One Bowl Easy Vegan Chocolate Zucchini Cake
This fudgy and ultra moist vegan chocolate zucchini cake is made in just one bowl and can be baked as either a sheet cake or layer cake. Topped with a rich dairy free chocolate sour cream frosting, this easy vegan cake is the best way to use up your zucchini!
If you’re looking for a good vegan cake recipe to use up your summer zucchini, then you must try this decadent vegan chocolate zucchini cake. It’s like my vegan chocolate cake, but only more moist and chocolatey!
This chocolate zucchini cake recipe is also just one bowl, making it the easiest of summer cakes to make for a barbecue or summer party (just like my chocolate zucchini bread studded with chocolate chips that tastes just like cake- just in loaf form! You can even bake it into muffins or cupcakes instead!).
And trust me, you won’t even be able to detect any hidden vegetables in this cake.
Make this zucchini cake gluten free as needed to make it even more suitable for all eaters!
Ingredients Overview:
Let’s go over the ingredients you’ll need for this vegan chocolate zucchini cake recipe:
- Shredded zucchini: You can also use grated zucchini.
- All purpose flour: You can also swap in gluten free 1:1 baking flour, such as Bob’s Red Mill in the blue bag. Please use the cup measurements, however, as that will be most accurate. Bob’s Red Mill is my preferred gluten-free flour blend. I DO NOT recommend using the Namaste flour blend.
- Dutch-process cocoa powder: I like dutch-process cocoa powder for cakes over all other cocoa powders. It will also help our cakes to rise a bit better.
- Dairy free yogurt: You can also swap in applesauce or pumpkin puree instead. This is my all time favorite vegan egg replacement to use in baking cakes, however. It’s so lovely!
- Vegan buttermilk: This is just dairy free milk mixed with apple cider vinegar: I highly recommend soy milk, almond milk or pea milk here, as these will help curdle the milk more since they have more protein than other dairy free milks.
- Vegan butter: You can also swap in coconut oil.
- Hot coffee: The one ingredient to not have at room temperature! This is because hot liquid helps to bloom the cocoa powder even more, and coffee helps to amplify the flavor of chocolate. Use decaf or herbal coffee if you’d prefer!
- Leavening agents: Of course, the baking soda and baking powder!
Now, let’s get to work on this layered zucchini cake!
Overview: How to make chocolate zucchini cake
The cake
What is so wonderful about this chocolate zucchini cake is that you only need one large mixing bowl, a sifter, a whisk, and a silicone spatula.
You’ll start by whisking together the wet ingredients, including the zucchini. Then simply sift in the cocoa powder, followed by the flour, and the leavening agents. Add in the vegan buttermilk, and gently whisk together, followed by the hot coffee.
Then pour the batter into the cake pan. You can also use three 8″ cake pans or three 6″ cake pans. Bake the cake until a toothpick comes out clean. Then allow them to cool completely before frosting the cake.
How to make vegan chocolate sour cream frosting
For this vegan chocolate zucchini cake, we’re using a vegan chocolate sour cream frosting- based off of my classic chocolate frosting. It’s so easy to make and quite similar to making classic chocolate buttercream. But I think that the sour cream (dairy free, of course!) adds a really nice tang to balance out the sweetness!
You’ll need:
- Vegan butter
- Cocoa powder
- Vegan sour cream (I like Forager Project)
- Powdered sugar
- Dairy free milk
I recommend using a stand mixer with whisk attachment, but you can also use a hand mixer.
Tips for making Chocolate Zucchini Cake
Making a healthy chocolate cake is one thing, but making a healthy chocolate zucchini cake that you wouldn’t even know contained a speck of a vegetable?!
Now that’s another.
It’s definitely easy if you follow this recipe, but here are a few extra tips that I think really add to making the best vegan chocolate zucchini cake that even non-vegan eaters will go ga-ga over!
- I recommend using a box grater to shred the zucchini. This will save you some arm work (and hopefully be bit safer!) than using a handheld grater.
- Dry the zucchini before folding it into the vegan chocolate batter: If there is one thing you do, please please please make sure that you’ve pat the zucchini! It doesn’t have to be completely dry, but if it’s still leaving a paper towel sopping wet, it’s too wet. This is key for texture. Cassava flour generally likes moisture, but too much and you’ll get a gooey inside- not what you want for a chocolate zucchini cake!
- Use coconut sugar for a refined sugar free chocolate cake and frosting! To do this, I pulse the coconut sugar in a mini food processor until it’s a powder. This takes about 2-3 minutes tops, and it fluffs up just like powdered sugar! It honestly makes for the ultimate Paleo chocolate zucchini cake.
