1-Bowl Pumpkin Cake (Vegan + GF)

It was really fast and easy to make and SO DELICIOUS (although I only used 1/4 of the suggested sugar amount and 1/2 of the syrup) ! I subbed the almond flour for 1/2 the amount of oats and 1/2 the amount of flour and it was perfectly fine! As a topping I just whipped plain ol’ coconut cream and that also worked it’s magic :)

Loved making this for our thanksgiving dinner this year. My vegans and non vegans enjoyed it. The vegan buttercream frosting paired really well with this cake. I added maple syrup to the frosting and topped the cake with chopped roasted pecans. I decorated the cake with organic edible flowers from the garden. Looked very pretty. No one noticed it was vegan and GF. Thanks again for sharing this recipe.

I made this cake exactly as outlined in the recipe with the “cream cheese” icing and it was fabulous!! We had two desserts at our Canadian Thanksgiving feast, this cake and the traditional (and nonvegan, nonGF) pumpkin pie. Only two of the 10 people were GF/vegan, and yet lots of pie left with the cake almost gone! I heard words like moist, “is it really GF and vegan?” and lots of “where did you find this recipe – I love it”! It will now go into regular rotation of my GF vegan desserts that everyone will eat :-) Thank you !!

I used this recipe to make cupcakes recently. It was my first time using aquafaba and had no idea how it’d go. I can’t bring myself to think of all the aquafaba I’ve wasted over the years — it worked like a dream!

And this recipe was totally worth making! I subbed applesauce for the banana, but followed every other part of the recipe. It yielded 24 cupcakes (I baked them for a little under 25 minutes at 350, as my oven runs hot). No one had any clue it was vegan either :) Definitely making again!

Has anyone tried oat flour instead of whole oats. I’m trying to use this recipe to make mini layered cake but it’s difficult to get even fluffy layers with the whole oats.

But… I did follow the recipe exactly (used baby food puree banana -thats all I had) with the buttercream frosting. Holy cow it’s so yummy ? the buttercream frosting tastes sooooo good. Was not expecting this. So worth making it. My husband did say he wished it tasted more “pumpkin-y” so maybe would add more spices next time.

OH my gosh. I just made this cake in spring and let me tell you, it’s delicious, and easy. It’s the right balance of sweet, and a great texture. I have never made a gf + vegan cake but I am so impressed. It’s really moist. I put mine in the oven for 42 min instead of 45 and I think that helped keep it from becoming dry. The buttercream frosting is a must with this cake, it pairs together so well. I can’t figure out how to include a picture of my cake but it turned out well! Seriously this recipe is almost fool-proof. Using aquafaba sounds like a weird concept but it was awesome. Just gotta put some elbow grease into really whipping it up- it’s so worth it.

Excellent cake. I made this as a double layer cake and a snack , all from one recipe (it makes a lot, imo). I substituted the following: 2 chicken eggs for the road egg, homemade sliced applesauce for the banana, eliminated the liquid sweetener and increased my organic sugar by a quarter of a cup, and subtracted one tablespoon of the gluten free flour for a tablespoon of organic cornstarch. I used a version of MB diy gluten free flour (I sub sweet rice for the white rice). I was worried when it came out of the oven because it smelt strongly of baking soda, however I didn’t taste it. I love the ingredients as they’re high in fiber. The cake is flavorful and rose well in the oven. I plan on making this again. I made dairy free cream cheese frosting recipe from this blog and left a comment on that post.

The cake is a pure bliss! It’s totally my new black now :3 Thank you so much for the recipe!

I’m ovo-lacto vegetarian so I allowed myself to use chicken eggs instead of flax eggs/aquafaba and to sub almond milk with cow milk. Also I replaced both almond flour and gluten-free flour blend with whole-wheat flour. And it worked out perfectly! For topping I made a frosting by whipping mix of powdered sugar, vanilla extract and something we call “smetana” (there’re no good translation for it cuz it’s exclusively local, it’s more or less resemble reeeally dense sour cream).

