Vegan Gluten Free Chocolate Cake
This vegan gluten free chocolate cake is rich, made in one bowl, moist and loved by all types of eaters! This is my go-to recipe to impress a crowd or for any special occasion.
Why you’ll love this recipe
Like many other gluten free and vegan recipes on the blog (hi vegan brownies), this vegan chocolate cake was a true labor of love! It took quite a few trials, with many, many different flour combinations before landing on the perfect recipe.
And when I say perfect, I mean it! This recipe is incredibly easy to make, vegan, gluten free, perfectly chocolatey and a favorite among all types of eaters.
With chocolate cake, you want to strike a balance between light, fluffy, rich and dense. Unlike a vanilla cake, a chocolate cake should have some degree of density to it. But not so much that it overwhelms your palate.
That’s a hard balance to strike, especially with a vegan gluten free cake, but we did it! This recipe is perfect for any celebration, or just a delicious dessert that’ll impress your friends! If you love this recipe, try my vegan chocolate donuts, vegan gluten free cinnamon rolls or mini chocolate cake next!
How to make vegan gluten free cake
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line two round 8 inch cake pans with parchment paper and set aside. See notes about using 9 inch pans.
Combine the room temperature milk with the vinegar and mix together in a glass. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl (mixing is easier if the bowl is extra large!), sift together the almond flour, all purpose flour and cocoa powder.
Whisk in the remaining dry ingredients. The espresso powder is optional, but it really enhances the chocolate flavor. I promise it won’t taste like coffee at all!
Add in all remaining wet ingredients aside from the boiling water and whisk together. Whisk in the boiling water. This will help “activate” the cocoa powder.
Add the batter to the prepared cake pans, trying to keep them as even as possible to ensure even baking. Let sit for 5 minutes.
Add to the oven and bake for 35-45 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out with a few crumbs. You don’t want to underbake since the cake will sink in the middle or end up dense, but over-baking will lead to a dry cake, so start your timer at 35 minutes, and add just a couple of minutes at a time until the toothpick has a few crumbs but isn’t wet.
Remove from the oven and let cool in the cake pans for about 20 minutes. Carefully flip onto a cooling rack and let cool completely before frosting. I usually stick them in the fridge to cool, which takes about 90 minutes.
Prepare the buttercream, (just be sure to use vegan butter and milk) then frost the top of one layer, add on the second layer, then frost the top and sides of the cake. Try my raspberry chocolate cake next!
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Enhancing the chocolate flavor
A lot of chocolate cake recipes call for coffee. I prefer using boiling hot water as I find it helps “activate” the cocoa a bit more and give the cake a really rich flavor.
However, with water you miss out on the richness that coffee gives to a cake. To make up for that, I always suggest using espresso powder!
Just 1-2 teaspoons in the batter will bring out the rich chocolate flavor but won’t give off any coffee flavor. It’s optional, but I recommend it if you can!
Pan sizes
I baked this cake in two 8 inch round cake pans, but you are welcome to use two 9 inch pans OR one 9×13 pan. If using two 9 inch pans, the layers will be thinner than what’s pictured and the bake time will be about 10 minutes shorter.
If making a sheet cake, the bake time will be about 10 minutes longer. Sally’s Baking Addiction has a great all about cake pan conversions!
A note about flour
For this recipe, you’ll need gluten free all purpose baking flour and blanched almond flour.
Whenever I bake cakes/cupcakes that are gluten free and vegan (like my vegan gluten free vanilla cupcakes), I often include almond flour because it adds a lot of moisture and airiness that you miss out on when you don’t include eggs. I don’t recommend any swaps for the almond flour here, it’s key for the texture!
For the all purpose flour, I used Bob’s Red Mill 1:1 Baking Flour, which I recommend. You can use other GF blends, just make sure it has xanthan gum. If you aren’t gluten free, regular all purpose will work too!
How should I store cake?
This vegan gluten free chocolate cake is very moist and will stay that way with proper storage! You can easily make this ahead of time and wrap the (cooled) layers in plastic wrap before frosting for 24 hours.
However, once frosted, the cake will keep for 3 days at room temperature. I usually keep it covered on a cake stand, but you can also wrap it tightly in aluminum foil with good results.
Can I make it refined sugar free?
