Light and fluffy vegan apple cake with a cinnamon sugar topping. Packed with fresh apple flavor and absolutely divine served warm with vegan whipped cream.
I am totally in love with this vegan apple cake. And so is Jaye, he hasn’t been able to stop eating it to tell you the truth.
I actually started out with the goal of making a vegan apple pie. But at the last minute switched gears and made an apple cake instead (and then I made a vegan apple crisp!).
And it is honestly so good, no one will miss apple pie when you present apple cake, I promise you.
And even though I have yet to make an apple pie (update: vegan apple pie is here!), I reckon this apple cake is heaps easier.
The hardest part of making this apple cake is peeling and chopping up a few apples. So basically, not hard at all.
It’s totally divine served warm and topped with some vegan whipped cream.
It has all those gorgeous fall flavors like cinnamon and nutmeg and it’s topped with a cinnamon sugar combination that creates the most delicious caramelized crust on top of this cake.
And if you love everything apple then check out our vegan apple muffins too.
How To Make Vegan Apple Cake
You will find full instructions and measurements in the recipe card at the bottom of the post. This is a summary of the process to go along with the process photos.
Add your dry ingredients (flour, brown sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg) to a mixing bowl and combine.
Make up some vegan buttermilk by mixing some lemon juice and soy milk together and letting it curdle.
Add the vegan buttermilk, oil, vanilla and apple cider vinegar to the dry ingredients and mix together. Then you add your chopped apples and mix them in.
Smooth down into a 9×13 dish.
Mix up cinnamon, sugar and softened vegan butter and sprinkle this on top. Bake for 45 minutes. Serve with vegan cream. Be very very happy!
Tips For Making The Perfect Vegan Apple Cake
Granny smith apples. They are wonderfully firm and have a great ratio between sweet and tart. They work great for this apple cake.
Vegan Buttermilk creates a wonderfully moist texture to this cake and is so easy to make by simply mixing lemon juice into soy milk and letting it curdle. Almond milk works too, but I prefer soy milk for buttermilk if you don’t have an issue with soy as it is thicker/richer so works extremely well.
Brown sugar goes beautifully with the fall flavors of this cake so is a much better fit than white sugar.
Bake at low heat. This cake bakes for 45 minutes at 325°F (160°C). Most cakes bake at 350°F so I definitely don’t want you to make the mistake of baking this cake at that temperature if you go on automatic pilot when you set the oven (happens to me all the time!).
Weigh your flour. Want to have perfect accuracy with your cakes? Weighing your flour will do that for you.
How to Serve Vegan Apple Cake
Serve warm topped with vegan whipped cream or vegan custard. Alternatively some vegan ice cream would be divine too.
Storing and Freezing
Keep leftover cake covered in the fridge where it will stay good for up to 5 days.
It’s also freezer friendly for up to 3 months.
More Delicious Vegan Cakes
- Vegan Pumpkin Cake
- Vegan Pineapple Upside Down Cake
- Vegan Coffee Cake
- The Best Vegan Chocolate Cake
- Vegan Banana Cake
- Vegan Lemon Cake
Did you make this recipe? Be sure to leave a comment and rating below!
Vegan Apple Cake
Ingredients
For the Apple Cake:
- 2 ½ cups All Purpose Flour (312g)
- 1 ½ cups Light Brown Sugar (300g)
- 1 ½ tsp Baking Soda
- ½ tsp Salt
- 1 tsp Ground Cinnamon
- ¼ tsp Nutmeg
- 1 cup Vegan Buttermilk (240ml) 1 Tbsp Lemon Juice + Soy Milk up to the 1 cup line
- ⅓ cup Vegetable Oil (80ml) or Canola Oil
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1 Tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar
- 2 Tbsp Applesauce
- 1 ½ cups Granny Smith Apples (188g) Peeled and Chopped
For the Cinnamon Sugar Topping:
- ½ cup White Granulated Sugar (100g)
- 1 tsp Ground Cinnamon
- 1 Tbsp Vegan Butter Softened
For Serving:
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325°F (160°C). Spray a 9×13 dish with non-stick spray and set aside.
