Insanely delicious vegan coffee cake. This isn’t just a cake to eat with your coffee, this is a decadent coffee flavored cake!
It was a bit of a surprise to me when I found out that folks in America call something a coffee cake when it’s meant to be eaten alongside your coffee. It doesn’t necessarily have any coffee in it.
Whereas in the UK (and South Africa, where I’m from), a coffee cake is a cake flavored with coffee.
So this vegan coffee cake, is a coffee flavored cake. Just in case you were thinking it’s one of those ‘eat with your coffee’ kind of cakes, not flavored with coffee at all.
This isn’t one of those. But you CAN eat this with your coffee of course and the coffee flavor is just fabulous! If you love cakes then also check out the most amazing vegan chocolate cake and our awesome vegan biscoff cake.
The Coffee Flavor
I was vaguely considering going the route of using filter coffee in this, but decided against it because I’ve tried that before in a cake and the flavor doesn’t come through strongly enough.
So this coffee cake has 3 tablespoons of instant coffee powder, and the flavor is there, it’s sooo there.
And this way you don’t even have to put on a pot of coffee, you just have to spoon it in, it’s too easy.
What You Need For The Cake:
Ingredient Notes
- Instant coffee powder – we used instant espresso powder which worked great but any instant coffee will do perfectly.
- Canola oil – can be replaced with any vegetable oil.
- Apple cider vinegar – can be replaced with distilled white vinegar. This reacts with the baking soda and causes the cake to rise.
- Soy milk – can be switched for any non-dairy milk.
What You Need For The Frosting
Frosting Ingredient Notes
- Vegan butter – ideally choose a vegan butter that is as firm as possible. It can either be sticks or tub-style vegan butter, but the firmer the better. Very soft buttery spreads sometimes don’t work as well in frostings as they tend to be too soft.
- Coffee liqueur – you can use any coffee liqueur. We used kahlua. If you don’t want a boozy frosting then you can replace this with non-dairy milk.
- Instant coffee powder – this can be any instant coffee, we used instant espresso powder.
How To Make Vegan Coffee 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.
- Sift all purpose flour into your mixing bowl and add light brown sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and instant coffee powder. Mix together.
- Add soy milk, vanilla extract, oil and vinegar and mix into a batter. Don’t overmix.
- Divide the batter evenly between two 8-inch cake pans (sprayed with non-stick spray and lined with circles of parchment paper on the bottom).
- Bake at 350°F for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of one of the cakes comes out clean.
- Let the cakes cool for a few minutes before removing them from the cake pans and placing onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely before frosting.
- Add powdered sugar, vegan butter, coffee liqueur, instant coffee powder and vanilla extract to the bowl of your stand mixer and starting at slow speed, gradually increase speed until the frosting is thick and smooth.
- When the cakes have cooled completely, frost them.
- Place the frosted cake into the fridge for an hour for the frosting to set.
Recipe Tips
Measure the flour correctly. Either weigh your flour on a food scale (for complete accuracy) or use the spoon and level method. Spoon the flour into your measuring cup and then level off the top with a knife. Don’t scoop it and don’t pack it into the cup.
Don’t over-mix your batter. Mix the batter until just mixed. Over-mixing the batter can affect the texture and the rise of the cake.
Bake immediately. When the batter is mixed, transfer to your cake pans and bake right away. Don’t let the batter sit for any length of time or it can affect the texture and rise.
Adapt for different cake pans. You can also make this cake in two 9-inch round cake pans. Bake for 25 minutes.
Recipe FAQ
You can switch the regular flour for a gluten-free all purpose baking blend in the same quantity.
This recipe makes 18-24 cupcakes. Or you can check out our vegan coffee cupcakes recipe.
Keep it covered at room temperature where it will stay fresh for 2-3 days or covered in the fridge where it will last for up to a week.
You can freeze the frosted or unfrosted cake for up to 3 months.
More Vegan Cakes
- Easy vegan chocolate cake
- Vegan Vanilla Cake
- Vegan White Cake
- Vegan Lemon Cake
- Vegan Banana Cake
- Vegan Carrot Cake
Did you make this recipe? Be sure to leave a comment and rating below!
Vegan Coffee Cake
Ingredients
- 3 cups All Purpose Flour (375g)
- 1 ½ cups Light Brown Sugar (300g)
- 1 ½ tsp Baking Soda
- 1 tsp Cinnamon
- ¾ tsp Salt
- 3 Tbsp Instant Coffee Powder or Instant Espresso Powder
- 1 ½ cups Soy Milk (360ml) or other non-dairy milk
- 3 tsp Vanilla Extract
- ¾ cup Canola Oil (180ml) or Vegetable Oil
- 1 ½ Tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar
Frosting:
- 4 cups Powdered Sugar (480g)
- ½ cup Vegan Butter (112g)
- ¼ cup Coffee Liqueur (60ml)
- 1 Tbsp Instant Coffee Powder or Instant Espresso Powder
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Spray two 8-inch* cake pans with non-stick spray and line the bottoms with circles of parchment paper.
- Sift all purpose flour into your mixing bowl and add light brown sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and instant coffee powder. Mix together.
- Add soy milk, vanilla extract, oil and vinegar and mix into a batter. Don’t overmix.
- Divide the batter evenly between the two prepared 8-inch cake pans and smooth down.
- Bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of one of the cakes comes out clean.
- Let the cakes cool for a few minutes before removing them from the cake pans and placing onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely before frosting.
- Add powdered sugar, vegan butter, coffee liqueur, instant coffee powder and vanilla extract to the bowl of your stand mixer and starting at slow speed, gradually increase speed until the frosting is thick and smooth.
