Red Velvet Cake is not just cake dyed red. It’s a lot more than that.
It’s a mix of subtle flavors: vanilla, chocolate, buttermilk. All these flavors are represented gorgeously, and subtly.
It’s like you can’t quite put your finger on it, is that vanilla I’m tasting? Oh wait no, it’s chocolate.
Paired with lemon buttercream frosting and some maraschino cherries this is a cake to remember!
Perfectly smooth, moist, dreamy and decadent, not to mention absolutely gorgeous with that glorious red color.
A note about the color. I used red food dye.
McCormick’s Red Food Color has been confirmed to me to be vegan (I contacted them directly). So that’s likely a good one to use and available on Amazon.
Foster Clark is another good one to use if you’re in the UK or somewhere else where it is a commonly sold brand. But from my research it seems that most red food dye is vegan these days. The non-vegan ingredients – cochineal or carmine – are not usually seen anymore.
I did try using beet juice to dye previous versions of this cake, and…. I did not manage to make that work – to put it nicely. 
It was the grossest cake I have ever made and the whole thing went straight into trash, to put it more bluntly. 
First off – it wasn’t moist, it was wet. And it tasted like beets! Yum! Hahaha!
All that and the red color did not hold.
The chemical reactions that take place while baking stripped that red color right out of it and it was a not terribly appealing shade of reddish brown. But way more brown than red.
I’ve heard of beets being used successfully but it might be out of my purview, so red food dye it is!
Red food dye enabled this cake to come out beautifully, with the color holding absolutely perfectly.
This cake is ideal for birthdays or other special occasions and it definitely stands out from the crowd.
You will love this cake for its smoothness, richness, moistness, vibrant color, subtle flavors, hints of vanilla, hints of chocolate, hints of buttercream and lemony creamy frosting.
And if you love red velvet then check out our vegan red velvet cupcakes. Our midnight blue velvet cupcakes are something special too!
So for all the reasons mentioned above, you’re definitely going to love this vegan red velvet cake. But if you’re still not convinced, let’s recap, this cake is:
- Moist
- Beautifully red
- Spongey
- Frosted with Lemon Buttercream
- A deliciously subtle blend of flavors
Keep covered at room temperature where it will stay fresh for a few days or keep it covered in the fridge where it will stay good for up to a week!
So go on and make this gorgeous vegan red velvet cake!
And let us know how it goes by rating the recipe and leaving a comment. But hey do that anyway, we love to hear from you!
And you’re definitely going to want to show off your creation, so take a photo and tag it #lovingitvegan on Instagram so we can go nuts over your gorgeous cake. 🙂
For more glorious vegan cake recipes, check out:
- Vegan Blue Velvet Cake
- Vegan Banana Cake
- Vegan Carrot Cake
- Vegan Vanilla Cake
- Vegan Chocolate Cake
- Vegan Key Lime Cake
- Vegan Chocolate Sheet Cake
And if you lean more towards the gluten-free, then don’t miss our gluten-free chocolate cake with ganache frosting!
Sign up to our email list for a gorgeous 10-recipe (free) ebook, and to stay updated with all our latest recipe postings (including lots of cakes!)
Vegan Red Velvet Cake
-
Prep Time: 15 mins - Cook Time: 30 mins
- Total Time: 45 mins
-
Yield: 10 -
Category: Dessert, Cake, Baking -
Cuisine: Vegan
Print Recipe
Pin RecipeDescription
Rich, moist and smooth vegan red velvet cake topped with lemon buttercream frosting and maraschino cherries. Two gorgeous layers of fluffy, gloriously vibrant red cake, ideal for birthdays or other special occasions.
Ingredients
For the Red Velvet Cake:
- 2 cups (250g) All-Purpose Flour
- 1 cup (200g) Sugar
- 1 tsp Baking Soda
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1 Tbsp Cocoa Powder (unsweetened)
- 1 cup (240ml) Vegan Homemade Buttermilk
- 2 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1/3 cup (80ml) Olive Oil
- 1 Tbsp White Vinegar (or Apple Cider Vinegar)
- 1 fl oz (28ml) Vegan Red Food Dye
For the Frosting:
- 3 and 3/4 Cups (450g) Powdered Sugar
- 3 Tbsp (45g) Vegan Butter
- Juice of one lemon
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
For Decoration:
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit (180 degrees celsius).
- Sift the flour into a mixing bowl.
- Add the sugar, baking soda, salt and cocoa powder.
- To make the vegan buttermilk, squeeze half a lemon into a measuring jug and add soy milk up to the 1 cup line. Leave to sit for a minute, it will curdle into buttermilk.
- Add the buttermilk, vanilla extract, olive oil, vinegar and red food dye into the mixing bowl and mix in.
- Use a hand whisk to get rid of any lumps.
