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Gluten-Free Vegan Vanilla Cake

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This Gluten-Free Vegan Vanilla Cake is:

  • moist and fluffy
  • covered in a silky buttercream
  • simple yet delicious!

Gluten-Free Vegan Vanilla Cake

A vanilla cake may sound boring, but the elegant pairing of the delicately vanilla-infused sponge with the velvety, vanilla-infused buttercream frosting is just magical.

Gluten-Free Vegan Vanilla Cake

The base of this Gluten-Free Vegan Vanilla Cake is my go-to sponge recipe: it comes together easily in one bowl, requires familiar ingredients and is really versatile. You can use any type of oil you like, any type of milk, and any type of liquid sweetener.

Gluten-Free Vegan Vanilla Cake

It’s honestly undetectably vegan, gluten-free and refined sugar free, tastes sweet and buttery, and has a moist and fluffy texture.

Gluten-Free Vegan Vanilla Cake

The next step is the buttercream frosting – it’s made using blended cashews and it’s luxuriously rich, melt-in-your-mouth creamy and perfectly sweet.

It’s easy to make, and the texture is great for spreading.

Gluten-Free Vegan Vanilla Cake

Once you’ve frosted your cake, you can decorate it with whatever you want! I went for freeze-dried raspberries, but other delicious toppings include fresh fruit, chopped nuts, dried fruit, edible flowers, or anything else you like!

Gluten-Free Vegan Vanilla Cake

As Gluten-Free Vegan Vanilla Cake is about as neutral as you can get, it’s really versatile and suits a wide range of occasions – it’s perfect for:

  • birthdays
  • Easter
  • Mother’s Day
  • baby showers
  • weddings
  • and anything else in between!

Gluten-Free Vegan Vanilla Cake

For more simple yet delicious cake recipes, check out my:

Gluten-Free Vegan Vanilla 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 on Instagram! Thank you.

Helpful tools to make this Gluten-Free Vegan Vanilla Cake:

For the cake:

glass mixing bowl

measuring jug

18 cm / 7 inch sandwich baking tin

baking paper

cooling rack

For the frosting:

food processor

blender

hand-held stick blender

palette knife for frosting

Gluten-Free Vegan Vanilla Cake

Gluten-Free Vegan Vanilla Cake

This Gluten-Free Vegan Vanilla Cake is moist and fluffy, covered in a silky buttercream, and simple yet delicious!
4.34 from 27 votes
Print Pin Rate
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Keyword: gluten-free vanilla cake, vegan gluten-free cake, vegan vanilla cake
Prep Time: 40 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 55 minutes
Servings: 8
Calories: 329kcal

Ingredients

For the cake:

For the buttercream:

Instructions

For the cake:

  • Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 degrees Fahrenheit)
  • 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 milk to the same bowl along with the lemon juice, vanilla, maple syrup and ground almonds
  • Sift in the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda
  • Mix well, adding a tiny splash more milk if it’s looking too dry
  • Transfer mixture between two greased baking tins lined with baking paper (I used two 7inch/18cm springform baking tins)
  • Bake in oven for around 15 minutes until risen and an inserted skewer comes out clean
  • Once done, turn the cakes out onto wire racks and leave to cool completely before frosting

For the buttercream:

  • Drain soaked cashews and add to a food processor or blender with all the other ingredients (a hand-held blender works too)
  • Whizz until completely smooth, adding more milk or water if necessary

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 and around the sides of the cake
  • Tastes best when fresh but keeps covered in the fridge for up to a few days

Notes

*You can alternatively use almond flour
Nutrition Facts
Gluten-Free Vegan Vanilla Cake
Amount Per Serving
Calories 329
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
Made the recipe?Tag @rhiansrecipes on instagram and use the hashtag #rhiansrecipes!

Disclosure: This posts contains affiliate links to Amazon. If you click through and purchase any of the 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.

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Comments

  3. Hey Rhian! Another AH-MAZING recipe! We loved it 🙂
    Thank you so much for sharing!
    *goes to look for a carrot cake recipe to try next*

    Reply

  6. Just wanted to say I made the cake 4 times already for 4 different occasions and it is PERFECTION! Everybody loves it! Even people who do not follow a healthy diet and are used to the sugary processed food! Thank you so much for the recipe! I am very happy I discovered your blog!
    Wish you all the best! 💚

    Reply

    • Hi! That’s so amazing to hear thank you so much for your kind words. It means so much to me that you like my recipes and find them useful! Let me know if you have any recipe requests. Thank you again!

  8. The link to the almond meal says it’s blanched almond meal. Can I use almond meal from raw, non blanched almonds?

    Reply

  9. What a great recipe! I made this the other weekend and was so happy with the result. Gluten-eating omnivores were back for seconds! I used cashew milk as my plant-based milk, and I followed everything else as written. This is a fantastic and easy recipe (love that you use grams) that I look forward to making again. Thanks for sharing it!!

    Reply

  10. Hi!
    This will be my 3rd cake attempt for my daughters 1st b’day (not having much luck with recipes, so fingers crossed here!) I need to make 3 cakes as i am cutting up to make a puppy face 🙂 Question.., how long would this recipe take to make if i used it in one 9 inch cake pan? I am assuming it would be too thin to do 2 of them and it not being used for layering..
    Also is 180 deg on fan forced or not?
    Thanks so much !!!

