1-Bowl Vegan Gluten-Free Vanilla Cake

I made this cake for my mom who has a number of food allergies and it was a huge hit at her bday!! Not only was it delicious, moist and fluffy but it was super simple to make. Will be baking this again!

This was a hit! I made them into cupcakes and used coconut cream to enhance the coconut/vanilla flavor. I baked the cupcakes for 20 min and they came out perfectly. The buttercream can be a bit sweet so just keep that in mind when frosting.
Thank you! Please keep the recipes coming. My husband loves anything that I make of yours.

Hi Dana,
I tried this recipe. I’m good at making baking but this one has failed me. The cake is moist but it is gooey feel not cakey and fluffy. What is the problem? I am so disappointed.

Made this yesterday for Father’s Day. Fantastic cake! Part of the party was vegan and part not and the non vegans had no idea. The cake was super moist and the butter cream frosting was so thick and fantastic. The only thing I changed was I used caster sugar as I wasn’t sure what kind of cane sugar the recipe called for. I also used bobs red mill almond flour as that is all we have in Bermuda, it worked perfectly as far as I could tell. Two tips I would give anyone making this would be, firstly 100% make sure you make this the night before you need it as it’s extremely fragile, and two leave it in the pans for a litttle longer after baking, just run your knife round the edges right away and then turn it out on to a plate lined with wax paper ( for ease of removal later). I put strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, and blue berries on top for decoration, with mint leaves and lemon zest. I may play around with the recipe and add lemon juice to both the cake and icing next time to add a little extra oomp to it. Best vegan, gluten free cake ever!!!

I must admit I was skeptical about making a vegan, oil free, gluten free cake but my expectations were seriously blown out the water when I made this! It was that good! I put coconut cream between the layers then used the cashew buttercream frosting (recipe also by MB) but minus the oil & then I sprinkled shredded coconut all over and it was just absolutely divine! My mum loved it too and she isn’t even vegan or gluten free. Thank you for this recipe!

I made this for my boys’ 5th birthday party! It was a hit! And oh so delicious. I’m sad that it’s gone now. I used the arrowroot powder instead of cornstarch and I made the vegan buttercream frosting to go on top. I used 2 8-inch pans for the layer cake. I’m very happy I found this recipe and it tasted delicious. Thanks for sharing it!

I have to say that this recipe is the best! I had my son’s birthday party and was going crazy looking for something this delicious! I have to say is sooo easy to follow and I can’t believe that in less than 40 mnts I already had a cake! Increible! Thank you so much for your recipes! We became vegan since feb and your website is such a blessing for our family! Looking forward to many yummy recipes from you?.

It is so hard to find vegan and grain free cake (I used arrowroot powder) recipes and this absolutely knocked it out of the park. We have several food allergies to accommodate (dairy, eggs, gluten, rice, amongst others) and everyone loved this cake. I am so impressed that you were able to leverage the oiliness of the almond flour to make this with so few ingredients. This is a genius recipe. Thank you.

I substituted tapioca flour for the potato and it worked wonderfully! I had to add more cornstarch and tapioca flour mixed with a little All-Purpose GF flour to thicken it up a little more (I accidently added too much almond milk so I don’t think anyone else would have to adjust the dry ingredients; I’m blind without my glasses). This is an absolutely wonderful cake recipe and will definitely be making it again and again. My mom loved it for Mother’s Day, thank you so much Dana!!

I made this cake over the weekend, and topped it with chocolate frosting and berries. My daughter who needs to eat GF (Celiac) liked it, as did my son and I. The other grown-ups complained that it was too dense (I think from the almond flour) and not sweet enough. I actually liked it more because it wasn’t overly sweet. Not sure if I will make again because it didn’t have a huge fan base, but the leftovers will get eaten!

You are my go to every time I need to bake.
I’m a terrific cook but a horrendous baker. Like reeeally bad, seriously. cuz I tried to sub everything and for baking you need more science than heart lol.
Anyways you make it work EVERY. SINGLE.TIME
thank you for being the party saver one more time.

I made this for a vegan family, and they loved it, including the teenage boy. This was my first experience baking with almond flour. The batter was a little thin after mixing, so as you suggested, I added about an 1/8 cup more almond flour. Much more flavor than regular flour. The first time I may have over baked it slightly, so it was a bit hard and dry, but I corrected that the second time, and it was great.

Absolutely wonderful cake!!!! I made this for my friends birthday (she is gluten free, I’m vegan) and it was incredible. Also incredibly simple and easy to make! Followed the recipe to a tea and everyone was wowed! Said it was the best cake I’ve ever made. Thank you Dana for all your wonderful recipes. I always enjoy. ?

