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
This cake is absolutely delicious! Not paying close enough attention I added the mini chocolate chips but did not get vegan so I ruined the “vegan” in the cake. A note of warning might be helpful for those of us who are not sure. It didn’t stop the Vegan Birthday Boy from enjoy how delicious it was!
Did anyone use a banana instead of applesauce or yogurt? I don’t know which is the best option to use! 🙂
I used three bananas
Did it taste of banana ? X
Did you double the chocolate frosting shot recipe for this cake?
Yes if doing a two layer cake, double the frosting shot recipe.
I made this cake this weekend as a birthday cake for my vegan niece. Since I am gluten free, I used Bob’s Red Mill 1 to 1 gluten free flour. Yes, the cake was amazing and yes, all the non-vegans loved it! For the options I used-1 cup coconut palm sugar and 1/2 cup xylitol as the sweetener. Then I chose 1/2 cup unsweetened organic applesauce and 1/2 cup of coconut oil in the liquids. I used the kind of cooking coconut oil that stays liquid all the time. The cake was perfect! I will definitely make it again. I would say double the frosting recipe. I scraped by with the one recipe but there could have been more. Thank you for this great recipe!
Hi Katie,
I’m writing to you from Italy. Thank you for your amazing recipes, I’m not vegan but I love your blog (I discovered it because some of your recipes were in the credits of a BB Italian Blog! I’ talking about 2012 or so).
Since I’ve never been too much confident with conversion charts, could you please give me the metric equivalents for the ingredients (just to know if my conversions would be right) in this recipe?
Thank you in advance 🙂
*I’m talking
Sorry, I wrote quickly!
120g is about 1 cup of flour, and 5g is 1 tbsp of cocoa powder. 100 grams is about a 1/2 cup sugar. Hope that helps!
1/2 cup sugar is 100gms? So we’re adding 300 gms of sugar here? My 1/2 cup sugar is 110gms and my 1cup flour is 150gms.
So which measurement shld I take?
What are the differences between this recipe and the 100 Calorie Chocolate Cake recipe? I can’t figure out why this one is that much higher in calories.
This one is a double layer cake and the other is a single layer cake.
Holy moly I made this and I substituted the oil with more applesauce it came out so moist so chocolatey thank you so much?
Did you do equal amounts extra applesauce to replace the oil? I.e one cup of applesauce, no oil? Or different proportions?
I love to bake but cakes I have trouble with. I’m also not vegan, but a dear friend is and I made this for her birthday. I made cupcakes (so I could taste first) and they were amazing! Neither of us could believe it was vegan (especially me)! This is now my go to cake recipe. Thank you!!!!!
Do you know that chocolate chips have milk or any other ingredients that comes from dairy products?! That choice it’s not vegan at all! Have a nice day!
There are many, many brands of vegan chocolate chips.
Lucy. Did you have to be so snippy??!! ?♀️
This may not be the case here but sometimes people can come across as sounding snippy when English is not their first language.
Trader Joe’s sells dairy-free chocolate chips and chunks!
there are a number of brands that do dairy free chocolate chips. This has been the case for a number of years now. In 2018 one could find at least Sweet Williams, and these days there is Pana as well. But there are more out there. Online and in grocery stores. Check health food section as well as cooking section.
This recipe is amazing! I made it yesterday for a mixed group of vegans and veggie-phobes and they all loved it. I topped it with your peanut butter chocolate frosting, absolute bliss! Thanks so much!