This vegan Oreo cake looks like a giant Oreo cookie! Oreo cookies are baked into the chocolate cake layers and it has a vanilla center and chocolate frosting.
So this vegan Oreo cake actually looks like a giant Oreo cookie.
Not only is it made with loads of actual Oreo cookies baked into the layers but the cake itself looks like a big Oreo, with white vanilla frosting sitting between two layers of chocolate cake.
It’s loads of fun to make and definitely one you’ll enjoy making for the Oreo lovers in your life.
You’ll also love our vegan Oreo cupcakes, vegan cookies and cream ice cream, vegan Oreo truffles and vegan Oreo milkshake.
How To Make Vegan Oreo 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.
It’s easier than you can imagine. It’s a simple chocolate cake recipe adapted from our easy vegan chocolate cake and our best vegan chocolate cake recipes, with oreos baked into the layers.
To bake the Oreos into the layers, you just line the bottoms of your 9-inch cake pans with Oreo cookies.
Pour in your chocolate cake batter.
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 in the pans for a few minutes and then transfer them to a wire cooling rack to cool completely. See how the Oreos have baked perfectly into those cake layers!
Then you make a simple vegan vanilla frosting for the center and a delicious vegan chocolate buttercream to frost the tops and sides.
When the cakes are cooled, add all the vanilla frosting to the middle.
It will be starting to look just like a giant Oreo.
And then frost the top and sides with the chocolate buttercream.
And of course, you decorate the cake with crushed Oreos.
The Frosting
The vegan chocolate buttercream makes quite a lot, it’s enough to pipe on some extras if you want to do that and frost the top and sides quite liberally.
As you can see in the photos, I added some little piping detail at the base of the cake. So there is enough to do that if you want to.
The vanilla frosting makes enough for a lovely thick layer of creamy white frosting in the center which looks super cute.
If you want to make this vegan Oreo cake even easier and aren’t a massive fan of frosting, you could omit the vanilla frosting center and just use the chocolate buttercream for the whole cake, it would just be a thinner layer of it.
Are Oreos Vegan?
Yes they are. Their ingredient list is vegan. However, they are made in a factory that also processes non-vegan (dairy) items so if you have a serious dairy allergy, probably not for you as the possibility of cross contamination exists.
But this is similar to the possibility of cross contamination if you eat a vegan meal at a non-vegan restaurant. The possibility of cross contamination does not mean that the ingredient is IN the food, it means that if you have a serious life threatening allergy you should probably avoid it.
Read the ingredients list though as they might not be the same in every country.
If you are not an Oreo fan you can use a different kind of vegan sandwich cookie to make this cake.
Storing and Freezing
Keep your leftover cake covered and stored in the fridge for up to 3 days. Usually cakes would last a bit longer in the fridge, but this has to do with the oreo cookies – they’re at their best when consumed within 3 days of making the cake or they can start to get a little soggy. You want that lovely crisp cookie texture contrasting with the moist fluffiness of the chocolate cake.
The frosted cake can be frozen for up to 2 months. Thaw overnight in the fridge and bring to room temperature on the countertop before serving.
Reasons To Love This Vegan Oreo Cake
- It’s like a giant Oreo cookie. It really is. It tastes like it and looks like it too!
- Mega-chocolatey. It’s two layers of decadently delicious chocolate cake with chocolate Oreos baked into it and a frosting of chocolate buttercream. It’s a chocolate lovers dream.
- Perfectly contrasted textures between cake, cookies and frosting. Seriously! You have this wonderfully moist, light, fluffy cake, crisp baked Oreo cookies, creamy vanilla frosting and silky smooth, creamy chocolate buttercream.
- It’s super easy! No really, it is. No fancy ingredients in this, it’s stuff you’ve likely already got in your pantry.
- It’s decadent as all heck! Seriously, you don’t even want to know the nutritional info for this cake. When doing the calculations here I suddenly understood why so many baking bloggers omit this info! But you know it’s going to be just soooo good.
More Vegan Chocolate Cakes
- The Best Vegan Chocolate Cake
- Easy Vegan Chocolate Cake
- Vegan Chocolate Fudge Cake
- Vegan Chocolate Zucchini Cake
- Vegan German Chocolate Cake
- The Most Amazing Vegan Chocolate Cake
Did you make this recipe? Be sure to leave a comment and rating below!
