This soft, moist, and completely delicious vegan gingerbread recipe makes a wonderful holiday breakfast or dessert!
The best vegan gingerbread
Try this delightful plant based recipe the next time company comes to visit.
Guests are always shocked to discover the gingerbread spice loaf is dairy free, egg free, and vegan, because it tastes exactly like traditional gingerbread from a bakery.
The comforting festive flavor and super soft texture perfectly capture all the nostalgic magic of the holidays.
It’s secretly packed with iron and nutrition, at just 100 calories per slice. Plus leftovers freeze well too.
Also try this holiday Vegan Pumpkin Bread
Healthy gingerbread loaf cake
In addition to containing no eggs or butter, the fully vegan gingerbread recipe can also be gluten free, soy free, refined sugar free, and oil free.
Thanks to the powerhouse blackstrap molasses, each slice gives you close to ten percent of the RDA for fiber, calcium, and iron.
It includes very little saturated fat, almost three grams of protein, and no cholesterol.
Most importantly, this vegan version is just as moist and spicy sweet as classic gingerbread, so you never feel like you are sacrificing at all.
You may also like this Gingerbread Latte Recipe
Easy vegan gingerbread recipe video
Watch the step by step recipe video above.
Vegan gingerbread ingredients
You will need flour, cinnamon, ground ginger, allspice, salt, white or apple cider vinegar, sugar, plant based milk of choice, flax seeds, baking soda, and molasses.
If you are a raisin lover like I am, stir half a cup of raisins into the gingerbread batter along with the dry ingredients.
Flour – The recipe works with spelt flour, white flour, or gluten free all purpose flour. Oat flour works but yields a denser result.
I have not tried the recipe with whole wheat flour, coconut flour, almond flour, or any other flour not listed and therefore cannot recommend any of these substitutions.
Milk – To keep the recipe vegan, go with your favorite nondairy milk. I like rich coconut milk or low calorie almond milk. You may also use soymilk or oat milk.
Sugar – Choose white sugar, unrefined coconut sugar, or even brown sugar. For a lower sugar vegan quick bread, opt for xylitol.
Flax seeds – Thanks to their binding properties, Flax Eggs are a great substitute for eggs in vegan baking.
Both health food stores and regular grocery stores like Safeway, Trader Joe’s, and Target should sell ground flaxmeal.
If you can only find whole flax seeds, simply grind them yourself in a food processor before beginning with the recipe.
Oil – For those wishing to use oil instead of additional milk of choice, I recommend sunflower, coconut, or vegetable oil.
Be sure your milk and other ingredients are not cold if you add coconut oil, because it hardens when chilled.
This is actually the oil free version in the photos, and you cannot tell at all. While baked goods without oil are often gummy or dry, the molasses here keeps this quick loaf moist even without the extra fat.
What type of molasses?
Blackstrap molasses is my preference for its myriad health benefits, including its high calcium and iron content.
(I also love this sweetener in my easy recipe for Bran Muffins.)
If you cannot find blackstrap molasses or prefer the slightly sweeter taste of regular light or dark molasses, either of these is fine to use instead.
While substituting pure maple syrup, agave, or another liquid sweetener might yield a delightful spice cake, it will lose some of the familiar classic gingerbread flavor.
So I do not recommend swapping out the molasses in this recipe.
For a low carb loaf, try this Almond Flour Banana Bread
Frosting options
Serve the gingerbread unfrosted or topped with almond butter, Coconut Butter, powdered sugar and strawberries, vanilla frosting, or Vegan Cream Cheese.
I frosted the vegan gingerbread loaf in the pictures with the dairy free cream cheese icing recipe written out in my post on Vegan Cinnamon Rolls.
This fluffy frosted gingerbread was the star of an entirely vegan brunch event I recently hosted for the holidays.
All fifteen slices disappeared within minutes, and both vegan and non vegan friends asked me for the recipe.
So I highly recommend serving the gingerbread at your next get together of friends or family, because it is a big crowd favorite.
Note: If you are looking to bake cookies instead of a gingerbread loaf, be sure to try this recipe for chewy homemade Vegan Gingerbread Cookies.
How to make vegan gingerbread
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, and grease an eight inch square baking pan or a nine by five inch loaf pan.
In a large mixing bowl, combine the milk of choice, oil, vinegar, molasses, and flax meal. Let this mixture sit at least ten minutes (or even overnight in the fridge).
Whisk dry ingredients, either in a separate bowl or directly into the same bowl. Stir everything together until just evenly mixed. Spread into the prepared pan.
Bake on the oven center rack for twenty five minutes in a square pan or one hour in a loaf pan, or until cooked through.
Test to see if it’s done by inserting a toothpick into the center of the loaf. The toothpick should come out mostly clean.
Let cool, then slice and frost if desired.
The taste and texture are even better the next day, if you can wait that long!
The gingerbread recipe is also really great to serve with Vegan Hot Chocolate.
