This easy vegan vanilla cake is the perfect dessert for birthday parties, graduations, weddings or just because occasions. Nothing says happy like a soft and sweet vanilla cake and creamy frosting!
This white cake has it all--it's fluffy, has the most tender and moist crumb, and a deep vanilla flavor. Dress it up with some fancy buttercream work or keep it simple with a drizzle of chocolate ganache, this cake is sure to delight!
It's admittedly a lot harder to make a good vanilla cake vegan than it is to make a chocolate or other strongly flavored cake (carrot, apple, red velvet--you get the idea). Vanilla is a delicate flavor that is easily overpowered if you use the wrong ingredients or even the wrong proportions of ingredients. White cakes also have the propensity to come out dry, for whatever reason.
This recipe is everything you want from a vanilla cake and more! Even better that it just happens to be vegan. Making vegan cakes is a unique process from their egg and dairy counterparts, but the results are equally tasty!
How to make a vegan cake:
Traditional baking uses butter to whip air into a batter and eggs for structure, stability, and leavening. We switch out butter for a neutral flavored oil (like canola or safflower), and depend on leavening from baking powder and baking soda.
To start we clabber the plant milk with apple cider vinegar to make a quick buttermilk. While most non-dairy milk options will work, soy milk, almond/cashew milk, and oat milk will have the best results (and please don't use rice milk which is too watery).
Adding a little vinegar to the recipe does a few things: it reacts with the baking soda for leavening, it tenderizes the gluten formation for a softer cake, and it slows down browning as it lowers the pH of the cake.
Next, we mix together the dry ingredients. I'm a huge proponent of weighing your ingredients as there is very little room for error if you weigh. Kitchen scales are inexpensive and yet one of the best investments you can make if you love to bake!
If you're measuring by volume, I ask that you measure your flour in this specific way: First whisk the flour in its container to fluff and undo any settling of the flour. Then scoop with your measuring cup so it's overflowing.
Remove the excess by scraping across the top with the back of a knife. This is how I measure, so for best results you should do the same! Also keep in mind I use US standard measuring cups, which are a little different than UK and Australian.
With the flour we add in the granulated sugar (use organic or a certified vegan one if you're concerned about bone char in the mix), baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Whisk everything together so it's fluffy and well combined.
Then to the buttermilk mixture, mix in oil and vanilla extract until smooth. Use a good quality pure vanilla extract, this recipe calls for a lot of vanilla and the flavor really shines through at the end.
We add the wet ingredients to the dry, and mix with a whisk. While with egg-based cakes you have to be very careful to not over whisk, this is less of an issue with vegan cakes.
In fact, a little gluten development through whisking helps build the structure and stability of the cake. Don't over do it, just mix the cake batter just until it's nice and smooth.
Baking the cakes:
Do not add the wet ingredients to the dry until 1) your oven is preheated and 2) your baking pan(s) are prepared. Once the wet ingredients are added the baking soda will immediately begin to react, so waiting to bake your cake will result in a flatter and less desirable result.
The cakes are baked at 350 ºF. This relatively low temperature keeps the cake from browning too quickly on the outside, and helps lessen the doming of the cake.
Watch for visual cues that you cakes are done baking. When done, the edges of the cake will be golden and have started to pull away from the sides of the pan. A cake tester will also pull out clean, or with one or two crumbs. If there is any stickiness then continue baking it until done.
If you open the oven door too early in the baking process, this can cause the center of the cake to collapse. An oven light helps you keep an eye on the cake to watch for the visual cues before opening to test.
To prep your baking pans, I use a method I learned from the vegan dessert guru, Fran Costigan. I spray a coating of oil inside the pan, then add a piece of parchment to cover the bottom. I love buying the precut parchment circles, but you can also cut them out yourself. This method allows for easy release from the pan, then just remove the parchment paper from the bottom and you're good to go!
Decorating the cakes:
This post is more about baking the cake than decorating. But just a few quick notes to set yourself up for success.
Always chill the cakes before frosting. Cold cakes = less crumbs = a better finish on the frosting. This is also true if you plan on cutting off the top of your cake to level, or to cut it in half to create more layers.