I followed this recipe exactly. Sorry to say it was very dense and very dry. The almond meal makes it quite dark in color, doesn’t look vanilla and there was very little vanilla taste.

I made this for my co-workers birthday. It was great! Thanks for the simple and beautiful recipe!

I followed the recipe without substitutions. It makes 24 cupcakes, baked 16 minutes with a turn in the oven half way. They’re cooked perfectly and still moist!

I made this recipe as cupcakes for my girls’ soccer party and they came out wonderful! The coach asked for seconds they were so good! They tasted like real gluten filled vanilla cupcakes from my childhood! I substituted arrowroot for cornstarch to make them grain/corn free. I used coconut sugar instead of cane sugar. The recipe made 20 cupcakes. They baked for about 20-22 minutes and then I let them cool on a cooling rack for about 10 minutes. Then popped them in the freezer for 30 minutes to cool quickly so I could frost them because we were running late! They hold together perfectly with no egg, they are moist and delicious with the perfect cake crumb! I’ve made the Vegan8 version before and it is wonderful too, so I already had high hopes for this recipe since it was so similar. I like not needing aquafaba because I don’t always have it in stock. Thank you for the wonderful recipe, it is going in my “go-to recipes” binder and the search for vanilla cake is over! ^_^

Made this for my birthday and OMG, AMAZING CAKE!! Dense but moist and full of flavor. This one is definitely a keeper.

This cake is AMAZING!!! I made it and didn’t tell anyone (except) my wife that it was vegan/gluten free…my inlaws ate the whole cake! THEN I told them…they wouldn’t believe me until I showed them the recipe and they realized my wife was eating a slice (she’s vegan)…they already asked me to make it again and I’m making another one so my wife can take it to a Lularoe party tomorrow! Thank you so much for sharing such a great recipe…is definitely gonna try one of your chocolate ones next!!!

Omg Dana…this cake was SO GOOD! My friend and I made it and shared it with some friends who are very much not gluten-free/vegan and they thought it was delicious too! The icing was incredible (we ended up having to make more to cover it), the cake has such great vanilla flavor and the texture was perfect. We covered it in raspberries. Love.

Just made it and it is absolutely delicious! My only change was almond flavoring in the frosting instead of vanilla flavoring. This is a keeper!

I have struggled to find the perfect vanilla cake, and this is it!! However,
I made lemon cupcakes with just a few subs & additions and they were phenomenal! First off 17mins was perfect for my oven! Made approx 20 cupcakes.

I used pacific brand original hemp milk and coconut vinegar instead of apple cider vinegar. I was slightly short on cane sugar and used ~1/8th cup coconut sugar. I also used Young Loving Lemon Vitality essential oil – 8 drops for cake – 10 drops in frosting.

Mind blowing! Thank you so much! You are a genius! ❤️❤️❤️

I used the regular almond flour instead of the blanched one, so it looked more like carrot cake. The flavor was good though the frosting was a little dense. Overall good recipe and I will certainly try it again!

Delicious cake! I made it last night and frosted it today. Absolutely spectacular! I put a little less sugar because my applesauce was the sweetened kind and I used lemon instead of vanilla because I can’t afford pure vanilla extract right now and the artificial kind isn’t my thing. I put the zest of one lemon (it could’ve used two) and squeezed a whole lemon into it which topped off the liquid from one can of coconut milk. It turned out perfectly moist. I topped it with lemon buttercream and thawed from frozen blackberries. Scrumptious! Thanks Dana!!!

Made this EASY cake for Easter! Everyone loved it- even non Gluten Free’ers and non Vegans! I did have to cut the baking time a bit (I was baking one pan at a time). Loved that the ingredients were easy to find, NO FLAX EGG (yay!), and it was one bowl! And don’t get me started on that dreamy ‘butter’cream!! Will definitely be making this again ASAP!

This cake is the bomb!! It’s day 2 and still moist. I like it better than white flour. The almond flour gives it depth and richness. Soooo good!!

This cake was fantastic!! Makes having a bazillion food allergies not so bad ;) I used plain unsweetened almond milk in the cake, and arrowroot instead of corn starch and Wegmans brand almond meal/flour (so not the super fine stuff). I added more flour than called for because she said the cake was supposed to be thick and mine was pretty loose, and baked in 3 6-inch pans. The cake came out super moist — the top was dark golden and I didn’t want to bake it too long and dry it out, but it still felt pretty soft to the touch in the middle (but not jiggly). Leaving it out on the counter to cool overnight helped firm it up a bit I think, because it wasn’t as “squishy?” in the morning yet still very moist and soft. I froze the layers to decorate a few days later. I used 3 sticks of the vegan butter and only 3 cups of powdered sugar + vanilla — I usually find frostings way too sweet. It was the perfect amount for us. And the berries on top just made it perfect!! Will definitely make this again (and again and again!) Soo Soo good!