- When the cakes have cooled completely, frost them and then place the frosted cake into the fridge for an hour for the frosting to set.
Notes
- Measure the flour correctly. Either weigh your flour on a food scale (for complete accuracy) or use the spoon and level method. Spoon the flour into your measuring cup and then level off the top with a knife. Don’t scoop it and don’t pack it into the cup.
- 9-inch cake pans: You can also make this cake in two 9-inch round cake pans. Bake for 25 minutes.
- Coffee Liqueur: You can use any coffee liqueur. We used kahlua. If you don’t want a boozy frosting though you can replace this with non-dairy milk.
- Gluten-Free: You can switch the regular flour for a gluten-free all purpose baking blend in the same quantity.
- Cupcakes: This recipe makes 18-24 cupcakes.
- Storing: Keep it covered at room temperature where it will stay fresh for 2-3 days or covered in the fridge where it will last for up to a week.
- Freezing: You can freeze the frosted or unfrosted cake for up to 3 months.
- This recipe was first published in November 2017. It has been updated with new photos and the recipe itself has been increased to fit larger cake pans and adjusted for simplicity.
Sooo tasty and easy to make. Moist and flavoursome!
This cake turned out amazing! My non vegan friends couldn’t believe it was vegan. It was moist, not dry and crumbly like a lot of vegan cakes. Just the perfect coffee flavor. The frosting was a perfect complement, although I left out the liquer.
Thanks so much Kaizeen! So happy you loved it!
I made the cake, no problem, but when i took out out the pans and left it on the wire rack to cool, it broke apart. Just cracked into a few big pieces. So frustrating! What went wrong?
Hi Annelie, I’m not sure what went wrong. Did you make any substitutions of ingredients?
I made this cake for my colleagues and it was simply amazing! Everybody loved it, it is super easy to do and the result is incredible! Thank you for this wonderful recipe!
Thanks so much Cannelle!
So YUMMY. Thanks Alison.
Awesome! You’re very welcome Susan!
I made this cake for my husband on Fathers Day he, myself and the kids loved it. I think next time I would like to substitute some of the almond/coconut milk with more of the Coffee liqueur inside the cake for a bolder taste.
As usual, I did cut back significantly on the sugar
Awesome Fiona! Thanks for the wonderful review! Just a note though that I have tried putting the liqueur in the cake and it made the cake crumbly, the alcohol can affect the structure of it.
Thanks for this fantastic recipe! Was a hit. I made a gluten free version and for the flour I used half cassava flour and half oat flour. I make the oat flour myself by blending oats in my nutribullet. Texture of the cake was great. I also subbed the light brown sugar with coconut sugar as that’s what I had available. I think it would be sweeter if I’d used the light brown sugar instead of coconut sugar, but the cake was perfect for our taste, and also the sweet frosting combined with the cake worked great. I also used home made cashew milk as that’s the only vegan milk available where I live! (This is basically a handful of cashews plus water blended up in a nutribullet, no straining involved) I’ll be making this again! Thank you! I want to try your tiramisu and mozzarella recipes next!
Awesome! So glad it was a success Mo! Thanks so much for the wonderful review!
Made this recipe in a 9×13” pan and halved the icing recipe since we aren’t the biggest icing fans and it worked great! I think some people may want to adjust the amount of instant coffee powder/ espresso powder they add based on its specific strength. We had a fancier coffee powder and the coffee flavor was a little intense but still worked great.
How would you adjust ingredient quantities for (2) 7” cake pans? I wanted to try making a smaller round cake!
Hi Jay! Thanks so much for sharing! You could halve the recipe for a two layer 7-inch cake. Bake for around 25 minutes. All the best! 🙂
Just made this and it’s insanely delicious! I used unsweetened cashew milk and 2 shots of Nespresso coffee. Made them into 11 mini loaves. Didn’t make the frosting just dusted some icing sugar. Divine!
Awesome! So glad you enjoyed it! 🙂
Can you use a sheet cake pan?
Hi Kathy, yes you can. For a 9×13 sheet cake, bake time will be in the region of 35 minutes.
Can you also add liquor to the cake mixture as well as the icing
Hi Chantelle, I haven’t had success doing that myself, what usually happens is the alcohol affects the structure of the cake and it’s super crumbly. I haven’t found a way to make that work yet.
Thank you for getting back to me
Can I add walnuts into the batter before baking? And could I bake it in a 2lb loaf tin and for how long? Thanks!
Hi Emma, walnuts (up to 1 cup, chopped) should be fine! But I don’t know about the loaf pan, it may take a long time to bake and then you may end up with undercooked middle and overcooked outside. I can’t advise on the exact time since I haven’t made it in a loaf pan, but I would estimate at least 50 minutes but maybe longer. And if it starts to really over-brown on top you may need to tent it with foil.
Alison, Thank you for sharing such a nice recipe. My husband is vegan…So I always make vegan cake. In your recipe you have said to add soy milk…Instead of that I used water. It turned out very nice. Texture was also good.
So glad it was a success! Thanks for the great review!
Without question the best vegan cake I have ever made! Sometimes vegan cakes can have a slightly chewy texture but not this one. Light, fluffy and delicious!
Awesome! Thanks a million Lynette!
Hi there Alison
Can I use Japanese CAKE FLOUR instead of all purpose flour?
If so, how do I adjust the amount of baking Soda?
Thank you !
Hi Elison, honestly I don’t know! It may be fine, but if it’s crumbly, then it will be the flour that is to blame. I would keep the baking soda and everything else exactly the same.