Perfectly moist and utterly delicious vegan pumpkin cake with a cinnamon buttercream frosting. Packed with holiday spices and ideal for any special occasion!
Ooooh this vegan pumpkin cake you guys! Soooo good.
It sort of reminded us of carrot cake. Or a spice cake.
It’s deliciously spiced in the same way that a carrot cake usually is, with the cinnamon and the nutmeg and it’s also sweetened with brown sugar.
This pumpkin cake adds in some ground ginger and cloves too, so it’s really a treat.
So if you like carrot cake, or spice cake, then you’ll love this too!
But try our vegan carrot cake too of course! And our vegan pumpkin cupcakes are based on this recipe and just as good!
How To Make Vegan Pumpkin 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 a mixing bowl and add light brown sugar, white granulated sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground ginger and ground cloves.
- Prepare a flax egg by adding 1 tablespoon of ground flaxseed to a bowl with 3 tablespoons of hot water. Let it sit for a minute to become gloopy.
- Then add the flax egg, pumpkin purée, canola oil, apple cider vinegar and vanilla extract.
- Mix into a thick batter. Don’t overmix.
- Divide the batter evenly between two prepared cake pans (sprayed with non-stick spray and lined with circles of parchment paper on the bottom).
- Place into the oven and 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 before removing them from the cake pans and transferring to a wire cooling rack to cool completely before frosting.
The Frosting
When it came to the frosting, I had a look around the web to see what a good pairing usually is and I saw a lot of recipes using a brown butter frosting.
So, naively I set out to try and make one using vegan butter. And oh my what an utter disaster. You don’t even want to know how badly that turned out.
So it seems browning butter really needs actual butter! Hahaha! Who knew (probably everyone). Apparently it’s the milk proteins in the butter that brown, and there ain’t any of those in the vegan varieties!
So then I decided on a cinnamon buttercream frosting and that was just perfect.
There’s cinnamon and other spices in the pumpkin cake and so the pairing with a cinnamon flavored frosting did the job fabulously well.
And then I sprinkled it with some extra cinnamon and tossed some crushed walnuts on top and the result was utterly divine.
Canned Pumpkin or Fresh?
I searched high and low in our small town for some canned pumpkin because when you’re making pumpkin desserts, canned pumpkin purée is the business!
Sadly though it seems canned pumpkin isn’t a ‘thing’ around here. I guess pumpkin desserts aren’t really a thing around here either. Maybe folks here don’t realize how good they are!
So I had to do things the old fashioned way and make pumpkin purée from scratch! Was pretty easy really, just bought some ready peeled and chopped pumpkin cubes and baked them on a parchment lined baking tray at 350°F (180°C) for 30 minutes. No spices or oils, just plain.
And when baked, you just let it cool and then puree it in a food processor! The baking part gets rid of any excess moisture so you don’t end up with pumpkin puree that is too ‘wet’. But if you do, you can just stand the pumpkin purée in a strainer so any excess water runs off.
So it was really too easy. Probably still better to use canned though if you can get it, saves time!
Storing and Freezing
Keep it covered at room temperature where it will stay fresh for 2-3 days, or keep it covered in the fridge where it will stay fresh for up to a week.
It’s also freezer friendly for up to 3 months.
More Delicious Vegan Cakes
- Vegan Carrot Cake
- Vegan Gingerbread Cake
- Amazing Vegan Chocolate Cake
- Vegan Red Velvet Cake
- Vegan Vanilla Cake
- Vegan Banana Cake
Did you make this recipe? Be sure to leave a comment and rating below!
Vegan Pumpkin Cake
Ingredients
For the Pumpkin Cake:
- 2 cups All Purpose Flour (250g)
- 1 cup Light Brown Sugar (200g)
- ½ cup White Granulated Sugar (100g)
- 1 tsp Baking Soda
- 1 tsp Baking Powder
- ½ tsp Salt
- 2 tsp Cinnamon
- ½ tsp Nutmeg
- ½ tsp Ground Ginger
- ½ tsp Ground Cloves
- 1 Flax Egg 1 Tbsp Ground Flaxseed Meal + 3 Tbsp Hot Water
- 1 ½ cups Pumpkin Purée (337g)
- ¼ cup Canola Oil (60ml) or Vegetable Oil
- 1 Tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
For the Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting:
- ½ cup Vegan Butter (112g)
- 3 ¾ cups Powdered Sugar (450g)
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 2 Tbsp Soy Milk or other non-dairy milk
- 1 tsp Cinnamon
For Decoration:
- Cinnamon
- Crushed Walnuts
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Spray two 7 inch cake pans (*see notes) with non-stick spray and cut out circles of parchment paper line the bottoms.
- Sift the flour into a mixing bowl and add the light brown sugar, white granulated sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves.
- Prepare your flax egg by adding 1 Tbsp ground flaxseed meal to a bowl and then adding in 3 Tbsp of Hot Water and allowing to sit for a minute to become gloopy.
- Add the flax egg, pumpkin purée, oil, vinegar and vanilla to the mixing bowl and mix into a batter. Don't overmix.
- Divide the batter equally between the prepared cake pans.
- Place into the oven and bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cakes comes out clean.
- Transfer to a wire cooling rack and allow to cool completely before frosting.
- Prepare your frosting by adding the vegan butter, powdered sugar, vanilla and soy milk to the bowl of an electric mixer. Starting at slow speed, gradually increase the speed until the frosting is thick and smooth. If your frosting is too thick, add in soy milk a drop at a time until it reaches the right consistency.