Vegan Oreo Cake
Ingredients
For the Oreo Cookie Layers:
- 42 Oreo Cookies
For the Vegan Chocolate Cake:
- 2 ¼ cups All Purpose Flour (281g)
- ¾ cup Cocoa Powder (63g) Unsweetened
- 1 ½ cups White Granulated Sugar (300g)
- 1 ½ teaspoons Baking Soda
- ¾ teaspoon Salt
- 1 ½ Flax Eggs 1 ½ Tablespoons Ground Flaxseed mixed with 4 ½ Tablespoons Hot Water
- 1 ½ cups Soy Milk (360ml) or other non-dairy milk
- 3 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
- ½ cup Canola Oil (120ml) or Vegetable Oil
- 1 ½ Tablespoons Distilled White Vinegar or Apple Cider Vinegar
For the Vanilla Frosting Center:
- ¼ cup Vegan Butter (56g)
- 2 ½ cups Powdered Sugar (300g)
- 2 Tablespoons Soy Milk or other non-dairy milk
- 2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
For the Vegan Chocolate Buttercream Frosting:
- ¾ cup Vegan Butter (170g)
- 4 cups Powdered Sugar (480g)
- ½ cup Cocoa Powder (42g) Unsweetened
- ¼ cup Soy Milk or other non-dairy milk
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
For Decorating:
- 6 Oreo Cookies Crushed
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).
- Spray two 9-inch cake pans with non-stick spray and line the bottoms with circles of parchment paper.
- Then place Oreo cookies along the bottom of the pans. I used 21 cookies in each pan. Set aside.
- Sift the flour and cocoa powder into a mixing bowl and then add the sugar, baking soda and salt and mix together.
- Prepare your flax egg by mixing 1 ½ Tablespoons ground flaxseed meal with 4 ½ Tablespoons hot water from the kettle and leave it for a minute to become gloopy.
- Add in the soy milk, vanilla, oil, vinegar and flax eggs to the mixing bowl and mix in. Use a hand whisk briefly just to remove any lumps.
- Divide the batter evenly between the cake pans, pouring it over the Oreo cookies at the base of the cake pans and quickly smoothing it down so that it properly covers the Oreo cookies. The layer of batter is quite thin so you want to smooth it out to the edges of the pan so that the Oreos are all covered.
- Bake in the oven 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 and then remove them from the cake pans and place onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely before frosting.
- Prepare your vanilla frosting center by adding the vegan butter, powdered sugar, soy milk and vanilla extract to the bowl of a stand mixer and starting off at slow speed, gradually increase speed until thick and smooth. See my notes below about the soy milk, you might not need all of it, though I used it all. Set aside.
- Prepare your vegan chocolate buttercream frosting. Add the vegan butter, powdered sugar, cocoa powder, soy milk and vanilla to the bowl of the stand mixer and starting at slow speed, gradually increase speed until thick and smooth. See the note about soy milk for the frosting in the notes below, it's possible you may not need to use all the soy milk, though I used the full amount.
- Place one of the cake layers, Oreo cookie side up, on a cake stand. Add all the vanilla frosting and smooth it evenly over the cake into a thick layer.
- Then place the second cake layer, Oreo cookie side down, on top of it. Frost the tops and sides of the cake with the chocolate buttercream. You can put it on thickly and there will still be a little left over for some piping detail if you want to add that.
- Crush up the 6 Oreos and decorate the cake with the cookie crumbles.
Notes
- When adding the soy milk to the frosting recipes, go slow. Some brands of vegan butter have a higher water content than others, it’s possible you may not need to use all the soy milk recommended. This is how much I used but different brands of vegan butter can have differences in their water content.
- Keep your leftover cake covered and stored in the fridge for up to 3 days.
- It can be frozen for up to 2 months, but it’s best when fresh.
- This recipe has been updated, my original recipe did not use parchment paper along the bottoms of the pans, but we re-tested it and found it works great with parchment paper along the bottoms and lets the cakes come out really easily, with no impact on the crispiness of the cookies baked into the cake bases.
Hey Alison, This cake was a charm! Made it for my sons 12th bday and it was finished in no time???? Love this cake!! Thanks, Nithya
LOVE this cake recipe! Do you know how well it freezes/thaws? I’m thinking of making the cake portion (No Oreos) into cupcakes for my allergy kid to be able to take one out as needed for bday parties and such. Thanks!
Hi Janine, just to let you know we do have a separate recipe for oreo cupcakes. If you leave out the oreos then it will definitely freeze very well!
Hi, Alison! Love this recipe but I unfortunately only own 8 inch cake pans. Do you think the recipe will still work if I try to use 8/9 of every ingredient?