- Grease two 7 inch round cake tins with coconut oil and then cut circles of parchment paper to line the bottoms and divide the batter evenly between them.
- Place into the oven and bake for 30 minutes.
- After 30 minutes, insert a toothpick into the center of the cake and if it comes out clean, it is cooked.
- Place the cakes onto a cooling rack and allow to cool completely before frosting.
- While the cakes are cooling, add the powdered sugar, vegan butter and vanilla to an electric mixing bowl and squeeze in the whole lemon.
- Start off at slow speed and gradually increase speed until the frosting is thick and smooth.
- It should be thick enough that it doesn’t slide off the cake, but not so thick that you can’t easily spread it. If the frosting is too thick, add a tbsp of soy milk. If it is too thin, add more powdered sugar until you reach the right consistency.
- Spread frosting over the top of one of the cake layers. Add the other layer on top and frost the top and sides.
- Add cherries to decorate.
Notes
*My cake tins are 7 inches round. If you want to double this recipe just bear in mind that results are variable, it can be tricky to double a recipe and it doesn’t always come out right.
*Always weigh your flour for the most accurate results.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 Serve (of 10)
- Calories: 450
- Sugar: 65g
- Sodium: 287mg
- Fat: 11g
- Saturated Fat: 1.6g
- Carbohydrates: 86g
- Fiber: 1g
- Protein: 3.5g
Keywords: vegan red velvet cake
Hey Alison.
I just made the cake. The frosting turned out very dry and thick. Also the taste is very sweet and sour. What can I do for the frosting?
Thank you.
Maybe your lemon wasn’t good. You can add more vegan butter and/or some non-dairy milk to thin out your frosting.
I am so glad I came across this recipe and your wonderful website! This was the first vegan cake I baked and it was so easy! The birthday boy(my 7 year old) said it was the best cake ever 😀
I baked it in square tin pans as I was aiming for a soccer field and it worked wonderfully. The icing on the cake was perfect too!
Lovely! Thanks so much for posting!
Beet powder will impart a red color without the moist rooty taste of the beet juice. Raspberry powder is also an option. And there are companies that make maraschino cherries without red40. Once I started eating more healthfully, I came to appreciate the natural colors and the real foods that they represented. The “duller” natural colors are in contrast to the synthetic colors that were normalized to me growing up. The recipe looks amazing, though! Looking forward to trying it. Thank you for sharing!
Sure, these are all good options, thanks for sharing!
Very nice recipe you have here. The cake turned out real nice and moist. I didn’t have enough natural red food coloring, so the color didn’t hold. Next time I’ll make sure to have plenty coloring before I start.
What brought me here was your recipe for vegan buttermilk. I needed that for my sourdough pancakes since going vegan. So, the pancakes came out extremely well for breakfast and the red velvet cake for the evening. Busy day in the kitchen. Many thanks.
★★★★
Sounds like a great day in the kitchen! Thanks for sharing Dana! 🙂
Have you tried this recipe using blue food coloring? If so, would you recommend any changes? I need to make a vegan cake with 3 different shades of blue. Your cake looks amazing : 0 ) Thanks so much
Hi Gina! Yes I have! And it comes out great! I have made a blue velvet cake and blue velvet cupcakes. 😊
Hi! Can I use oat flour or whole meal? I don’t have regular flour.
I really don’t think so, sorry!
Today I made the cake for my boyfriends birthday and he loved it! It didn’t turn out as red as yours but that was probably because I used whole grain spelt flour and some beetroot juice as colorant. The substitute for all purpose flour worked perfectly, it was definitely moist enough. Also replaced the oil for apple sauce, that worked out great. And as for the taste, I have no idea what it is supposed to taste like because I have never had red velvet cake but I also loved it.
Thanks Laura, great to hear about your adjustments and that it came out well!
Cake looks amazing ….Just a note, that not ALL Maraschino Cherries are vegan!
Yes, you can definitely omit this from the cake if you don’t find a vegan option.
Hi, thanks for this; I just made it for valentine’s day in a heart shaped pan. It’s in the oven and looks fabulous!!! I used almond milk instead of soy. Also, I didn’t have quite enough icing sugar so I added vegan vanilla protein powder – ha ha (I love experimentation!). I just poured all the batter into my one heart pan and so am cooking it a little longer.
★★★★★
Wonderful! Hope it comes out fabulously! Thanks for sharing! 🙂
Hi Alison! I came across your recipe and was wondering whether you could suggest an alternative to the all purpose flour and white sugar.
I was thinking of using either spelt or gluten free flour but was wondering whether that would change the consistency much?
Furthermore would you recommend cane sugar or coconut sugar? Have u had any experience?
Thanks so much in advance.