Vegan Gingerbread
Ingredients
- 2 cups flour (spelt, white, or gluten free all purpose)
- 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tbsp ground ginger
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp allspice
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 cup sugar or coconut sugar or xylitol
- 1 1/4 cup milk of choice
- 1/4 cup oil or additional milk of choice
- 1/4 cup ground flaxseed
- 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar or white vinegar
- 1/2 cup molasses
- optional 1/2 cup raisins
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease an 8×8 pan (or a 9×5 loaf pan). In a large bowl, combine all liquid ingredients and flax, and let sit at least 10 minutes. Whisk dry ingredients in a separate bowl, then stir all ingredients together until just evenly mixed. Spread into the pan. Bake 25 minutes (or 45 minutes in a loaf pan) or until cooked through. Let cool. Taste and texture are even better the next day, so I highly recommend waiting if you can!View Nutrition Facts
Video
Notes
More Holiday Favorite Recipes
Healthy Pumpkin Pie or Vegan Pumpkin Pie
Just made these and did use 1 3/4c milk. Came out great! Batter was definitely runny (much more like a cake batter than bread) but the texture is super fluffy and moist which I’m into. I made them into muffins but had wayyy too much batter so put the extra in a pie pan. Took about 20-25 min. My boyfriend who claims to hate gingerbread liked ‘em!
Honestly, I never leave comments on websites, but I had to with this recipe. I have a VERY non-vegan gingerbread recipe that I’ve used for decades, but since going vegan three years ago I had to live without it. This recipe is SO similar that I’m flabbergasted. My old recipe has 3 eggs and a cup of butter and yet, somehow, this recipe stacks up. I really can’t recommend it highly enough. I like to serve it with warm orange marmalade.
Thank you so much for making it 🙂
I am not a very experienced baker at all, but I followed the recipe to the dot in its current form and it turned out beautifully. I used the same large loaf pan I bought for big cinnamon rolls, and apart from a little tearing because I got too impatient and tried to get it out of the pan too early, everything went quite smoothly. Plus, that’s what all the cream cheese frosting is for…
I didn’t read the milk comments until it was in the oven, and I also used “1 3/4 cup” (unsweetened oatmilk), as in 1.75 cups, and I believe that is indeed the correct amount. It’s lovely and moist but also baked perfectly all the way through.
Thank you for trying it, and glad you also are on the same page about the cream cheese frosting as we are 😂
Hi, Katie! Thank you for this wonderful recipe. I wanted to tell you and your readers that I actually halved this recipe AND baked it in a 9×5″ loaf pan for 30-35 minutes. Otherwise, I followed the recipe and instructions exactly (but halved all ingredients). Specifically, I used brown sugar (for its moisture content), all milk (1 cup total), and no oil. Instead of the optional raisins, I added 1/4 cup of mini chocolate chips because I like the combination of gingerbread and chocolate. My loaf may not have been quite as tall as yours, but it still rose to encompass the entire loaf pan, but did not rise above the pan. Thank you, again. This is a great recipe! (I was thinking crystalized ginger may also be a nice addition instead of the optional raisins or in my case, chocolate chips).
Just made this, cut sugar to 3/4 cup and added 1 tsp nutmeg, topped with vegan whipped cream and chopped walnuts…PERFECTION!! Thank you Katie.
Thank you so much for trying it!
Do you think this batter would work in a Bundt pan? Either way, cannot wait to try this!
Hmm, sorry we haven’t tried!
I would like to know if you have to put the loaf in the fridge or can you leave it out wrapped. Or is there a better way to store it? It smells wonderful!
Store as you would any traditional baked good :). After a day or two, we like to refrigerate for freshness.
Thank you! I put it in the fridge over night. Then I iced it with powder sugar with a little water. Everyone loved it! Thank you again. 😀
Help! I really want to make this recipe. I don’t use flax seeds so is there an alternative vegan replacement? I do not want to use banana. Am thinking I could use egg replacer and if so how many eggs is the flax seed replacing?
Hi sorry we haven’t tried it so would be worried about recommending something we haven’t tried in case it doesn’t work. In general, Katie has had success using ener-g egg replacer in recipes (but we have not tried in this one). If you experiment, be sure to report back!
Thanks for your response. I will try it with Ener-G (only egg replacer brand I’ve found works). Will post how it turns out but probably won’t make it for a week or two.
Chia egg can be substituted for one traditional egg in a lot of baking recipes. If a recipe calls for a flax egg, but you don’t have ground flaxseed on hand you can swap in a chia egg instead. A chia egg is simply made from water and whole chia seeds. When combined they gelatinize and can help bind baked goods together. I usually only use it if the ‘recipe notes’ say it’s okay bcuz sometimes baked goods don’t rise as well with egg substitutes. Chia/Flax eggs work well in recipes when the egg is acting as a binding agent and not the star of the show. Chia seeds come in black and white, use white chia seeds when you don’t want specks to show up in the end result.
CHIA EGG – 1 tablespoon whole Chia seeds (no need to grind) + 3 TBSP Water
FLAX EGG= 1 TBSP flaxseed meal (ground flax) + 2.5 TBSP water
In a small bowl whisk together whole chia/flax seeds with water. Let the mixture sit for 5-15 minutes until it gels up. Use as directed in the recipe you’re making.
Personal Note: Chia seeds give me a stomach ache. However, many people consume them and do not experience digestive issues.
You can also use Aquafaba (the liquid in canned chickpeas) instead of water to make the flax or chia egg. I haven’t tried this but apparently, the combination of Aquafaba + chia/flax works even better as an egg sub.
Hope this helps. Happy Baking! I’ve made this gingerbread many times, it is Yummy!
The first time I made this I loved it so much that I decided to turn it into a fruitcake recipe. I swapped out half a cup of the milk for sherry and Cointreau, then mixed in walnuts and bunch of dried fruit (Apricots, pears, raisins, and plums). This is a great gingerbread recipe, and now the base of my new fruitcake recipe forever.
Made this following the recipe (added extra milk instead of oil) in am 8 x 8 pan. It smells amazing but it’s been in the over for like 40 mins and is still wobbly in the middle. 25 Mins is definitely not enough time