Yes! This recipe calls for both maple syrup and white granulated sugar to sweeten. You can sub the white sugar for coconut sugar if you prefer. The flavor and texture may be slightly different, but still delicious!
Try these vegan desserts next!
- Chocolate Mug Cake
- Double Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes
- Almond Flour Chocolate Cake
- Vegan Brownies
- Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Vegan Chocolate Mousse
Lastly, if you want more recipes straight to your inbox, be sure to subscribe to my email list. As always, if you make this recipe, leave a comment below so I can see your creation!
Vegan Gluten Free Chocolate Cake
by: claire cary
Equipment
Ingredients
Wet:
- 1 cup room temperature non-dairy milk
- ¾ cup oil
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon apple cider or white vinegar
- ½ cup maple syrup
- 1 ½ cups white sugar
- 1 cup boiling hot water
Dry:
- 2 ½ cups gluten free all purpose baking flour
- 2 cups fine blanched almond flour
- 1 cup cocoa powder
- 1 ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1-2 teaspoon espresso powder optional
Buttercream:
- 1 batch chocolate buttercream
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Line two round 8 inch cake pans with parchment paper and set aside. See notes about using 9 inch pans.
- Combine the room temperature milk with the vinegar and mix together in a glass. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl (mixing is easier if the bowl is extra large!), sift together the almond flour, all purpose flour and cocoa powder.
- Whisk in the remaining dry ingredients. The espresso powder is optional, but it really enhances the chocolate flavor. I promise it won’t taste like coffee at all!
- Add in all remaining wet ingredients aside from the boiling water and whisk together.
- Whisk in the boiling water. This will help “activate” the cocoa powder.
- Add the batter to the prepared cake pans, trying to keep them as even as possible to ensure even baking.
- Let sit for 5 minutes.
- Add to the oven and bake for 35-45 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out with a few crumbs. You don’t want to underbake since the cake will sink in the middle or end up dense, but over-baking will lead to a dry cake, so start your timer at 35 minutes, and add just a couple of minutes at a time until the toothpick has a few crumbs but isn’t wet.
- Remove from the oven and let cool in the cake pans for about 20 minutes.
- Carefully flip onto a cooling rack and let cool completely before frosting. I usually stick them in the fridge to cool, which takes about 90 minutes.
- Prepare the buttercream, (just be sure to use vegan butter and milk) then frost the top of one layer, add on the second layer, then frost the top and sides of the cake.
Notes
Comments
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This has all purpose flour. Not a true gluten free recipe.
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The recipe calls for gluten free all purpose flour, not regular AP flour!
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You can use GF 1:1 flour mix to make this fully gf and it is wonderful!
I made 1/2 of the recipe using my 1:1 GF flour (so that I only had a single layer cake) and it was moist and delicious!
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This recipe along with your gluten free chocolate cupcake recipe is my absolute favorite! What would you suggest the temp/time change if I were using 1/4 sheet cake pans instead?
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Thank you, Emily! Temperature can stay the same, but for the time, I would maybe start with 35 minutes and go from there! Might need closer to 45 but I haven’t tested in that way so I can’t say for sure.
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I made this for our charity community cafe open day. I’d never baked anything gluten free before and had only ever baked one vegan cake (Banana loaf that had to be made vegan as I found after I’d started the recipe that I’d run out of butter! )
So I made this yesterday, added vegan vanilla ‘buttercream’ on the base then the top bit fell apart as I went to lift it onto the base. It got shoved on there in bits and I covered it with more vanilla “buttercream”.
Five stars for taste, I’ve been asked for your recipe! Thank you for the very detailed instructions that made this cake work for me.
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Thank you for the kind review, Dawn! So glad you enjoyed this.
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Just a quick note to let you know that you’ve got the sugar listed as a wet ingredient. I noticed it when I was going down the wets list and had already added syrup and vanilla. I thought, ‘Hmmm this is not going to be sweet enough,’ when I saw sugar at the bottom of the wets list. I added it quickly, stirred, then added the rest of the wets. I hope it’ll turn out okay. I’m going to go ahead and give it a 5-star rating for the BOMB-ASS batter. It tastes and smells magnificent.
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Yup, I always add sugar with the wet ingredients because of how it dissolves with them!