Use cake boards when wrapping up your cakes to refrigerate as they will keep the bottom of the cake nice and flat. While you could cut up clean cardboard or foam core board to size, you can also just buy pre-cut cake cardboard.
I used my Vegan Aquafaba Strawberry Italian Meringue Buttercream on this cake, minus the strawberry part. Feel free to use that recipe (and check out that post for a step by step photo tutorial of frosting a cake). You can make the buttercream in advance--it freezes well--and then rewhip (defrost in the fridge if frozen) to fluff it back up for easy spreading.
I sprinkled mini-chocolate chips between the layers after adding the buttercream. These led to a nice textural contrast to the cake, and I love me some chocolate! If you're unsure where to find them, Enjoy Life Foods makes vegan chocolate chips in full size and minis.
Lastly I drizzled some Vegan Salted Caramel Sauce over the cake, and used the recipe from my friend Cupful of Kale. The salted caramel is made from brown sugar and is sooo delicious, we found ourselves drizzling it over each slice of cake to serve!
If you're going to use fresh flowers to decorate make sure to do so in a food safe manner! Here's one nice article on How to Decorate a Cake with Flowers by Olive and Artisan. Just make sure you do your research on how to safely use flowers if you are going to do so!
I made this cake as a tiered cake because it was a test for the cake I am making for my friends' wedding. It held up beautifully sitting out on the counter overnight, and the ultra moist and tender crumb makes for the most delectable cake! There are plenty of tutorials online if you wish to do the same. Or if you ask nicely, maybe I'll make one too 🙂 !
If you make this cake, please let me know! Give the recipe a rating and leave a review below! Also don't forget to share your creations with me on Instagram, tag @thecuriouschickpea and #thecuriouschickpea, I absolutely love seeing your photos!
LIKE WHAT YOU SEE? FOLLOW ALONG ON INSTAGRAM, FACEBOOK, AND PINTEREST!
Note:
- Vegan cakes have a tendency to be stickier than their non-vegan counterparts, so keeping the cake cold before decorating is extra important. The cakes should be refrigerated until thoroughly chilled before leveling or torting (cutting the cake into 2 or more layers) and before frosting.
- The cake shown here has a bottom tier of three 8" cakes and a top tier of three 6" cakes. The batter for one 8-inch cake is divided in half to make two 6-inch cakes. So to make this exact set up use the ingredients to make two 8-inch cakes plus one 8-inch cake. Then make another one of the one 8-inch cakes to divide into two 6-inch cake pans. For a third cake, the 8-inch cake ingredients in half.
Easy Vegan Vanilla Cake
This vanilla cake has a soft, tender, moist crumb and just happens to be vegan. It's easy to make and the perfect cake for birthdays and celebrations!
Ingredients
One 8-inch cake or Two 6-inch cakes
- 2 teaspoon (10g) apple cider vinegar
- 1 cup + 2 tablespoon (270g) plant milk
- 1 ½ cups + 1 tablespoon (210g) all purpose flour*
- ¾ cups + 1 tablespoon (170g) granulated sugar
- 1 ½ teaspoon (6g) baking powder
- ½ teaspoon (2g) baking soda
- ¾ teaspoon (5g) salt
- ¼ cup + 2 tablespoon (82g) oil
- 1 ½ tablespoon (16g) vanilla extract
Two 8-inch cakes
- 1 ½ tablespoon (20g) apple cider vinegar
- 2 ¼ cups (540g) plant milk
- 3 cups + 2 tablespoon (420) all purpose flour*
- 1 ½ cups + 2 tablespoon (340g) granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon (12g) baking powder
- 1 teaspoon (5g) baking soda
- 1 ½ teaspoon (10g) salt
- ¾ cup (164g) oil
- 3 tablespoon (32g) vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 ºF. Prepare the baking pan(s) by spraying with oil then placing a parchment paper circle to cover the bottom of the pan.
- In a mixing bowl add the plant milk and vinegar and set aside to clabber for 5-10 minutes.