The pumpkin cake was divine. Moist, full of flavor and puffy and light. The cake deserves a 5 stars, but the icing did not work so well. I would recommend another buttercream. I choose the ‘buttercream’ option, and it did not hold up at all. The icing on top of the cake was ok, although it was very soft after about 20hrs of refrigeration. The issue was the icing that went in the middle of the cake. It basically all leaked out down the sides and did not hold in the middle at all. So, the middle did not have a layer of icing like the photo shows. It all dripped out, and then when I took it out of the fridge after 20hrs, in a few hours, it had dripped out more leaving hardly any in the middle for eating. It must made it a lot of cake to eat with only the icing layer on the top. It needs a much more stable buttercream layer in the middle.

Made this a couple of weekends ago for a friend’s birthday party and it turned out amazing. The guests didn’t even realize it was GF. I modified the recipe a little bit. I did not make it vegan- used 3 chicken eggs instead of the aquafaba, cut the sugar to 1/3 of what the recipe said, and added an extra 1/4 cup of maple syrup. I separated out the eggs and beat the whites to stiff peaks, added the yellows in with the pumpkin. I topped it with maple cream cheese frosting and hand-ground roasted walnuts. It looked amazing, smelled divine, the texture was awesome, and the fall-forward flavours were perfect for the season. All I had was brown rice flour on hand. I think it would have been a bit more cake-like with white rice flour instead, but it was great with brown- just a little more mouthfeel than your average cake.

Hello! I wanted to follow up with my pervious comment. The cake turned out well! However I made one mistake that I want to mention. The oats that I used must have been too thick. They really affected texture and made the cake have a surprising mouthfeel. Make sure to not use thick rolled oats!

Also, I added just a little bit of vanilla to the cream cheese frosting and I really liked the taste.

I plan on making this cake again because even with the oat issue, everyone liked it! I know it would be perfect if I would have used thin or maybe instant oats.

I’m making this right now for thanksgiving. Beating the chickpea water and the sugar resulted in something that looked like whipped cream. I never really saw “peaks” but I didn’t know what that really meant. I used Bob’s gluten free flour also. It is currently cooking in the oven and smells amazing! I’m going to try the cream cheese frosting. I’ll let everyone know how it goes!

Holy shit. I used this recipe to make cupcakes and they turned out AMAZING. This was my first time ever using aquafaba, and my first time ever experimenting with gluten free baking, so I was a little scared haha (I have had some not-so-good gf baked goods in the past). The texture of this is so amazing, chewy, moist, perfect.

I made vegan cream cheese frosting to go with it and didn’t like it, but that was due to the v cream cheese, not your recipe. It just tastes overwhelmingly like fake butter flavor, which I don’t love (I used Daiya brand). So when I make these again, I’m going to serve it with whipped coconut cream instead, which is probably my fav vegan “icing” and lower sugar too :)

A few simplifications I made:

1 can pumpkin instead of measuring out 1.5 cups
1 mashed banana instead of measuring out 1/4 cup

This recipe made 18 very large muffins/cupcakes – would probably make 24 normal sized ones (I used tulip wrappers, not regular muffin liners).

I just put this into the oven (in 2 muffin trays) and can’t wait for the muffins to be done, they smell amazing. My husband’s non-vegan colleagues will love them for sure.

A useful tip that might help those struggling with the aquafaba peaks:

In most aquafaba-based recipes I’ve worked with so far, they ask for cream of tartar, lemon juice, or vinegar to be added to the chickpea brine prior to beating. Apparently, the acid helps stabilizing the proteins => firmer peaks! So that’s what I did here, too – I added the vinegar at the beginning of step 2 into the unbeaten aquafaba and then followed the recipe as outlined here (though I obviously didn’t add any vinegar/lemon juice in step 3 anymore). It worked extremely well, the aquafaba fluff was so firm that I could put everything on top of it which is added in step 3 without the peaks collapsing :).

