One Bowl MOIST Vegan Chocolate Caramel Cake

This is THE chocolate caramel cake for all caramel lovers!! Featuring extra soft chocolate sponge cake, made entirely without eggs and dairy free, with layers of gooey salted caramel and wrapped in an easy caramel ‘cream cheese’ frosting. The epitome of decadence, and you’d never know it’s vegan!!

Tell me about this chocolate caramel cake:

Every celebration deserves a rich decadent cake, and this ridiculously easy one bowl vegan chocolate caramel cake definitely delivers!

The perfect complement to my brown butter caramel cake, if you’re a chocolate and caramel lover, then this cake recipe is an absolute must. Here’s why:

• Ultra rich & decadent: We’re balancing the over sweetness of the caramel with a tangy, nutty, and decadent “browned” butter vegan frosting. Plus, a dash of sea salt on top helps a ton!
• Soft, tender chocolate cake layers: The cake itself is not overly sweet, yet the vanilla is punched up a ton to offer flavor depth rather than just sweetness. 
• NO eggs nor dairy: Yep, this entire recipe (like every recipe on this site!) is completely vegan. No eggs, no butter, no milk (so when you see me refer to ‘brown butter,’ butter, or cream cheese, know I always mean the dairy free version 😉 ). And yet you seriously would never be able to tell!
• Gooey caramel throughout: While we don’t incorporate caramel into the actual cake (since there’s already tons of sugar in there!), we have ripples of gooey caramel throughout every layer and in the frosting itself!
• Ridiculously rich and creamy caramel ‘cream cheese’ frosting: This might be my new favorite frosting recipe (and I’ve made a TON of frostings in my time- just see my cake and cupcake sections of my cookbook!). It’s a simple dairy free cream cheese frosting with ripples of homemade rich caramel throughout that makes you want to eat this frosting by the spoonfuls!!

Key cake ingredients to highlight & why:

• Dutch-process cocoa powder: This is for our chocolate cake portion, and it yields the richest, deep chocolate flavor in your chocolate cake. It also helps the cake not rise as much (though this cake will rise considerably as is!), so that we can lock in moisture! Using all-natural cocoa powder will yield an oranger color, and the chocolate cake might not taste as rich in deep cocoa flavor.
• Dairy free yogurt: This is our vegan egg replacement in the chocolate cake portion. It’s what creates a super soft, deliciously moist texture in the cake, while binding the remaining ingredients together and adding that much needed extra fat (for soft texture!) to the cake. I recommend Forager Project or Kite Hill, but for nut-free I really like So Delicious soy milk yogurt!
• Granulated sugar: This is crucial for our caramel! Not all sugar is vegan, so make sure you’re either using organic certified granulated sugar or vegan-certified.
• Vegan heavy cream: Another crucial ingredient for caramel- vegan heavy cream! There are a few brands out there, but I really love Silk vegan heavy cream. Country Crock also has a great vegan heavy cream that works wonderfully here! You can use coconut cream, but you will notice a coconut flavor.

Irresistibly creamy dairy free caramel ‘cream cheese’ frosting:

This is one of my favorite parts about this cake- the caramel ‘cream cheese’ frosting!! Now, it’s slightly different from our vanilla caramel cake, in that there’s no brown butter (though you could use that option).

We’re folding cooled down caramel into the frosting for an absolutely irresistible deep, rich caramel flavor in the frosting.

The key part here: cooled caramel. That’s why we’re making two batches at the beginning of the recipe. This will allow the caramel to cool in time for it to be incorporated into the frosting.

Please DO NOT add the caramel to your frosting if there is any sign of warmth. It should be completely cool and NO warmth should be detected from the caramel before frosting. Otherwise, while assembling, your cake will slip and slide onto the table!

Overview: how to assemble a chocolate caramel cake:

For the full written instructions and ingredient measurements, see the bottom of this post in the recipe card. You can also hit the “jump to recipe” button at the top of this post! Here, we’ll go over a brief overview of the steps, along with providing visuals for a better understanding of the recipe.

What I love about this vegan chocolate caramel cake is that it’s incredibly easy and straightforward. You really only need a bowl and a whisk for the cake portion. Then the caramel is easily made in two batches before we assemble our completely cooled cake!

Here are a few tips for success:

• Use room temperature ingredients: This goes for all components- cake, caramel, and frosting! The only ingredient that should be anything more than room temperature is the hot coffee going into the chocolate cake batter (which helps bloom the cocoa powder for extra rich chocolate flavor!).
• Assemble with COOLED components: While the component ingredients should all be room temperature, it’s best to assemble your cake with everything cooled back down to room temperature (or cooler). The caramel should have absolutely NO warmth to it whatsoever, the cakes should feel “cool” to the touch, and the frosting even does better with a 10-15 minute chill in the fridge before assembling.
• Use a crumb coat before the final frosting: This ensures that the caramel in between the layers has a moment to chill and set. I recommend letting the cake chill in the fridge with a crumb coat on (so the cake layers are NOT exposed) for 1 hour. This lets the borders of the frosting set so that the cake layers don’t slip and slide when you slice into it with the caramel in between!

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If you make this recipe, please be sure to leave a comment and a rating ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ below. This helps others to find the recipes! As always, I absolutely love to see your beautiful creations on Instagram and Pinterest, so be sure to tag me there as well!

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