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a three tier cake with icing
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4.91 from 11 votes

Vegan Vanilla Cake

This is the best Vegan Vanilla Cake recipe you'll try! It's perfectly moist, made with easy-to-find ingredients, and topped with a simple buttercream frosting. It'll quickly become your go-to vegan birthday cake!
Prep Time20 minutes
Cook Time40 minutes
Total Time1 hour
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Diet: Vegan, Vegetarian
Keyword: cake, vanilla cake, vegan vanilla cake
Servings: 10
Calories: 512kcal
Author: Erin

Ingredients

For the icing:

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 350°. Line three 6" or 1 9" round cake pan with parchment paper, and grease the whole pan with coconut oil; set aside.
  • Whisk the melted butter, milk, applesauce, vanilla, and apple cider vinegar together.
  • In a separate bowl, stir the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together.
  • Combine wet and dry ingredients and stir until everything is mixed together (I used a hand mixer to do this).
  • Pour the batter evenly into your prepared cake pans, banging them on the countertop a few times so the batter evens out.
  • Bake cakes for 35-40 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
  • Once cakes are done, leave them in the pans for 10 minutes before carefully inverting them onto a cooling rack. Wait until cakes are completely cool before icing them.

for the icing:

  • Cream powdered sugar and butter together; add the milk and vanilla and mix together with an electric mixer until the buttercream is smooth.

to assemble:

  • Once the cakes have cooled to room temperature, carefully remove the "dome" from each cake so that the tops of the cakes are flat. Next, ice the top of one of those cakes using a generous amount of icing and then place a second cake overtop, using the icing as glue to hold them together. Repeat this again for the third and final layer. Last, ice the top and sides of the cake.
  • Add sprinkles, slice and enjoy!

Video

Notes

*Calories are per serving and are an estimation
*Want to make chai spice icing instead? Follow the same icing recipe as above, but add ¼ teaspoon cinnamon, ¼ teaspoon ginger, and a pinch of cloves, allspice and cardamom as well -- trust me, it's delicious! 

Nutrition

Calories: 512kcal | Carbohydrates: 92g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 15g | Saturated Fat: 3g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 5g | Monounsaturated Fat: 7g | Trans Fat: 3g | Sodium: 369mg | Potassium: 50mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 67g | Vitamin A: 4IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 104mg | Iron: 2mg