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Vegan Spice Cake. 1 Bowl Super Moist Spiced Applesauce Cake with tons of winter spice flavor and Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting. Vegan Nutfree Recipe. Glutenfree option. Jump to Recipe
Holiday Baking Alert! This Moist Spice cake is all things delicious. Everyday Ingredients like Applesauce, cinnamon, ginger spices, flour, optional grated apple, some dried fruit such as dates and done.
This spice Cake needs 1 Bowl and needs minutes to put together. The cake is super delicious on its own. Top it with nuts or a streusel. The Spices develop even more flavor a day later. Use whichever spices you have. Add a vegan cream cheese frosting if you like. Make it into muffins or a loaf!
More Fall Winter Cakes
- Pumpkin Cake with Chocolate Pumpkin Frosting.
- Cinnamon Swirl Cake
- Eggnog Pound Cake
- Easy Coffee Cake – Cinnamon Streusel Cake
- Peanut Butter Chocolate Marble Cake
- Lemon blueberry pound cake
Gluten-free
- GF Cashew Butter Chocolate Marble Cake.
- Gluten-free Cinnamon Roll Bread yeast-free.
- GF Carrot Banana Bread – Also grain-free.
- Sweet Potato Crumb Cake. GF
How to make Vegan spice cake with step pictures
Tips to bake a Moist Vegan Cake
- Volume wet ingredients such as applesauce, pumpkin puree etc make amazing moist cakes. They also can tend to add more invisible moisture to the batter which can lead to gummy cakes. The batter will feel somewhat stiff because of these purees, but it still might need more dry to have the right amount to absorb the moisture and bake a fluffy cake. When in doubt add a bit more flour. See video for reference on how thick the batter should be.
- This ratio is more of a problem when baking a loaf than if you bake the batter into muffins or a less height cake pan. If baking a loaf, you want the batter much more stiff. Add more flour until there is good resistance.
- If your cakes are drying out too much, they might need less baking time or need to cool under a thick kitchen towel. Thick frosting layer will help return moisture to the bake as it chills.
Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl, Then add the wet ingredients and mix well. Use room temperature applesauce. You want slightly thick batter close to a muffin like batter than a float vanilla cake. Bake then cool for 20 minutes or so then add a frosting
Vegan Spice Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
Vegan Spice Cake. 1 Bowl Super Moist Spiced Applesaucec Cake with tons of winter spice flavor and Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting. Vegan Nutfree Recipe. Glutenfree option
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon flax seed meal
- 1/4 cup of water
- 1.5 - 1.75 cups of flour, , (I use 3/4 cup spelt/whole wheat and 3/4 cup or more all purpose), see Notes for glutenfree
- 1/3 cup brown sugar, , or coconut sugar. (2 tbsp more for sweeter)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1.5 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 1/4 tsp ground cardamom
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg
- 1/3 cup chopped dates, or other dried fruit or cranberries
- 3/4 cup room temperature applesauce, ( I use lightly sweetened)
- 1/4 cup oil
- 1 tsp vanilla, , optional
- 1/3 cup grated apple or carrot or zucchini, , optional - Grate, lightly squeeze in a paper towel to remove exess moisture before using
Instructions
- Grease or line a cake pan or brownie pan(8 by 8 inch). Preheat the oven to 360 F (185 C)
- Mix the flax seed meal with water and set aside. In a large bowl combine 1.5 cups of flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, cloves and nutmeg. Whisk well. Fold in the dates.
- Add the applesauce, flax seed mix, oil and vanilla if using. Mix to just about combine into a slightly stiff mixture. (Mix in grated apple if using). If batter is not stiff add flour 1 to 2 tbsp at a time and mix it. Transfer the batter in a prepared cake pan and spread it using a spatula.
- Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick from the enter comes out clean.( 20-22 mins for muffins, 45 to 50 mins for a loaf).
- Cool the cake for 5 mins and then remove from the pan. Mix a tablespoon of maple syrup with 1 tsp of water and brush it all over the cake. Frost with frosting of choice once the cake is cooled.
