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!
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Vegan Red Velvet Cake
- Prep Time: 15 mins
- Cook Time: 30 mins
- Total Time: 45 mins
- Yield: 10
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) White 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) Extra Virgin Olive Oil*
- 1 Tbsp White Vinegar*
- 3 Tbsp Vegan Red Food Dye
For the Frosting:
- 3 and 3/4 Cups (450g) Powdered Sugar
- 3 Tbsp (45g) Vegan Butter
- 4 Tbsp Lemon Juice
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
For Decoration:
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Spray 2 7-inch cake pans with non-stick spray and line the bottoms with parchment paper. Set aside.
- Sift the flour into a mixing bowl.
- Add the sugar, baking soda, salt and cocoa powder.
- To make the vegan buttermilk, add 1 Tbsp lemon juice to a measuring jug and then add soy milk up to the 1 cup (240ml) line. Leave to sit for a minute, it will curdle into buttermilk.
- Add the buttermilk, vanilla, oil, vinegar and red food dye into the mixing bowl and mix in.
- Use a hand whisk briefly to get rid of any large lumps.
- Divide the cake batter evenly between the two cake pans.
- Place into the oven and bake for 30 minutes.
- After 30 minutes, insert a toothpick into the center of one of the cake layers and if it comes out clean, it is cooked.
- Transfer the cakes to a wire cooling rack and allow to cool completely before frosting.
- While the cakes are cooling, add the powdered sugar, vegan butter, lemon juice and vanilla to an electric mixing bowl and starting at slow speed 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 little more lemon juice. 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.
*Always weigh your flour for the most accurate results.
*You can use a different oil such as canola oil if you prefer.
*Apple cider vinegar can be used instead of white vinegar.
- Category: Dessert, Baking
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: Vegan
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
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. 🙂
How would I adjust this recipe for 2 6inch round cake pans? Also, what size tbsp do you use as I know here in australia ours are 20ml. Thanks 🙂
Hi Lauren, I think it would be fine with no adjustments, the layers will just be thicker and it will be a taller cake, which will actually be great! I use American measures so a tablespoon is 15ml, tsp is 5ml. 🙂
Just made this yesterday, and it turned out great. I thought the lemon frosting might be slightly too lemony, but it’s not and actually complements the sweet, moist cake layers fairly well. I made one small substitution, though, using (real aged) balsamic vinegar instead of regular vinegar.
★★★★★
Thanks for sharing! Glad to hear it worked with balsamic vinegar as well. 🙂
Hi Alison,this cake looks amazing! I recently started a vegan diet because I have high cholesterol and would love to make this for my birthday next month. I noticed you didn’t include a flax egg. Does the cake not need it for structure ?
Hi Vanessa, it doesn’t need it for structure no, I have quite a few cakes that don’t use a flax egg. 🙂 Congratulations on starting a vegan diet, hope you’ll have great success with it (and lots of fun!). Thanks for posting. 🙂
Hi, I am thinking about giving this a try next weekend but will be baking with 6-inch baking tins. Do you know if I would have to change the oven temperature or baking time?
Thanks x
Hi Emma, it will be fine, the layers will just be thicker. No changes needed. 🙂
very tasty but i needed to bake the cake for longer x
★★★★
If I had to pick just one red velvet cake recipe to use forever, this would be the winner!
★★★★★
Fantastic! Thanks so much! 😁
Sadly quite a few supermarket brands for red food colouring are non vegan here in the UK such as Dr Oetker, Aldi own brand and possibly others. I get mine online from Ebay or Amazon. Rainbow dust is the company and their Ruby red is absolutely gorgeous in a red velvet!
Hi Myra, thanks for sharing your favorite brand, I’m sure that will be very helpful to others. A UK brand that I’ve used is Foster Clark (they have confirmed to me that their red color is vegan) and that also turned out great.
Also one more thing to be aware for all UK readers, make sure to buy “natural cacao”. Cacao powder over here is usually alkalized (unlike in the US) resulting in a much darker and richer colour which isn’t what you want in a red velvet cake. Usually found in the baking aisle of bigger supermarkets.
Caution: Do *NOT* use gluten free 1-1 flour! I made this for a friend’s birthday that needed to be gluten free and vegan. It looked wonderful in the pans when I removed them from the oven, and when I took them out, they all but crumbled. I tried to put them back together but sadly it just made a mess.
I admit that it’s my mistake (didn’t know it would happen that badly) but it was still delicious!
★★★★
Hey Alison,
The recipe looks great and i’m definitely going to try it!
Is there a good alternative for the Maraschino Cherries? can i use fresh cherries?
Thanks!
Hi Raz, sure, you can use any cherries or you can leave them off as well if you prefer. 🙂
This cake is fabulous! Moist and delicious!
I had to add a little more lemon juice to the frosting but it’s really good!
If I could give this 10 stars I would!!
Thanks for sharing!!!
★★★★★
Wonderful! So happy to hear that. Thank you so much Vivian! 🙂
Hi so I just tried this recipe which tastes really good however my cake did not come as fluffy as yours, what do you think my mistake was ?
Hi Danielle, so glad to hear it tasted good! I am not sure what might’ve happened, do you mean it was a bit dense?
Yes, it was quite dense rather than a soft type of centre. Could it be that I didn’t mix it enough ?
The most likely thing would be accidentally using too much flour. Do you have a food scale? If you can weigh the flour that should help a lot. If you already weighed the flour and know you used the right amount, then it could be a case of over-mixing. You have to mix it just ‘enough’ that everything is properly combined, but if you mix it too much, that can also result in a cake that is a little dense. Hope this helps! All the best! xo