This Gluten-Free Vegan Red Velvet Cake is moist and fluffy, naturally colour and healthier than the traditional version! It has a balance of sweet, salty, sour and chocolatey flavours and is covered in a tangy vegan cream cheese frosting. It's also refined sugar free and super easy to make!
Traditional Red Velvet Cake is made using buttermilk, but it's really easy to make a vegan "buttermilk".
1. Mix almond milk with vinegar in a measuring jug.
2. Let it sit for 10 minutes.
Tip: This trick works with any kind of non-dairy milk, as the vinegar curdles the milk so that it resembles buttermilk.
To create a red colour without food colouring, I used beetroot powder.
You can buy beetroot powder in local health stores, as well as online.
If you can't get hold of it, it's not a problem if you leave it out - you'll just end up with a slightly differently coloured cake, but the taste will be the same and still delicious!
How to make the cake
Scroll down to the bottom of the post for the full recipe.
- Mix together all the ingredients in a glass mixing bowl.
- Transfer the batter between two 18 cm / 7 inch sandwich baking tins.
Tip: Line the baking tins with greased baking paper to make the sponges easier to remove afterwards.
- Bake in the oven for 15 minutes.
- Place the sponges on a cooling rack until completely cooled before applying the frosting.
How to make the vegan "cream cheese" frosting
- Place coconut cream, lemon juice, maple syrup and vanilla in a bowl and use an electric whisk to whip up until fluffy.
- Use a palette knife for frosting to apply the frosting in between and on top of the layers of sponge.
How long does this Red Velvet Cake keep for?
This Red Velvet Cake is best enjoyed fresh, but keeps covered in the fridge for up to a few days.
Substitutions you can make
- You can use any type of oil: coconut oil, olive oil or vegetable oil.
- You can use any type of plant-based milk: almond milk, rice milk, soy milk, cashew milk, oat milk etc.
- You can use any type of liquid sweetener: maple syrup, agave syrup, brown rice syrup etc.
- You can replace the vinegar with lemon juice.
- You can replace the ground almonds (almond meal/almond flour) with ground walnuts.
- For a nut-free version: replace the ground almonds (almond meal/almond flour) with ground sunflower seeds or use 30g (¼ cup) coconut flour instead of 150g (1 ¼ cup) ground almonds.
- You can use plain flour instead of the gluten-free flour if you're not gluten-free.
- You can omit the beetroot powder - it's used for adding red colouring but the recipe still works without it.
More gluten-free vegan cake recipes
- Tropical Carrot Cake
- Chocolate Truffle Cake
- Tropical Carrot Cake
- Lemon Blueberry Cake
- Cherry Bakewell Cake
- Chocolate Cake
- Black Forest Cake
- Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake
- Lemon Blueberry Layer Cake
- Lemon Pound Cake
- Orange Drizzle Cake
- Lemon Olive Oil Cake
If you try out this recipe or anything else from my blog, I'd really love to hear any feedback! Please give it a rating, leave a comment, or tag a photo @rhiansrecipes #rhiansrecipes on Instagram! Thank you.
Watch how to make this recipe
Gluten-Free Vegan Red Velvet Cake
Ingredients
For the cake:
- 200 ml (⅘ cup) unsweetened almond milk (or any other plant-based milk)
- 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar (ensure gluten-free if necessary)
- 60 g (¼ cup) coconut oil (or sub olive or vegetable oil)
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar (ensure gluten-free if necessary)
- 8 tablespoons maple syrup (or sub any other sweetener)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Pinch salt
- 150 g (1 ¼ cup) ground almonds (almond meal) *
- 150 g (1 ¼ cup) gluten-free flour blend (or sub plain flour if not gluten-free)
- 2 heaped teaspoons baking powder (ensure gluten-free if necessary)
- ¼ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
- 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
- 3 teaspoons beetroot powder (optional - adds red colour but not completely necessary for the recipe to work)
For the frosting:
- 400 g (14 oz) tin of full-fat coconut milk **
- 2 tablespoons (2 tablespoons) lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons maple syrup (or sub any other sweetener)
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
For the cake:
- Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 degrees Fahrenheit).