- Add the cinnamon last and mix on low until just mixed in.
- When your cakes are completely cooled, frost them and then sprinkle cinnamon and crushed walnuts on top.
Notes
- Measure your flour correctly. Either weigh it out on a food scale for the most accurate results 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.
- Pumpkin purée. I used homemade pumpkin purée. I baked peeled and chopped pumpkin in the oven (plain, no oils or spices) for 30 minutes at 350°F (180°C) until soft and cooked and then pureed it in the food processor. If you do it this way and your purée is a bit ‘wet’ then stand it in a strainer so any excess water can run off.
- Cake Sizes: This cake can be adapted for different cake sizes as follows:
- Three 6-inch round cake pans – bake for 25 minutes.
- Two 8-inch round cake pans – bake for 25-30 minutes.
- One 9-inch round cake pan – bake for 30-35 minutes.
- 9×9 square cake pan – bake for 35 minutes.
- 9×13 sheet cake – bake for 25 minutes.
- Storing and freezing: Keep it covered at room temperature where it will stay fresh for 2-3 days, or keep it covered in the fridge where it will stay fresh for up to a week. It’s also freezer friendly for up to 3 months.
- Nutritional information is for 1 slice of 10 with a generous amount of cinnamon buttercream frosting. It excludes crushed walnuts.
Made recipe as described. I used an 11 x 7 glass pan which was a perfect size for this recipe. Baked up beautifully. Nice fluffy cake with good flavor.
Awesome! Happy to hear it worked out for you Bethany. Thanks for sharing and for your great review!
Do you think the recipe would work using whole wheat flour?
Sure! If the batter seems dry, you can just add more soy milk to loosen it up a bit.
Amazing, perfect, easy to make, it goes quickly.
Awesome! Thanks so much for your great review Chris!
This is an awesome cake. The batter was very thick (I would say stiff!) but turned out beautifully once baked. I wanted a less sweet frosting/buttercream so I only used 2 cups of icing sugar. I also substituted 2 tablespoons of pumpkin puree for the soy milk and used pumpkin spice.
I think next time I make it (and there WILL be a next time!), I’ll use more spice as this is quite subtle.
Glad to hear you enjoyed the recipe Sarah. Thanks for sharing and for your great review!
Hi there! I’m thinking of using Pumpkin Pie Spice blend in lieu of the individual ones. Do you think I should directly sub the spice amounts 1:1? 🙂
Hi Kate. Yes, that would work!
Made this for my own birthday cake and it was incredible!
Awesome! Glad to hear you enjoyed the recipe! Thanks so much for your great review!
Perfect cake – not too moist
Woohoo!!
The cake was delicious. I made it as written with plain vanilla frosting and everyone loved it. Thanks!
Happy to hear you enjoyed the recipe Lisa! Thanks so much for your great review!
My family is addicted to this vegan pumpkin cake and so have made it for every special occasion and holiday since 2020. I’m getting older and perimenopausal and needing to try and minimize my consumption of carbs, so i tried making a special alternative batch of cupcakes for myself by substituting almond flour 1:1 in place of all
Purpose flour, and using a sugar substitute in place of regular sugar. The cupcakes still tasted amazing but the texture was strange and soggy. Might you have any suggestions for a better ratio to use when making these cupcakes, but with almond flour instead of all purpose flour? Thank you so much for your amazing vegan baking recipes!!
Hi Maryam! You can check out our recipe for vegan pumpkin cupcakes. We haven’t tested the recipe with almond flour so I’m not sure if that would work out. If you want to make this recipe gluten free, rather try an all purpose gluten free flour like Bob’s gluten free flour.
Just made this today. Beautifully soft and moist, lovely gingery flavour, not too sweet. Family preferred this without the icing.
Thank you so much for your wonderful review!
Delicious and moist! Love that different pan baking times were mentioned. I opted for a vegan german buttercream since I don’t like how sweet american buttercream is. The cinnamon icing with the pumpkin spice was perfect for thanksgiving <3
So happy to hear you enjoyed the recipe Julia! Thanks so much for your great review!
I’ve baked this cake last year for my own wedding. We wanted something different, and since we eloped, it was just for us. This year, it’ll be our first anniversary and also Thanksgiving, and I’m going to bake it again to share with the rest of the family. It is truly delicious. Thank you so much for this recipe, it’s going to be a staple at our table for every anniversary. ♥️
That’s amazing Jordana! Thanks so much for your lovely words and great review! Happy Anniversary for all of us at Loving it Vegan! 🙂
My friend Sue served the most delicious cake today…so I asked for the recipe and was delighted to discover it is one of Alison’s. Unsurprising in a way, as I rave about these recipes to everyone and I’d told Sue about this site. Thank you for another great recipe, Alison!
Thanks so much for sharing and for your amazing review Beth!
This was a great recipe for me, very quick and easy, and delicious. Thank you for being so accepting of changes to it. I read some of the other comments, made some of my own adjustments, and it turned out more like a pumpkin bread than a cake, which is better for me. I used whole wheat pastry flour, cut the sugar and oil in half, used the applesauce suggestion from another comment instead of the flaxseed egg, plus a little extra applesauce in place of the oil, and baked it in a Bundt pan for 50 minutes. After all that, it came out surprisingly well, was still sweet enough, and pretty moist. I made the frosting according to your recipe, but it didn’t really need frosting. However, if I need to bake a cake for a special occasion, I will definitely try it again, following the original recipe, because I’m sure everyone will love it.
Happy to hear you enjoy the recipe Karen! Thank you so much for your great review!