    Reply

    • Hi! thank you so much for your interest in this recipe and I hope it turns out for you! The puppy face sounds super cute! Do you mean putting the whole amount of batter in one 9-inch cake pan? You can bake it in two 9-inch pans, it shouldn’t be too thin, you can just bake it for slightly less time. And 180 degrees in a normal oven! hope that helps. Let me know if you have any other questions!

  11. I made this recipe as cupcakes, and I added poppy seeds to the mixture. They were absolutely delicious, and the poppy seeds definitely added a nice texture to them. Thanks for such a great recipe!

    Reply

  12. Hi, Cant wait to try this recipe, yum! I need to make it nut free however, what can I use as a replacement? Would coconut flour work?
    Thanks ☺️

    Reply

    • Thank you so much! You can use ground sunflower seeds, or coconut flour also works. If using coconut flour, you’ll only need to use a fifth of the amount of the ground almonds, as you only need a tiny bit of coconut flour relative to ground almonds. Let me know if you have any other questions! Thank you!

  13. FAB thank you so much, will let you know how it goes…it’s in the oven as we speak 😋
    If I was to make this with sugar, do I use same quantity as maple syrup – 8tbsp of sugar?
    Thanks so much, Laura

    Reply

  14. Fab thank you. Have you ever doubled or quadrupled this recipe, with success, to make a larger cake?
    Thanks, Laura

    Reply

  16. Hi! I want to make this recipe as cupcakes, but I try to avoid oil as much as possible. Is there any substitution I could make, possibly coconut milk or cashew butter?

    Reply

  17. Hi, I’m about to make this for a friend with a nut allergy and I’m not sure where she stands on coconuts. What else should I use in place of almond meal?

    Reply

  18. I followed the recipe, and the cake turned out fine, but I only got a small amount of soupy frosting that doesn’t look anything like the picture. The only sub I made was agave nectar instead of maple syrup. I used a smoothie blender and it looks smooth. What happened?

    Reply

    • Hi! So sorry about that – did you drain the cashews after soaking? To get it to firm up you could add some coconut oil or cacao butter but it should be pretty firm with the amounts written in the recipe.

  21. Thank you for recipe! My cake is tasty but quite dense. I wouldn’t really describe it as light or fluffy. I haven’t made any substitutions but feel it hasn’t risen much at all. Any tips or ideas?
    Thanks

    Reply

    • Hi, thank you so much for your feedback. I’m so sorry it’s dense – did you use the correct amount of baking powder? I think if you make it again, using an extra teaspoon of baking powder (if you used the correct amount specified this time) will help it rise. So sorry about that!

  23. Do you think this would work using all purpose GF flour (instead of half almond flour), and, if so, because it comes with xanthum gum included, would you omit the baking powder? Thanks!

    Reply

    • Hi! Unfortunately the almond flour is crucial for the texture, I’ve tried with 100% GF flour and it didn’t work as well. If you can’t have almonds you can use ground walnuts or a fifth of the amount coconut flour. Also you still need to use baking powder even if your GF flour contains xanthum gum. Hope that helps and please let me know if you have any other questions!

  24. Thank you thank you for this absolutely delicious recipe!! I had to tweak it as I didn’t have everything to hand but I followed your tips on using a fifth coconut flour so I worked it out I only needed 2tsp added to one cup of almond flour. And I didn’t have enough maple syrup so just added some regular sugar to make up the amount. I had some sweetened whipped coconut cream left from another recipe so used this to fill it with the last of my jam! I have been wasting so many ingredients lately so was overjoyed that this actually worked and oh my goodness it is so light and fluffy! Perfect. I have just invited my parents to come try it so they believe me!! I am looking forward to trying more of your recipes now!

    Reply

  25. It smells amazing but mine didn’t rise at all, I followed the recipe exactly, I even used a kitchen scale. Im a pretty experienced baker so Im confused as to where I went wrong.

    Reply

    • Hi, thank you so much for your feedback! I’m so sorry to hear that. What type of gluten-free flour did you use and did you use the correct amount of baking powder?

  26. Hi, this cake tastes very good; however, it did not rise for me at all. I used Better Batter as my flour other than that no other substitutions, Oh, I used cane sugar instead of maple syrup. What did I do wrong or is it not supposed to rise. Thanks

    Reply

  27. Looks so good.. I plan on making it for our anniversary celebration. Can I bake it in one pan then cut it? Or will it crumble? We’re not gluten free so I plan on using regular flour.

    Reply

    • Thank you so much! Yes making it in one pan and cutting it in half should be fine! Just make sure to adjust the cooking time accordingly – it’ll probably take around 30 minutes to bake if you bake it in one pan!

  28. Thank you for your recipes. I can’t use baking powder (tartar intolerance), but I can use baking soda. I always replace a teaspoon of baking powder with 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda. However, I have noticed that many vegan recipes use both (why?). Can I use 2 teaspoons of baking soda instead of baking powder/baking soda mixture in this recipe?

    Reply

    • Thank you! This recipe uses both because the alkali baking soda reacts with the acidic lemon juice to create a fluffy batter. If you can’t use baking powder you could substitute both the baking powder and the baking soda with 1 teaspoon baking soda, I think that should work. But it might give the cake a strong taste of baking soda…would love to hear how you get on if you try it. Thank you!

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