- Measure out the milk and, leaving it in the measuring container, add the tablespoon of vinegar and stir - leave to sit for around 10 minutes, while you make the rest of the cake.
- Place the coconut oil in a large bowl and melt over a saucepan of boiling water or in the microwave (skip this step if using any other oil).
- Once melted, add the teaspoon of vinegar to the same bowl along with the maple syrup, vanilla, salt and ground almonds.
- Sift in the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cocoa powder and beetroot powder.
- Add the milk and vinegar mixture and mix well, adding a tiny splash more milk if it's looking too dry.
- Divide mixture between two greased baking tins lined with baking paper (I used two 7inch/18cm baking tins).
- Bake in oven for around 15 minutes until risen slightly and an inserted skewer comes out clean.
- Once out the oven, transfer cakes from baking tins onto a wired rack to leave them to cool completely before applying the frosting.
For the frosting:
- You'll need to keep your tin of coconut milk in the fridge overnight for the rich creamy bit to separate from the watery bit at the bottom. Make sure it is full fat coconut milk, otherwise this separation won't happen and you won't be able to make this cream!
- Open the tin upside down - the coconut cream will be at the bottom and you can just pour off the watery liquid (save this for adding to soups or smoothies).
- Place the thick, creamy part into a bowl.
- Add the lemon juice, maple syrup and vanilla extract.
- Use an electric whisk (or a manual one and a lot of elbow grease) to whip up the coconut cream until light and fluffy.
To frost and decorate the cake:
- Place one half of the cake onto a plate or cake stand, and spread just less than half of the frosting onto it.
- Place the other half of the cake on top of that and use rest of the frosting to spread on top.
- Decorate with freeze-dried raspberries and cacao nibs if desired.
- Keeps covered in the fridge for up to a few days.
Video
Notes
Disclosure: This posts contains affiliate links to Amazon. If you purchase any of these products, a small percentage will come to me with no extra cost to you! This income will go towards the running of this blog - thank you.
Paulina P.
Hello Rhian, I am not a baker but I would love to take a challenge and make this cake for my son's 4th birthday. I need 20 servings not just 8 - would you please help with adjusted measurements?
Many thanks in advance.
Rhian Williams
Great! To make for 20 people, you could triple the quantities as this cake makes 8 servings so you can make 24 servings by tripling the quantities. Hope that helps!
pamela planterose
Hi there! Everything went ok with my cake BUT the colour, I couldn't get the colour at all 🙁 I even dehydrated and processed my own beetroot powder but it wasn't enough to get the red colour. Will I have to use artificial colouring to get the red colour ? I wish you could see it, it's just brown.... it tastes amazing though !
Rhian Williams
Hi - I'm glad the cake went ok! I'm sorry to hear about the colour. Perhaps your own beetroot powder has less colour in it than the store-bought one I used. If making again I would try adding more of the beetroot powder and see what happens!
Rachel
oh my goodness! so delish! my 5 year old made this cake yesterday for afternoon tea and it is amazing! looking forward to making it again with pink icing for my daughters birthday in a couple of weeks. thanks for another yummy recipe! 🙂
Rhian Williams
Thank you so much, so glad you liked it!
Tegan
Hello! In the process of making this cake, now onto the frosting which tastes great but it doesn't seem to be solidifying... The coconut cream was still quite liquidly after leaving for a day in the fridge, and not a complete separation like I've seen before with coconut milk. Can you give me any tips on how to salvage the frosting? Thanks 🙂
Rhian Williams
Hi! I'm sorry to hear that, coconut milk can be quite temperamental depending on the brand. I use Thai Taste which you can get in most supermarkets in the UK, or if you're in the US I've heard Trader Joe's is good too. To salvage it you can add some melted cacao butter or coconut oil which will help it solidify, or if you're ok with refined sugar then adding some icing sugar(powdered sugar) helps too!
Neerja
Could we use fresh Beetroot instead of Beetroot powder?
Rhian Williams
Hm yes that could probably work, but I haven't tested it so can't guarantee results. Please let me know how you get on if you try it!