- You can make this a three layered or a two layered chocolate zucchini cake instead of a sheet cake: If you go for a two tier cake, I recommend using two 8-inch cake or springform pans.
Every single person who tried a slice (we have many people who come through this house- kids, adults, friends, extended family!) was shocked when I told them that this healthy chocolate zucchini cake was indeed vegan and gluten free!
Let me know if you give this cake a go in the comments below, and as always, I’d absolutely love to see your beautiful recreations on Instagram and Pinterest, so be sure to tag me there!
Happy chocolate cake baking!
More Vegan Zucchini Recipes You’ll Love:
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One Bowl Easy Vegan Chocolate Zucchini Cake
- Prep Time: 30
- Cake cooling time: 60
- Cook Time: 35
- Total Time: 2 hours 5 minutes
- Yield: 12 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Vegan
Description
This fudgy and ultra moist vegan chocolate zucchini cake is made in just one bowl and can be baked as either a sheet cake or layer cake. Topped with a rich dairy free chocolate sour cream frosting, this easy vegan cake is the best way to use up your zucchini!
Ingredients
- 240 g grated zucchini, patted down to 170 g
- 1 1/4 cup (300 mL) vegan buttermilk, room temperature
- 1/2 cup (113 g) vegan butter, melted and cooled to room temperature
- 1 3/4 cup (350 g) organic granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup (100 g) brown sugar
- 3/4 cup (170 g) dairy free yogurt, room temperature*
- 3 cups (375 g) all purpose flour or gluten free 1:1 baking flour*
- 1 cup (90 g) cocoa powder
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 cup (240 mL) hot coffee or decaf coffee or herbal coffee
Chocolate Sour Cream Frosting:
- 1/2 cup (113 g) vegan butter, room temperature
- 1/4 cup (60 g0 vegan sour cream, room temperature
- 1 cup (170 g) melted vegan chocolate, cooled to room temperature
- 4–6 cups sifted vegan powdered sugar
- 1/4 cup (25 g) cocoa powder
Instructions
- Prep: Preheat the oven to 350F and line a 9×9 or 9×13″ sheet cake pan, or three 8 inch or 6-inch springform pans with parchment paper. Prep the zucchini and the vegan buttermilk. Set aside.
- Whisk: In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the vegan butter, sugar, brown sugar, and dairy free yogurt. Add in the zucchini, and whisk until combined. Then sift in the flour, along with the cocoa powder, baking powder and baking soda.
- Finish the batter: Add in the vegan buttermilk and begin to whisk all the ingredients together. Before the dry ingredients are fully incorporated, add in the hot coffee, and either whisk or use a silicone spatula to finish folding the batter until the dry ingredients are JUST incorporated.
- Bake: Pour the batter into the prepared cake pans and bake the cake. For a 9×9 pan, bake for 50-55 minutes. For a 9×13 pan, bake for 40-45 minutes. For three 6″ cakes, it will take 45-50 minutes; for three 8″ cakes, it will take 32-35 minutes. The cakes are finished when the top is completely set and a toothpick comes out clean. Remove the cakes from the oven.
- Cool: Allow the cakes to cool in their pans for 10 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely before frosting (about 1-2 hours depending on how warm your kitchen is).
- When ready to assemble: Once the cakes are cool, prepare the chocolate frosting. Cream together the vegan butter until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Then add in the sour cream, and mix again, followed by the melted and cooled vegan chocolate. Continue mixing until you achieve a consistent mixture. Then add in the powdered sugar in 2 cup increments, followed by the cocoa powder. Continue mixing until fluffy, stopping the mixer to scrape the bottom as needed. Frost the cake when ready!
- Slice and serve: Slice and serve your vegan chocolate zucchini cake. Store any leftovers in an airtight container and in the fridge for up to 5 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Notes
Dairy free yogurt: You can also substitute in an equal amount of applesauce or pumpkin puree.
Gluten free: I recommend using Bob’s Red Mill gluten-free 1:1 baking flour in the blue bag. Use the cup measurements rather than the gram measurements for the gluten free flour blend.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 slice
- Calories: 424
- Sugar: 50.6 g
- Sodium: 509.4 mg
- Fat: 13.8 g
- Saturated Fat: 3.1 g
- Carbohydrates: 79.4 g
- Fiber: 5.4 g
- Protein: 3.9 g
- Cholesterol: 0 mg
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Chocolate zucchini cake is one of my favorites! Love how moist and yummy your cake looks!! 🙂
Aw thank you Ela! That means the world to me 🙂 Enjoy!
