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.
Trending now: How To Cook Sweet Potatoes – 3 secret tricks
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 delicious. I used raw cacao, coconut sugar, banana and coconut oil.
I am not vegan but my son is allergic to egg, so often look at vegan recipes. Pleasantly surprised!
How much calories for one piece of cake ?
This was actually really good. I made the recipe for my dad’s birthday tomorrow but I made it twice and I’m going to put the two cakes on top of each other. With both recipes I added almond milk instead of water, and instead of using the banana I used two eggs in each recipe. I’m just wondering how to make the frosting? Do you have a recommendation on the frosting?
She lists some frosting options in her post. This one is my personal favorite! https://lett-trim.today/basic-chocolate-cream-cheese-frosting/%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
This cake was wonderful! I will definitely be using the recipe in the future!
I can’t find a working link to any of the frosting recipes. Can you point me to where I can find some of the frosting recipes?
Thanks,
Hilary
Hi we are so sorry, the site crashed yesterday due to a traffic surge and was down until after midnight but we finally were able to get it back up. Here’s the frosting Katie used on this cake, and sorry again for the trouble before! https://lett-trim.today/basic-chocolate-cream-cheese-frosting/%3C/a%3E%3Cbr /> Jason (media relations)
I’m planning to bake this cake next week for my husband’s birthday:) Just wondering why it seems to be the same as the vegan chocolate cupcake recipe but doesn’t ask for vinegar. I’ve never baked a vegan cake without vinegar and just wanted to check that this is correct.
literally the best vegan cake i have ever made- the applesauce/ yoghurt is a game changer! Love it 👍
Made this for my daughter’s birthday a couple of days ago. This is the best recipe I’ve ever tried. I used coconut yoghurt resulting in a delicious, moist cake. Never fails to disappoint and was even better with peanut butter frosting!
It would be really helpful to everyone outside America if you published your fabulous recipes in metric measurements instead of cups. For example, in the US when a recipe tells you to add 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of brown sugar and 1 cup of oats, this equates to 120g of flour, 180g of brown sugar and 90g of oats. And that’s for just three ingredients. Referring to a general US cups conversion chart it shows there are at least 17 different baking food stuffs with different weights for each one cup reference. Canada, South Africa and Australia also have their different weights for cup measurements to make baking even more precarious.
We all speak English so why start talking a different language when sharing a recipe?
Why would you want to be continuously referring to a conversion table throughout making a recipe? It’s crazy! This could also explain feedback I’ve read you’ve received from people who have had recipe failures – it could be they used a single cup measure as standard across all different ingredients.
You have got to see this…
I must of used this recipe over 10 times and I thought its about time I leave a review! Honestly the best cake recipe there is 🙂