Hi Victoria, I haven’t tried making this cake gluten-free so not exactly sure, but I did do a gluten-free chocolate cake where I discussed the changes that often need to happen in adapting a cake, so there is likely helpful info there. As far as the sugar is concerned, any granulated sugar, such as coconut would be totally fine in this and interchangeable. All the best!
I am planning on making this cake for my hubby’s bday tomorrow. I only have extra virgin olive oil at the house, wouldn’t that give it a strong olive oil taste? I read in the comments that someone replaced the oil with apple sauce. Maybe that’s a good alternative? Or even vegan butter?
Thank you!!
Extra virgin is the one I use, I like using a high quality oil so that’s what I use! I have never noticed a taste from it at all. And no one who has eaten my cakes has ever had anything but the highest praise. Using something like applesauce or vegan butter may work, but it’s riskier to do that as a straight swap when you haven’t tested it out first to see how it will work out.
I tried it with apple sauce (1/3 cup) and it turned out great! Yes, it was slightly less flat than in your picture but that’s totally fine. No big difference.
Cake was super yummy and so was the frosting. I put the leftovers into the fridge overnight and I think it might even taste better today. Thanks for a fantastic recipe!!
★★★★★
Awesome! Thanks so much for letting us know! So glad it worked out great! 🙂
I made this cake for my sons bday and this recipe won us over! I 1 1/2 the recipe since my pans are 8in and I also used almond milk with white vinegar for the buttermilk. This cake was more moist than the vegan cake I bought from an upscale bakery for my husbands bday. Thanks for this wonderful recipe, and I can’t wait to try your other ones. Also, I purchased a cookbook that has about 20 cupcake recipes, and they’re so complicated with hard to find ingredients, and yours was so easy and turned out great! Thanks again!
★★★★★
That’s so awesome Hope! So happy to hear! Thanks so much for posting! 🙂
Hi alison,
Would you mind describing how you upped the recipe to fit this cake for 8 inch pans? I would appreciate it! Thank you!
Hi Krishna, increasing the recipe by 1/2 would make it perfect for 8 inch. Just get out the calculator and be very precise with your measurements and it should go perfectly. 🙂
I baked it in a cake mould a little bit longer than indicated even though Once the cake was in the oven and I was cleaning all the dishes I realised that I totally forgot the oil. So I made an oil free cake (and I also omitted the red food coloring). It was a bit chewy but It didn’t seem to bother my colleagues who eat it all.
★★★★★
Oh hahaha, I can imagine it was quite chewy without the oil but I’m glad it was still enjoyed by your colleagues! Thanks for posting! 🙂
Hey Alison,
tried this recipe yesterday for my dear mil’s bday. It came out so good ( i shd say finger licking good). Everyone absolutely loved it. This recipe is a keeper.
★★★★★
Wonderful to hear it was a success and everyone loved it! Thanks for sharing! 🙂
I’m really interested in making this for my friends birthday but i would love to do black icing, do you know any black vegan food dyes?
Hi Megan, I contacted McCormick’s who confirmed that their food colors are vegan and they do have a black food color available on amazon so I would try that!
Can this cake be covered in fondant? As the frosting looks a bit runny.
★★★★★
Hi there! I have never used fondant so don’t have any fondant experience but I don’t see why not! 🙂
The cake looks amazing! I want to try it for my 3 year old’s birthday. This might be silly question but can the icing be piped in different colours & designs?
Thanks in advance
Hi Shreya, yes it can! You might want to take a look at my vegan funfetti cake. I am not any kind of cake decorator, but did pipe some different colors around the edges of that cake. You could do something similar with this frosting too.
Ooh perfect, just what I needed! Thank you!
Hi Alison. Tried your recipe. The cake is fabulous!! Thank you for sharing. I would apprecaite your advice on how to scale this recipe up for a 9in 2 layer cake.
I would double this recipe for 9″. Just be super careful with your calculations and it should be perfect.
This cake is incredible!! I made it for my boyfriends family of hunters (we are obviously non-vegans, just extremely healthy), and they like it, so that was all the approval I needed!
I used organic ingredients and doubled the recipe for two 9″ pans and it was perfect. The batter was VERY thick before I baked it, I’m not sure if I did something wrong or if is supposed to be that way, and I had to cook it a little longer than the recipe says but it ended up turning out wonderfully! Perfect texture and taste. I used coconut oil for this, and for an icing recipe (because I had no vegan butter). I used beet juice to try and colour the cake, but it turned out brown, probably because I also used cane sugar in place of white? Doesn’t matter though, it was delicious!! When it was cut up I quickly grabbed the first piece to make sure it was okay and I was SO impressed! Thank you for posting this recipe!!
Hi Courtney, so glad everyone liked the cake! I talked about that in the post, I had previously tried a version with beet juice and it also came out brown, which is why regular food dye is my only actual recommendation to get a red cake. 🙂