Vegan Chocolate Cake - The BEST Recipe! (2024)

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 orVegan 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 withCoconut Whipped Creamor 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 myChocolate 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 myEasy Cinnamon Rollspost, 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-freeand 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.

More Vegan Dessert Recipes

Vegan Brownies

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate Banana Bread

Vegan Cheesecake Recipe

Chocolate Truffles

Vegan Cinnamon Rolls