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Yay!!! Loving how my cakes turned out!!! Beautiful texture, moist, super light and fluffy!! I’m an avid substituter (of ingredients) so I tend to have epic fails when it comes to chocolate cake. I’m not a fan of oil, sugar or refined stuff.. which is a challenge when making cakes, especially chocolate. Anyway, I’m so pleased with this recipe. I made myself substitute minimally! I can always play next time. I subbed maple syrup for apple puree. 160g coconut sugar. A mix of flours in the place of Gluten Free Blend (nut meal, besan, buckwheat and gluten free plain flour + guar gum). Cacao powder instead of cocoa powder.
My frosting is divine on this cake (coconut cream + 91% dark chocolate). Awww couldn’t be happier. I’ll see how I go next time pushing the boundaries a bit more 🤭😂🙏🏼🎂🍰🍫-
Amazing! Love that all those subs worked out well!
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Can you tell more about your butter cream? I’m also glad that your substituting went well. I’m so intrigued by this recipe!
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The Best vegan chocolate cake that I’ve made!! Thanks so much for the recipe. I used almond pulp from my almond milk, whole spelt flour, and mascabado instead of sugar. I was afraid that was going to be too heavy but it was still fluffy and with a nice texture. Since using almond pulp I reduced the quantity of water. I also substitute 1/2 cup of mascabado by 1/2 cup of Apple compote.
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Amazing, so happy it worked with those subs!
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What flour would you substitute for almond flour since my son has an allergy to Almond?
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You can try oat flour, but unfortunately this recipe works best with almond flour!
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I just made a test batch of these because I plan to make them for an event. They were delicious!!! I’ve made 5 batches of GF vegan cupcakes this weekend and this is a WINNER. Tastes great, moist but not falling apart. Thank you!!!
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Thank you Francesca, just made my day!
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Do you think this would work as cupcakes?! I am struggling to find a vegan GF chocolate cupcake recipe that doesn’t fall apart. Yours is the first i see with GF flour blend AND almond flour which sounds like it would be great!
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Yes, that should be fine! You will likely get 24 cupcakes out of this. The bake time will be shorter, I can’t say for sure, but around 18-25 minutes I assume.
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When I click on the vegan butter cream frosting the recipe has butter in it. Do vegans eat butter? I’m trying to make this Vegan and gluten free cake for my daughter’s birthday. Do you have an vegan frosting recipe frosting recipe?
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You just need to use vegan butter! I like the brand Earth Balance. Just be sure to use the butter sticks, not the tub.
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This is the easiest and best vegan gluten free cake ever, even my dad who doesn’t like choc cake likes this cake. I’ve put the single mixture into a sheet tray and it works well also. I’ve also used a choc fudge ganache on top and the butter cream recipe filling for filling and on the sides its great and makes a triple choc cake.
Thank you for the great recipes, I am making it again next week for my grandson christening.-
Makes me so happy to hear! Love the idea of ganache on top, I need to try that!
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Is it possible to use one 9×12 pan for this? I don’t have the round cake pans and wasn’t sure if this would work with a 9×12 or what the adjustments in baking time would be. Thank you!
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You may be able to use a 9×13, but vegan and gluten free cakes bake very differently and sometimes larger pans just don’t work as well. If you try it, you will need to increase the bake time, probably 10-15 minutes.
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What do you put in place of the almond flour
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The almond flour is really key in this recipe, I don’t recommend any subs!
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Thank you so much for sharing your amazing recipe! It came out delicious the first time, and I was able to make a cake that all my son’s friends could eat and enjoy (multiple allergies among them). He loved it, so it is here to stay. And it kept really well in the fridge and we finished it the next day.
A happy mum.-
Thank you Emma! Makes me so happy to hear!
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This is the best recipe i have ever tried for vegan gluten free choc cake. I used my own blend of gluten free flour and added two teaspoons of xanthan gum, i also used odourless coconut oil for the oil. The buttercream is the best also. I have to make it again everyone loved it.
Thank you for sharing your excellent recipe-
Thank you so much for your kind recipe, so happy this recipe was a hit!
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Hi Annmarie, could you please share what flours your use for your gluten free blend? We don’t get bobs red mill easily in my country, so would be great to know a blend that works! Thank you!
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