- In a second mixing bowl whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt until fluffy.
- Add the oil and vanilla extract into the clabbered milk and mix to combine. Add to the dry ingredients and whisk until the batter is smooth.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan (or divide in half if baking 2 cakes). Bake the 8" cakes for 36-38 minutes, bake the 6" cakes for 31-33 minutes. The cakes are done when the edges are golden and have pulled away from the sides of the pan and a test comes out clean or with one or two crumbs.
- Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes. Then working gently, turn over the pan with a wire cooling rack to catch the cake. Remove the pan, then peel off the parchment paper. Turn the cake back right side up and leave to cool fully on a cooling rack.
- Place the cooled cakes on a cake board and wrap tightly in plastic wrap. Place in the fridge or in freezer-safe ziplock bags in the freezer until ready to decorate.
Notes
*To properly measure the flour: whisk to undo settling, scoop, then level. Measuring any other way could result in too much or too little flour. If possible it is best to use a kitchen scale.
This cake was decorated with my vegan aquafaba italian meringue buttercream (minus the strawberry sauce), with mini chocolate chips between the layers, and a vegan salted caramel sauce drip by Cupful of Kale.
Recommended Products
As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Hey Eva, I'm planning on using this recipe on two 9 inch pans so I multiplied the 'One 8 inch cake' recipe by 1.25 and then multiplied that answer by 2. The amount I got for each ingredient is what I've listed below.
25g Apple Cider Vinegar
675g Plant Milk
525g All-Purpose Flour
425g Sugar
15g Baking Powder
5g Baking Soda
12.5g Salt
205g Oil
40g Vanilla
Do those measurements look about right to you? Do you think they'll fit two 9 inch pans? Thanks!
Hi Deveshi, that's the math I would do for changing to 9-inch pans and expecting about the same height on the cake! You can use the 8-inch cake amounts in the 9-inch pans but the cakes will come out thinner. As these are tall cakes that isn't necessarily an issue depending on what you're going for height-wise. Also, keep an eye on the cakes as you bake them as the baking time will be different! Hope you enjoy them 🙂
Hi Eva, i wanted to know if you could give me any tips on how to make this into a two layered heart cake ? Thank you ! (:
Could you add cocoa powder to this recipe?
Hello, the cake is amazing!! My son tell everyone how good it is!! Do you have a recipe for chocolate cake?
this is actually quite delicious my tastebuds were doing a despacito if that’s what the kids are calling it 🥂😂😍 going to save this recipe for the mammas in the PTA and my kids school 🤪
I made this cake today and it turned out perfectly! Thank you so much for a really good recipe, it tastes delicious!
This cake was amazing! I really liked that it used no oil. I was pleasantly surprised at how much it tasted like a traditionally made vanilla cake. I didn't make frosting for it. I served it plain with air fried platanos. It was very soft and fluffy and perfect! Thank you for posting this recipe! 💓
Thanks for the most moist vanilla cake I've ever made! However, the edges come out chewy. How can I prevent that? Thanks!
Hi Lillian, do you by chance use a dark pan? It sounds like maybe it just got slightly over baked. The edges shouldn't be very chewy..
This is an awesome recipe. I have been cooking and baking vegan for 25 years and this recipe is one to hand write into the “go-to” book where I keep all of my favorites. I made this cake into a 3-layer, 2-tiered birthday cake and everyone loved it. I followed the recipe exactly, with the addition of 1/2 cup chopped chocolate to make it sort-of-chocolate chip-like. I used light olive oil. It is so good that we ate the trial cake without any frosting! The final cake had alternating buttercream and ganache.
Hi Eva! This cake looks amazing! Can I add blueberrys to the cake mix or will it throw off the consistency?
Hi Kennedy, I haven't tried the recipe with fruit in them, I would worry that the extra moisture from the berries could throw off the baking time at minimum. I can't advice specifics without trying its myself, but you can always do a small test cake to see how it comes out!
