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.
Hi, this looks amazing and I’d love to make it soon. But I just wanted to clarify do you weigh or measure the pumpkin pieces before you bakedand purée them? To get the correct measurement. Thank you.
Hi Kris, the measurement in the recipe card is for the puréed pumpkin (already cooked and puréed). To make sure you have enough when making it from scratch, I would bake around 2 1/2 pounds peeled and cubed pumpkin. Then purée it and measure it for this recipe. You will probably have some leftover but better to have a bit too much rather than too little.
This cake is bomb!!! I’ve made twice in a week and the second one I made in a Bundt pan which was perfect then made a maple butter glaze to top 👌🏼. Thanks for the delicious recipe
So glad you loved it Cindy! Thanks for the awesome review!
Plan to make this cake for a vegan group birthday gathering I do not have any vegetable oil, are there any substitutions?
You could use any neutral flavored oil or even melted coconut oil.
I have a question. Step 1 says to spray two 7″ pans but in the Notes section under Cake Sizes, it says two 8″ pans and 7″ pans aren’t listed at all. Is everything supposed to be 8″ or 7″? Thanks! The recipe sounds delicious and I look forward to making it.
Hi Ines, the notes section is just advising on additional cake pan sizes that the recipe can adapt to. Our photos show the cake made in 7-inch cake pans. But since that is not a super common cake pan size, the additional cake pan sizes are also listed.
I’ve made this cake so many times, love it!
Thanks so much Chantelle!
I’m out of ACV, do you think white vinegar or lemon juice would work in its place?
Distilled white vinegar is perfect! Lemon juice also works.
I made this last week, substituting the flax egg with apple sauce ( because I had some to use up ). Absolutely delicious! Just about to attempt a cupcake version. Can’t imagine they’ll be anything other than amazeballs!
That’s wonderful Susan! Thanks so much for the awesome review!
Hello. This cake sounds really good. I am wanting to use fresh pumpkin as well and see your comment says to strain it so it’s not too wet. Do you let it sit in the strainer when it’s still in chunks, I assume? Also, about how soft should it be to know it is baked enough and how long to let it strain as well? Thanks
Hi Carol, I purée the cooked pumpkin and then let the cooked puréed pumpkin sit in the strainer. Around 30 minutes should be plenty, you’ll see if there is much drip off, usually there won’t be much. And it should just be fork tender when it’s baked. All the best! 🙂
12 years of vegan baking and this is the best cake I’ve made by far. I’d run out of clove so doubled up on the other spices. Its still just as moist the day after. This will be my go to recipe from now on, thank you for sharing it xx
Thanks so much Danielle! So happy to hear that!
I made this recipe a couple of days ago as cupcakes and they are amazing. I left out the ground cloves and increased the ginger as we are not big cloves fans and as I didn’t have any flax seed to make the ‘egg’, I used Orgran egg replacer, using an extra tablespoon of water than the egg replacer recipe mentioned (as this was the amount of liquid in your recipe). Totally yummy, a wonderful texture and so easy to make. Gone down a storm here in the UK:) Thank you for a great recipe.
Wonderful! So glad it was a success! Thanks so much for sharing.
This looks perfect for bringing to family gatherings! I think I’ll make one for my whole family this Thanksgiving 🙂
My husband and I love this recipe! We make it every year for Thanksgiving and Christmas. It’s easy to make and so delicious. We love the texture of the cake and the frosting is outstanding! Anyone who thinks a vegan recipe can’t be delicious needs to try this one!
Thanks so much Carole!
Best Cake ever❤️ so delicious!!
Yay! Thanks so much!
Dear Allison,
I made the cake but since I am vegan and gluten free, I used all purpose gluten free flour. The cake itself tasted very good but it was so dry, I had to wash it down with water. Could the dryness be from the gluten free flour and if so, how can I make improvements in the recipe to make it moist? I followed your exact recipe (did add a handful of raisins). The buttercream icing was to die for (used vegan butter). I used a single layer 9” cake pan which was the perfect size for the cake recipe. My husband said the cake decor was beautiful with the chopped walnuts and sprinkled cinnamon. Please help me as I really would like to make this cake again. Love your site, it’s so inspirational!
Hi Patricia, yes this can happen with gluten-free flours as they tend to absorb more moisture than wheat flour. Firstly, make sure you measure it correctly, use the spoon and level method (spoon into measuring cup and then level off the top with a knife, don’t scoop it and don’t pack it into the cup) or weigh it on a food scale if you have one. If you didn’t measure the flour properly before then this will go a long way towards helping, but you may also need to slightly increase the oil, I would start slow with just a couple extra tablespoons and up to 1/4 cup extra oil (but only if necessary).
I make this recipe into cupcakes instead of a cake and it works wonderfully. An amazing recipe!
Wonderful! Thanks so much Cody!
Tried this cake without the frosting. It was AMAZING. We loved it and our neighbors too. Its a keeper. Thank you so much for a fool proof recipe.
Awesome! Thanks Sheetu!
We’ve got an influx of pumpkin puree in the freezer so I’ve been making pumpkin everything recently…. The first time I made it I liked it quite a lot but my mum liked it but wasn’t the biggest fan of the spice mix (but my stepdad was!), so that’s all down to personal taste. I’d also definitely taken it out of the oven too soon (my bad!), so that wouldn’t have helped!
The second time I made it, I used the spices from the Loving It Vegan carrot cake recipe, and because I like these kinds of cakes to feel “crammed” I added cranberries and walnuts to the cake itself (and I, err, cooked it properly). It was a winner all round! Having now made the pumpkin spice mix for the pumpkin muffins from this site that I made today, I think I’ll definitely try the pumpkin spice mix in it next time I make this cake. Thank you for your, as always, fabulous recipes!
Hi Lily! So happy to hear it was a success, thanks so much for sharing and the wonderful review!