I made this yesterday and frosted it today. It is delicious! I used Bob’ Red Mill Almond Flour, and almond milk. Next time, I’ll use the recommended almond flour. However, this time I used what I had in hand. I sifted the dry ingredients together after I whisked them, just to make sure it was as fluffy as possible.

When I frosted the cake, Little cake crumbs and frosting mixed together in an unattractive way, but it still tasted delicious. It was as if the cake was piling, like a sweater. Not sure how to fix that, I’m new to cake making. The cake was definitely cooled, as I’d made it the night before.

Everyone loved the cake. It makes a perfect Easter dessert.

Thank you!!!

Just made this and the cake is super delish and surprisingly easy to make! I made a half batch and i would strongly recommend to follow the directions as the cooling period is very important for the setting of the cake. Thank you for this awesome recepie!

I baked this cake last night and it was excellent. I baked half the recipe after weighing out the full amount of dry ingredients and baked in a 6X9 glass pan. Today it is very moist (almost too much) but I think I could have baked for a bit longer and removed from the pan sooner. I’ve tried so many almond flour cake recipes which were inedible but this one isn’t greasy or heavy. Great job on this cake recipe :)

Hi,

I tried to make this cake last week and unfortunately I was not amused.
The cake was realy heavy, not fluffy at all. Due to all the baking powder and soda it had a chemical smell and flavour and the cake was overly sweet. Ingredients were crazy expensive, which wouldn’t have mattered if the cake was good. Bad recipe, too bad. :(

Disgusting! What a waste. 4 of us tried it and the flavour was awful. Icing was great. Threw out the whole thing.

I am not gluten-free, vegan, or dairy free but my friends are and you won me over with this recipe! This cake was easy to make and come out deliciously! I didn’t have potatoe starch but I replaced it with equal parts gluten-free all purpose flour and it worked! Thanks Dana Your recipe was a hit!!!

I know, I was surprised myself. Your recipes are usually great. I’ve made the 1bowl chocolate cake and that’s wonderful.
Could it be it’s supposed to be almond meal and not flour? The recipe does seem to have too many dry ingredients and not enough liquid.
And, yes,I did use potato starch not flour.
I’m going to try to make it again and see. It looks so good in the picture. I’ll let you know what happens.
Thanks!

I made this for a friend’s birthday today and it was certainly tasty with a nice texture. It did crack rather a lot during transport though (it wasn’t iced at this point). Is this fragility why you suggest a 5 hour – overnight cooling period? I was only able to leave it cool about one hour before transporting it.

This cake in unbelievable! We made it last night using 1/8 of the frosting and it was one of the best cakes any of us had ever had. We didn’t stack the layers as we didn’t want to use so much frosting so we lightly frosted the top of each of the three layers, sliced and served with berries. I think more frosting actually would have taken away from how delicious the cake is on its own. Making it again for our passover party this week. Thanks for a new family favorite!

I made this yesterday and it turned out pretty well. I used half corn starch half potato starch since I wasn’t sure if it was potato starch (said potato flour on package, but I found out later it was 100%starch). I halved the recipe and it made a thin 5/8. I cooked for 30 minutes with a convection oven. But it wasn’t done in middle. It still made a tastey cake.

Just made this. I haven’t had a decent gf/vg vanilla cake in years and this one is sooooo good. Thank you for coming up with awesome recipes that I can eat and that taste good!

Just adding the 5 star rating since I forgot to do it along with my comment.

For those that have asked I replaced the applesauce with oil and the cake was tasty. It was a very fragile cake but delicious.

Beyond amazing!!!! Made this tonight and it was out of this world. The only modification I made is that I reserved a little bit of the batter at the end and added cocoa powder then poured over the vanilla batter (after I had poured the vanilla batter into the pans), so I basically turned it into a marble cake ;)
I had tried other recipes for Vegan vanilla cake but nothing compares to this one. I do think the combination of flours used makes a huge difference.
My mother in law makes a mean marble cake (non-vegan), I actually think this one turned out better!!!! Thanks a million Dana for yet another brilliant recipe…you are seriously the best!!!!!