- Sift the flour into a mixing bowl and add the brown sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg and mix together.
- Prepare your vegan buttermilk by adding 1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice to a measuring jug and then adding soy milk up to the 1 cup (240ml) line. Leave it for a minute to allow it to curdle.
- Add the vegan buttermilk, oil, vanilla, apple cider vinegar and applesauce to the mixing bowl and mix in properly. The batter will be thick.
- Add in the chopped apple pieces and fold in.
- Transfer to your prepared baking dish and smooth down.
- Prepare the cinnamon sugar topping by adding the sugar and cinnamon to a bowl and mixing together. Then add in softened vegan butter and mix it in until properly combined and the mixture is crumbly.
- Sprinkle over the top of the cake.
- Bake for 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
- Serve warm with vegan whipped cream or vegan ice cream.
Video
Notes
- Granny Smith Apples. These are the best apples to use in this recipe, but you can also use whatever you have on hand.
- Storing. Keep leftover cake stored in the fridge (covered) where it will stay good for up to 5 days. It can be reheated in the microwave.
- Nutritional information is for cake only and does not include vegan whipped cream.
Fantastic!!!! I made this two days ago, and my only change was adding about one cup chopped pecans to the batter and a half cup finely chopped to the streusel topping. I’m making this for the mom-chocolate dessert at thanksgiving. I cannot express enough how perfect this cake came out. I used Granny Smiths and my only change next time will be to half the spices so that I get a bit more apple flavor rather than cinnamon. A truly perfect cake, lovely texture. Many thanks!!!
Thanks so much for the amazing review! Pecans are a wonderful addition as well!
This cake is delicious. The only change I made was adding some pecan pieces to the batter and the topping, along with some fresh chopped cranberries on top. This recipe is a keeper.
So happy you enjoyed it!
I had a punnet of fresh blueberries I needed to use so I added them in with the chopped apple, and when I made the cinnamon sugar topping I added a handful of chopped walnuts and some oats to the mixture. Delicious! I didn’t have any cream or icecream but it was great with some vegan vanilla yoghurt. And fine all by itself too! Thanks for the fabulous recipe, I’ll definitely make it again 🙂
That sounds amazing! Thanks for sharing Wren!
I made this recipe and it was delicious, very tasty, good texture, pretty easy. I would agree that it is very forgiving for substitutions. I used oat milk for the buttermilk. I didn’t have a lemon so I used apple cider vinegar to curdle it, same amount. I used honey crisp apples, delicious. I also forgot to put in the brown sugar (dark brown, because that’s what I had on hand) until everything else was mixed together so I added at the very end, it took a lot of stirring but didn’t seem to affect the end result. I will be making this again, love it!
So happy you enjoyed it Marj! Thanks for the awesome review!
It’s in the oven for my son’s birthday and smells divine. So glad I found this recipe as my vegan daughter often misses out at birthdays and we have been looking for an apple cake recipe. Can’t wait to try all your other recipes.
Awesome! Hope it is a huge success!
Made this cake on the weekend for guests and we all loved it. I really trust your recipes. You do a wonderful job. Thank you!
Thank you so much Loretta!
Fantastic recipe! I didn’t add Applesauce (I didn’t have any). I made the buttermilk with vinegar. Feared it would give too much taste, but the result is amazing, thank you!
Awesome! So glad it was great! Thanks so much for the wonderful review.