I used cake strips to keep the layers nice and even... but I think that may have inhibited them from cooking all the way through, even with an extra couple of minutes in the oven. They're "done", but they turned out really claggy and wet. I'm going to try again tomorrow!
I haven't used cake strips before so can't comment on how that may have changed things, but I think those cake strips are more important for larger (10 or 12 inch) cakes than the smaller cakes which seem to have no issues baking through fairly evenly. I hope it worked out for you the second time!
Wonderful recipe, thank you! I made this today for my partner's birthday and weighed all the ingredients. I feel that the finished cake is maybe just a touch dense/too moist, but it truly is great all the same. I live at a high altitude (Denver) and am curious if that may have thrown off the end product. What would you adjust for high altitude cooking? I am definitely planning to make this again.
Hi Kristi, I'm glad you enjoyed the cake! High altitudes do change baking quite a bit, and King Arthur flour has a guide on what changes you may want to make here: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/learn/resources/high-altitude-baking
That being said, I wouldn't make all of these changes at once–just try making one change at a time and see what works best for your location in Denver!
I recently used this recipe to make a 6” 3 tiered cake and absolutely loved it. I would like to make a larger wedding cake with an 8” and 10” layer.
Please can you recommend how much you would multiple the recipe for a 10” size and have you tried it? Just wondering if the edges stay moist and not burnt and if the filling survives under the weight of the sponge?
Thanks 😊
This is a delicious cake! I needed an egg free, but not fully vegan cake so I used whole cow's milk and substituted half the oil for melted butter for flavour - it turned out AMAZING with a beautiful texture and very moist! You would never suspect there were no eggs. This is by far the best vegan vanilla cake I've found!
I can't wait to try this recipe this weekend! I want to make the cake on Friday for a Saturday party - if I'm waiting until Saturday to frost it, can I leave it at room temperature overnight on Friday? I always try to keep my baked goods out of the fridge for as long as it's safe, to preserve texture.
This cake was absolutely amazing! Is there any way this recipe can be adapted to make a sheet cake? If yes, how would you do it?
I baked the cake for a total of 45 mins and it still turned out quite sticky and dense. Is there something I’m missing?
Hi Naomi, I'm not sure what you did, if you made any changes to my recipe or followed it per the directions, what size cake pan you used or any such information. But I have to assume that you made a change to my recipe or mistakenly forgot or mismeasured an ingredient because there's no way it should take 45 minutes to bake this cake. Please give more information about what you did so that I can try to give more assistance.
Hello! I have just made this cake but the cakes are so flat. I don't know how to fix this issue. This was a practice cake, so I can try again (making a cake for my son's first birthday). I did use 9 inch pans. So maybe I needed to bake the cakes for longer. I'm really not sure how to make them rise.
Hi Heather, in 9 inch pans I would expect the cake to be shorter as the pans are about 25% larger than 8 inch pans. You can get taller cakes by increasing the amount of batter (measure by weight and multiply everything by 1.25). However if you mean that the cakes didn't rise at all, then I am wondering if you forgot an ingredient, accidentally mismeasured something, or made any changes–such as did you change the flour or sugar, either the ingredients themselves or the amount used. This can affect the cakes. Also, is your baking powder old or expired? That can be the culprit if it's not rising. And are you living at high altitude?
Hi Eva, this cake looks beautiful. I am gonna make it next week as a big wedding cake for a friend, and was wondering if I could make all the mix at one time and leave a part of it aside while each part is in the oven, or is it better to make each layer mix apart so that it wont affect the texture?
Thanks! I wouldn't mix the batter together if you aren't going to bake it right away as some of the rising agent will activate when the wet and dry ingredients are combined and you would end up losing some of the fluffiness of the cake. However, you can bake a few layers in your oven at a time (you don't want to overcrowd your oven or it may not bake evenly, but you should be able to fit 3 pans in at once–only bake one size cake at a time though). I hope that helps!
Hello. I just made this cake. It didn't work out for me. I don't know what i did wrong. I measured everything with a scale. I baked it until the toothpick came out clean. I took it out to cool on a wire wrack. And in 10 minutes of cooling the center had fallen and was jiggly.