as yours. Do you know if I can use self-raising flour? I used greek yoghurt to bind. Thanks so much, these recipes are great for my son with allergies 😊
Hmm interesting! It might be a difference in either climate or one of the specific ingredients available in the US vs UK? Glad it tasted good in any case! We have never tried self raising flour, but be sure to report back if you do try. Also, did you use an 8-inch pan?
This is the perfect eggless cake recipe! the taste and texture are really authentic and we really cannot tell the difference between this cake and the one made using eggs.
The cake is generous sized and delicious even without icing it.
Can we halve the recipe for a smaller cake? Will the recipe proportions work?
Once again, thanks for this recipe!
Thank you for making it, and yes you can! (Or if you want single serving, there’s this vegan mug cake: https://lett-trim.today/one-minute-chocolate-cake/%3C/a%3E%29%3C/p%3E
Hi, Katie! I tried your vegan chocolate cupcakes and they where the best cupcakes I ve had my entire life!!😅 I noticed the only difference between those and this cake is that you add vinegar to the cupcakes. I am planning to try your cake this time, and I have just one question: why did u add vinegar to the cupcakes but not to this cake? I am just hoping it s not a mistake in the recipe lol. Thank you!!!
This is amazing!!! It’s so moist and fudgy!
I just make this with tahini and it’s a giant halvah cake and it’s divine. Thank you.
Your idea sounds fantastic!