Full disclosure: I am not a vegan, I am a “close enough” type of measuring gal, I didn’t have a 9×12 dish, regular brown sugar, plain vinegar, strawberry applesauce (my sons fav for lunches), and I ran out of eggs (again sorry) and too lazy to run to the store. I had some apples (not Granny Smiths) that were at the point of no return (use it or lose it), and thought an apple cake sounded like a good idea. Well it would have been if I had eggs, but thank goodness I didn’t!! This recipe was so good, and even though I didn’t have everything 100% it was forgiving. Used extra apples (Waste not want not) as I had about 1/2 cup or so extra, used an 8×8 glass baking dish (cooked for about 10-15 minutes extra until no additional batter on tooth pick), and milk (again sorry, I didn’t have anything else). So although this was not truly a vegan dish it was wonderful super light, fluffy, and delish – and may I add my house smells amazing. So try this recipe it is a keeper!!! Thank you so very much for your wonderful recipe.
Hi Ann-Marie, thanks so much for the awesome comment and review, so happy to hear it was a success! 🙂
Hi, I love all your recipes. Comes out just perfect every time. This time I want to make sugar free. Can I substitute sugar with more applesauce or oil or buttermilk ? How much to add? Thank you in advance.
Hi Vandana, so happy you love the recipes! Thank you! Honestly I’m not sure about that, I have never tried to make this sugar free, but just keep in mind that sugar is not just for sweetness it’s also for texture. You could try extra applesauce and see how that goes! All the best!
I am really pleased with how this cake turned out! I’ve been experimenting with oat flour in many recipes lately so I used oat flour (I ground up equivalent amount of oats for flour needed) in this one too and it turned out great. This cake is super moist and the flavour is amazing…the crunchy cinnamon & sugar topping is so good! It was a definite hit in our house and I will be making this again and again. Thank you!!! 🙂
Thanks for the awesome review Lily!
Yes this recipe works so well. I followed the cake part of it exactly, but sprinkled a hazelnut streusel mix (1/3 cup ap flour, 1/3 cup ground nuts, 2T brown sugar, 2T vegan marge on top before baking as the nuts are seasonal and free to collect where I live! Also used a 8″ diameter/3″ tall spring clip tin which I greased and floured first and the quantity given is perfect. Left the cake to cool in the tin, on a rack.
Wonderful! So happy it was a success! Thanks so much for sharing and the great review.
Lovely vegan apple cake. I make it without the topping and it is lovely, either have it on it’s own or with vegan ice-cream. Delicious!
I love this site too. As a vegan for 19 years now, this is the best recipe site I have come across. So clear, easy to follow recipes. It’s great.
Thanks so much Anita for the lovely comment! Much appreciated! xoxo
I used gluten free four and the batter was quite thick, so much so that I had to mix it with my hand as the spatula was useless. I only used 1/3 of turbinado sugar. The cake came out delicious and perfect sweetness. Would subbing 1/2 cup of GF flour with almond or oat flour work to make the batter less dense or should I use more liquid.
Hi Paula, I would just be very careful with the flour measures and perhaps weigh it out on a food scale. I have never experimented with almond or oat flour in this recipe so I’m not sure about that.
I do a fair amount of vegan baking and this recipe is truly great! I made a few modest changes: mixing my sugars (some light brown, some Demerara, some dark muscovado),adding cardamom, walnuts, and grated fresh zucchini. It rose high and domed and glossy. Both the large muffins and the Bundt cake held together well, with a chewy crust, and the inside was tender and moist. A high recommend and a thank you very much! This one’s a keeper. I think chopped candied ginger would also be a great add-in.
Thanks so much Amy! And your additions sound great!
Recipe came out great! Big hit at our vegan dinner party. We used oatmilk (unsweetened vanilla planet oat) because of a nut/soy allergy – worked perfect. One thing i may do differently is adding the streusel/crumble after 20-30 min of baking. They just sank into the cake and created these craters of (albeit delicious) cinnamon sugar.
Hi Jake, so glad it worked out! Yes you could add the topping later if you prefer. 🙂
I tinkered with this recipe (subbed the applesauce & lemon juice cuz I didn’t want partials laying around) but it turned out soooo good. Next time I’ll drastically cut the sugar (I used sweeter apples so maybe that factored in). I didn’t even put the topping on.
Will definitely be making again. Thanks
Awesome! So glad it was really good! Thanks so much for sharing!