Other than that: Dana, your blog really changed my life. We are not vegan, but we really enjoy exploring new tastes and textures, and we feel that eating things from your blog, we are doing something good for our taste buds AND bodies ;). Keep up the good work! All the best from Germany!

My little grand nephew has to eat gluten free, vegan for health reasons. I do the same diet. When I asked what he misses, he said, “pumpkin cake.” I made your recipe for him, Thank you so much for letting him enjoy a normal birthday cake! After reading comments about others who had difficulty maintaining the “meringue” I decided to stabilize it by whipping a sprinkle or two of xanthan gum into the bowl before adding sugar. The froth held up well. I also dissolved coconut palm sugar in the liquid ahead of time, reduced the total amount of sweetener slightly, and used apple sauce in place of banana and half the oil. The cake was fantastic in spite of my manipulations. Thanks again!

I made this pumpkin cake recipe into muffins today, and they are SOOO delicious! I did use 2 eggs in place of the aquafaba and it worked fine, no worries. What a delicious recipe! Thanks so much, Dana, for all the wonderful recipes you share on this site. I have made so many of them, and they have all been outstanding!!

Hi Dana,

I just wanted to say thank you for all the time you put into testing recipes and experimenting with new methods and ingredients. I made this wonderful cake for a Christmas gathering of friends. It was everything you promised and I was completely surprised that a cake that was both vegan and gluten free could taste so much like ‘normal’ cake… only it wasn’t normal at all, it was sublime, with a beautiful flavour, and gorgeous texture. I made the cream-cheese icing with some homemade vegan butter and cream cheese and it was delicious. I can’t really say thank you enough. I’ve recently had some terrible reactions to gluten and was feeling a bit hopeless since I’m a vegan and already have cut out dairy and eggs… It’s nice to know I can treat myself to something so wonderful and still not have to worry about feeling ill. Thank you!

Andrea xx

I made this for my 3 year old’s birthday. Everyone liked it. Next time I would increase the spices as it was fairly mild. This was my first time baking a cake and it was very easy to put together. I ended up needed to put some skewers to keep the cake from sliding once it was iced. The icing get’s a bit runny (doesn’t hold it’s shape) when it’s on the table for awhile but outside of that there were no issues. We added some natural sprinkles and it was a hit with everyone even the littlest ones who are used to more traditional birthday cakes.

Made this the other day and am LOVING it! It’s not too sweet and perfect in the morning with a cup of hot tea. I did’t have all the almond flour so I ended up replacing part of it with the gluten free flour mix and it turned out fine still. Also substituted part of the maple syrup for coconut sugar. I definitely would recommend and will be making again!

I never was able to get my chickpea juice to whip-even bought a new mixer with a wisk attachment!!! I had to sub quinoa flakes for the rolled oats due to allergies, I made my own almond milk and topped it with the cream cheese frosting (I made my own cream cheese from cashews, apple cider vinegar and lemon juice) It was amazing tasting!! The cake was super dense and kind of dry, but I chock that up to my quinoa flake substitution and maybe I should have increased the liquid addition……anyway, it was a huge hit and I will definitely make it again!!

My grandson and I make this cake this past week, it was so delicious one of the best pumpkin layer cakes I had. We will be making it again the coming week, the whole family just loved it. Thanks again for a great recipe. Lisa

Very informational. i would also like to try. thanks for sharing..

I made this and outside of undercooking it, it was perfect! I loved it, my coworker’s loved it, even my dog was tempted to love it! This is a keeper recipe for sure!

Made this today. It is delicious! I did not frost it and made it like a quick bread.

Being a vegan for many years, the egg replacement has always fascinated me – just the fact that it is possible to replace an egg is amazing. The chick pea egg replacer in your recipe is one I didn’t know about. I will have to try that. I made a substitution – the sugar – luckily, sugar is easy to substitute with dates, agave etc. Woo Hoo – Thanks so much for the awesome recipe!