I love this recipe! Hoping there is a way to substitute cassava flour for almond maybe or anything else GF? I haven’t seen it yet in Moscow but hoping it starts popping up in health stores!
Hi Liza!!
Aw thank you so much!! I’m so happy to hear that! As for a substitute for cassava, I completely understand! I believe that oat flour would also work, since it tends to like to absorb liquid as well, but I would add in a tsp of xanthan gum to it for binding. Almond flour could potentially work if done in 3 parts almond flour, 1 part coconut flour, but I haven’t personally tried this out myself! If it were me, I would do 2 1/3 cups almond flour, 2/3 cup coconut flour. My favorite 1:1 gluten free baking flour to use is by Bob’s Red Mill (literally called Bob’s Red Mill 1:1 gluten free Baking flour), I’m not sure if you have that in Moscow, but that would be my top recommendation!
Well mine is nowhere near as gorgeous as this masterpiece, but WOAHHHH it tastes freaking amazing! No hint of zucchini, just pure chocolatey, creamy yumminess 🙂
Aw I’m sure it was wonderful! So glad you enjoyed!!
My husband is fatally allergic to nuts (all incl coconut) and peas and seeds. Is there any substitute you can think of for the PEA Milk? Thank you, if love to make this gorgeous dessert for him (well, me, too!!)
Hi Gina! Absolutely, you can swap in oat milk if that works! I would also swap out the coconut sugar for regular cane sugar- if you want to minimize the refined sugar, you can use 3/4 cup regular cane sugar in place of the 1 cup coconut sugar (usually a 25% decrease in sugar is unnoticeable!). For the buttercream, I haven’t found a nut free/coconut free substitute, so my only guess would be that part needs to contain dairy (i.e. a regular butter), but if you know of a nut free/coconut free/dairy free spread, please let me know and I can add it to the notes section! Please let me know how it goes if you end up trying it!
Any suggestions for replacement of cassava and applesauce for those on low FODMAP diet?
Hi there! So I’m not a professional when it comes to recipes that are low FODMAP, but my suggestion for replacing the cassava would be 2 1/4 cups almond flour and 3/4 cup coconut flour because I read (not sure how accurate this is so you know this better than me!) that gluten free flours tend to be low FODMAP. For the applesauce, you can replace it with coconut oil or olive oil or lactose/dairy free yogurt! All at a 1 to 1 ratio 🙂
I hope this helps! Again, I’m not an expert on low FODMAP, so if these don’t fit your diet, I’m so sorry!
Can I replace cassava with whole wheat flour?
Absolutely! Just keep in mind that whole wheat flour can sometimes be a bit grittier- it will still taste amazing, but you can use white whole wheat flour for a closer texture! It’s still a 1:1 ratio though, so both will work 🙂
Hey, I only have coconut flour on hand, do you know if I can sub the cassava for coconut flour? If yes, what ratios should I use? Thanks 🙂 (love your recipes btw)
Hi Tiffany! Aw thank you for the sweet words 🙂 For this recipe, I wouldn’t sub the cassava flour with the coconut flour- cassava is 1:1 with all-purpose flour in this recipe though!
An amazing chocolate cake! I am newly plant based since the first of this year and thrilled to find your website! I am a long time baker and my biggest concern was giving up butter & eggs for baking!
This cake baked up tall, super moist and had rave reviews from my non – plant based coworkers and family.
I did add vanilla because I love it and questioned the missing salt. Almost added it and wish I had, but these are personal flavor preferences.
Love that your recipes are in grams! Baking is so much more precise, especially with tricky ingredients like zucchini.
Hi, I have my cupcakes of this recipe in the oven and cannot wait to see how they come out. I was unsure about how much apple cider vinegar as I saw it in the instructions, but not in the ingredients list. I used 1 teaspoon. Does that sound about right?
Oh yes that’s perfect!! I’m so sorry that was missed, let me edit that!
First of all, I just have to say that these photos are some of the most gorgeous and mouthwatering pieces of food photography I’ve ever seen. Second, I am SO impressed with this cake! I used all-purpose flour instead of cassava and it turned out perfectly soft and fluffy! It tastes just like the box-mix chocolate cake my family always made for birthdays when I was a kid, but the ingredients in this cake are WAY better, obviously. I was worried that the cake would be dry since it’s so low in fat, but the applesauce and zucchini really did the trick and kept it moist. I’m so happy to have a reliable chocolate cake recipe on hand now. Thank you so much for sharing your magical creations!