Hi Chloe, this should work just fine in 8-inch pans without any changes to the recipe except the number of oreo cookies you can fit in the pan to line the bottom. That will be less, just use as many as can comfortably fit. All the best! 🙂
Hey! For vegan butter can I use homemade almond butter?
Hi there, no that doesn’t work the same way at all. You can use a dairy free margarine, or if you have the ingredients you can make your own homemade vegan butter.
I’ve made this recipe loads of times now, everyone loves it. Just wanted to say thank you!
Awesome! Thanks so much for sharing Michelle!
Is there a replacement I could use for the flax eggs? Perhaps applesauce? Anything / amount you’d recommend?
Hi Kat, sure you can replace them with 5 Tbsp applesauce. 🙂
I love your website and the recipes you have. So easy and basic.
I do have a question though. What did you mean when you said “oreo cookie side up” and “oreo cookie side down”? If it is possible, please do a video that way I can follow it through much better. Thanks!
Hi Kelechi! Thanks so much, so glad you like the recipes! Sorry if that was confusing, there are oreo cookies only on one side of the cake layer. So that’s what I mean. ‘Oreo cookie side up’ means the cake layer should have the side with the cookies on it at the top and ‘oreo cookie side down’ means the cake layer should have the side with the cookies on it facing down. However, this isn’t actually crucial at all to the success of the cake! 🙂
I made this cake for a friend’s birthday and it was fabulous. Now, another friend wants one for a graduation party. However, it will need to be cut up and wrapped up onto paper plates because of social distancing. Any idea how I can make this another way? Do you think I could do two small sheet pans and put the Oreo between the two layers?
Hi Sheryl, so glad to hear it was a success the first time! You could try to make it as sheet cakes, or you could make a single large sheet cake and put the cookies on the bottom of the pan before you add the batter, similar to what we did in our oreo cupcakes.
Thanks for replying. I think I’m going to go with the Oreo cupcakes.
hi, would I be able to use the orgran egg replacer instead ? 🙂
I think so!
what If I want to use a rectangular pan?
Hi Reyna, you can check out our vegan chocolate sheet cake recipe. 🙂
This also works and tastes great using half of the specified amount of icing sugar!
Glad you enjoyed it Charlotte! 🙂
Hi! I’m making this today and I have a question about the frosting. What’s the ideal temperature for the butter (and all the frosting ingredients)? I’ve made lots of cakes and frostings but only once it turned really good and I don’t remember what I did, maybe it was the ingredients I used. Anyways, I really enjoy all of your recipes and can’t waiitttt to eat this cakekk. Thank you^^
I use the vegan butter right out of the fridge. Hope it goes well this time. 🙂
Hey I’m so sorry, I just saw the notification. It was really good thank you lots!!^^
Hi, I’ve only got 8 inch cake tins. Will this be the same temperature and bake time please?
Hi Gemma, yes it will be the same bake time and temp but you would of course use less oreos to line the base of the cake pans. 🙂
Hi, what is your suggestion if I wanted to make this a three tier cake? The recipe sound wonderful by the way, I can’t wait to try!
Hi Rai, well firstly you would need to use more oreos to line the 3 pans instead of 2, but that will be quite easy to figure out, as you just use as many oreos as needed to line the bottoms. I think this would work great for three 8-inch cake pans. If you wanted to make it three 9-inch cake pans then you would need to increase the recipe by half. All the best! 🙂
I want to make this for my daughter. She can eat eggs but no milk. Can I use eggs? Thank you for any advice you can share.
Hi Pat, you would usually be able to use eggs in the same quantity as the vegan substitute, in this case the flax eggs, but in this recipe I’m concerned because we use 1 and 1/2 flax eggs, and I don’t know how easy it is to measure 1 and 1/2 regular eggs! So for this reason, if you can possibly use the flax egg version (if you have flax seeds on hand) then that might be the easier way to go about it. 🙂
Thank you for the quick reply. I have baked cookies and cakes before using one and half eggs…I just crack an egg, stir, and then using my scales I measure out half. I am assuming that flax eggs have a certain volume amount? Could I just make sure I use the same volume of eggs? Perhaps I am over simplifying this? 🙂
Excited to try this recipe!
Hi Pat, that should work just fine then! I don’t think you would need to worry to be more precise than that. All the best! 🙂
This cake is heavenly – my non-vegan niece loves it.
Yay! So happy to hear that Hans! Thanks for the wonderful review. 🙂