- Optional Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting: Mix 6 oz vegan cream cheese(store bought or homemade, see homemade option in notes), a good pinch of salt and 1/4 cup maple syrup until smooth. Taste and adjust flavor, sweet with a tbsp of sugar if needed.
- To Store: Just the cake can be stored in a covered container on the counter for upto 2 days. With the frosting, it needs to be refrigerated if not getting consumed in a couple of hours. Refrigerate them separately for upto 4 days.
Video
Notes
Gluten-free: To make this gluten-free, Mix 1/2 cup rice flour, 1/4 oat flour(or other glutenfree flour), 1 cup almond flour, 1/4 cup potato starch. Use 1 1/2 cup of the flour and add more as needed and bake into brownie pan or cupcakes.
Oil-free: Use 2 tbsp non dairy milk and 1 tbsp applesauce.
Maple Syrup: If using maple syrup or date syrup instead of sugar, use 1/3 cup maple syrup and reduce applesauce to 1/2 cup.
Homemade Vegan Cashew Cream Cheese: Blend 1/2 cup cashews (that have been soaked for an hour then drained), 1 teaspoon or more lemon juice, 1/4 teaspoon salt with a few tbsp of water until creamy.
Nutrition is for 1 piece
Nutrition
Calories: 194kcal, Carbohydrates: 31g, Protein: 2g, Fat: 6g, Sodium: 169mg, Potassium: 174mg, Fiber: 1g, Sugar: 13g, Vitamin A: 5IU, Vitamin C: 0.2mg, Calcium: 53mg, Iron: 1.3mg
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Did you make this recipe? Rate and comment below!
Thank you for the ratios for a gluten free blend. We love using your recipes. They never fail!!
thanks!
How many cupcakes or muffins will this recipe yield? Also what can be substituted for the dates or dried fruits?
24 cupcakes! and you can just omit the dried fruit or a butterscotch chip would be nice with the spice
Great flavor, easy to make.
I used a Vitamin for the cream cheese and the quantity of the ingredients were too small to blend effectively with my blender. Would you let me know if I’m not doing something correctly or re-test the cream cheese portion of the recipe, please?
thanks Sheila. you mean vitamix, right? and do you mean the Homemade Vegan Cashew Cream Cheese, not the frosting right? sometimes i use a thin, long spatula to remove things in small portions or you could try a mini food processor.
Yes, autocorrect 🙂 Vitamix. And yes the homemade cashew cream cheese. Thx
So Delicious! I made it with the cashews for the icing…perfect amount of sweetness.
So glad you enjoyed this!
I made this recipe for my wedding anniversary early this month and we both loved it! I made it GF with a combination of flours that were available to me at home (1/2 cup King Arthur AP GF, 1/2 cup almond, 1/2 cup oat – like I said, a hodgepodge of what I had) and it turned out perfect! I will be making this again very soon!
excellent!! great to hear, thank you
I stumbled on your recipe with a Google search and made the oil-free suggestion and also the (homemade) cream cheese icing. I followed the directions exactly (with the optional shredded apple) …and Wow! I don’t even like spice cake, but my husband does and I made it for his birthday! It was delicious and I served it with a scoop of vegan Amaretto Gelatto. (If I could attach a photo, I would…) I am going to subscribe to your website…thank you for a great oil-free vegan recipe!
thanks!
Delicious! Omitted the sugar all together and it is still plenty sweet for us. Using for my daughters first birthday cake. Thank you for the recipe!
Looks yummy n I really want to give it a try this weekend but am just a novice in baking
How many apples would I need in the applesauce? I.e how many to get a 3/4 cup?
Also any other alternatives to flax seed meal? I don’t seem to have them at home 🙁
applesauce is made with cooked apples. just use any online recipe tomake the applesauce then measure it out.
A really wonderful recipe ….
came out so well … everyone loved it . It is just awesome !!
I used almond flour along with , and next I will try the oil free option .
Thank you so much for posting
Love this cake. I omitted the frosting, and made it with 1/2 cup all purpose flour, 1/2 oat flour, and 3/4 cup of almond flour and it was amazing. It was also oil free and used maple syrup. The substitutions at the bottom of the recipe were on point. It was so good. Just what I was wanting, and the crowd loved it too. Definitely on the list to make again!
awesom!