Oh my goodness, Mimi, this comment brought me to tears!! Literally I create these recipes to bring back the memories of childhood, I’m so so happy it brought you there!! Enjoy and thank you so so much for your beautiful words!!
I’m looking forward to making this cake for a friends birthday, it sounds heavenly and looks BEAUTIFUL. I wanted to give these a go with cupcakes prior, any adjustments you would recommend? TIA!
Hi Adrienne! Aw I’m so happy to hear it! You can definitely make them into cupcakes 🙂 You’ll end up with 24 cupcakes though, so if you’d like, you can cut the recipe in half to just make a dozen!
Hi Britt! I just made your Healthy Chocolate Zuccinni bread for the 2nd time!! My kids ADORE it!! So happy and grateful to have found you on insta! So I clicked on this link to the “Healthy Chocolate Zuccini Cake, undetectably Vegan & Paleo”
I’m curious about this current wonderful recipe since it is titled as “Paleo”?? The recipe calls for regular flour OR the Bob’s Red Mill 1:1 Gluten Free Flour…..which is not Paleo…..but in the previous comments ppl ask about Cassava and Almond flour substitutes? Am I on the wrong recipe? I’m confused. Is there a recipe that uses Cassava and Almond flour? Would love to make the cake paleo! Thank you so much for your help and support and all your amazing recipes!
Hi! This looks incredible, thank you for sharing! Would it be possible to use dairy products but still omit egg, do you think? (My son has an egg allergy). Or would it be best to make it completely vegan?
Hi Sarah! Oh absolutely! So I personally haven’t tried this and can’t speak to the results, but I know that many of my readers with just egg allergies will swap in regular dairy products with great success. As I haven’t personally tried it, I won’t be able to guarantee it, but it should work!
Amazing!! I made this tonight as I had zucchini’s going bad and I’m fighting the urge to not eat the whole thing. 😭 I didn’t have sour cream so instead I made a coffee flavored cream cheese frosting. I’ll make this again next week and try it with the sour cream. Thank you tons!
Hi! This is my first recipe of yours that I’ve made after being a fan of yours for quite some time 🥰. You’re definitely a genius when it comes to vegan baking. I will say I had some texture issues with my cake like clumps of flour still in the batter after following your mixing directions. I wasn’t sure if having clumps was ok or not based on your description of “JUST INCORPORATED” but it resulted in clumps in the final product… still yummy, but definitely not my intended result. This was a really fun and moderately approachable recipe for getting (back) into baking yummy vegan things. For the frosting I found the amount of sugar to be way too much, so I opted out of adding any- just using the v sour cream v butter and melted chocolate. It came out so smooth tangy and slightly sweet and still really balanced the cake out. Overall I’m super impressed and look forward to trying this recipe again sans clumps and digging into more of your recipes now that I can know for certain that they don’t JUST look good on Instagram… though I could’ve guessed that anyways 💓🥰😉
I used dairy replacements for all the non-dairy ingredients and it worked great. I made cupcakes and got 27, baking for 18-20 minutes at 350. However, I found the buttercream recipe to be incorrect. I added 1/2 cup of butter, 1/4 cup sour cream and 1 cup melted chocolate as stated, but after adding only 4 cups of powdered sugar, there was no way I would have been able to add any more dry ingredients. It was so thick and completely unspreadable. I had to add a considerable amount more butter, like 1 cup more, to get it to buttercream consistency – but once I did, it was a 10/10.
I have made this cake at least 5 times now and it never fails to be delicious! It is moist, chocolatey, and you would never know there was zucchini! It is also super forgiving too, so you don’t have to worry about getting everything exactly right. I’ve made it as a layer cake, a bundt cake, cupcakes, and in a loaf tin.
Oh my goodness that’s lovely!! So happy to hear this! Thank you so much for the kind review 🙂 Enjoy!!
Hi! I live in a place where vegan butter is non existent… can I swap it with coconut oil? If so, in what ratio?
Thank u so much this cake looks like a dream 🥹
Hi Nimroda! You can definitely swap the butter for coconut oil using the same measurements. Enjoy it!
First time for making a vegan cake ! Went really well …tips helpful !
Aw I’m so happy you loved it!! Thanks so much for the review 🙂 Enjoy!
Hi! This looks amazing. Can you replace the sugar with coconut sugar or maple syrup?
Hi Elena! Yes you can swap in coconut sugar! I wouldn’t recommend maple syrup, as that’s a liquid and would throw off the ratios. I hope you love it!