Best Ever Vegan Coffee Cake (Gluten Free!)

This is truly the best vegan coffee cake ever! With its perfect crumb texture and sweet cinnamon vanilla flavor, it tastes just like the classic and even better than Starbucks, only entirely vegan and gluten free!

The best dang vegan coffee cake I’ve ever had

Have you ever had New York style crumb coffee cake? It’s my favorite excuse for eating a big slice of cake (vegan of course) for breakfast.

Of course, Starbucks has a version, and I can happily declare that this vegan coffee cake is officially better than Starbucks.

You are just going to love this vegan coffee cake! It’s perfectly tender and moist, full of sweet cinnamon, and has that delicious crumb texture.

What’s more, this vegan coffee cake is also a gluten free coffee cake! Made with just oat flour and arrowroot powder, we achieve that deliciously light and fluffy texture.

This crumb cake pairs wonderfully with a cup of coffee, and trust me, you won’t be jealous of your friends eating Starbucks!

In fact, you might want to save a slice for when they ask to try 😉

Does coffee cake contain coffee?

There seems to be quite some confusion as to whether or not coffee cake contains coffee! Traditionally, coffee cake gets its name because it’s usually served with coffee (in fact, I highly recommend it!). Coffee cake is not, in fact, a coffee flavored cake.

Although that would be quite delicious!

Coffee cake is essentially a vanilla pound cake with a cinnamon streusel. If you grew up around the East coast, then chances are, you know coffee cake to be the delicious breakfast treat that contains a layer of cinnamon swirled in the middle, as well as on top.

I’m an East coaster, so that’s how I prefer my coffee cake 🙂 If you’d prefer to make this vegan coffee cake as just the vanilla pound cake base and the cinnamon crumble, you can omit the cinnamon sugar middle!

Although, I highly recommend you do make it!

Ingredients

Now that we’ve gone over what exactly coffee cake is, let’s veganize it!

For this eggless coffee cake, you’ll need:

• Oat flour: yes, this is an entirely gluten free coffee cake, as well as vegan! For my recommendations on flours if you’d like to use something other than oat, please see the below FAQ’s section.
• Sugar: you can make this vegan coffee cake entirely refined sugar free by just using coconut sugar! I used a mix of both granulated and coconut sugar (coconut sugar is very similar in taste to brown sugar), but you can use either or here.
• Vegan butter: I used Flora Plant Butter, my new favorite nut-free vegan butter. This helps make the coffee cake super rich and decadent. If you’d like a lower fat version, please read the FAQ’s and tips section below!
• Applesauce: the applesauce here replaces the eggs, making this an entirely eggless coffee cake. I used unsweetened here, as this cake is already pretty sweet.
• Dairy free milk: I recommend using oat milk, coconut milk, or almond milk here. If nut free, stick with a nut-free dairy free milk! I also added in apple cider vinegar to give the cake a bit of tang and simulate using a “buttermilk” in place of the traditional sour cream.
• Vanilla: since the base of this coffee cake is essentially a vegan vanilla pound cake, we’ll need a lot of vanilla!
• Cinnamon: of course you can’t have coffee crumb cake without cinnamon! I used Vietnamese ground cinnamon here.
• Baking powder: to help give this cake a bit of lift.

That’s really it! You’ll also need an 8×8 or a 9×9 square baking pan!

How to make vegan coffee cake

As with all of my recipes, the full directions and ingredient measurements are found down below in the recipe card. But we’ll go over a brief overview of how to make an entirely vegan coffee cake here!

Essentially for the actual coffee cake, it’s just layers of different ratios of the above ingredients.

I start with making the cinnamon sugar filling first, as this doesn’t require any wet ingredients. This is just cinnamon, flour, and sugar.

The reason I start with the filling first and not the vanilla cake layer is that once the wet ingredients are added to the dry, the leavening agents begin to activate. If we don’t then get the crumb cake into the oven as fast as possible, we risk our coffee cakes not fully rising.

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Next, you’ll make the cinnamon streusel or cinnamon crumble on top. This is just vegan butter, cinnamon, flour, and sugar.

Finally, you’ll make the vegan vanilla cake base of our vegan coffee cake. Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl, then fold in the wet. Now, when pouring the batter into the prepared pan, you’ll add half of the batter first. Spread it evenly in the pan, then top with the cinnamon sugar filling from the first step. Spread the remaining batter into the pan, and top with the cinnamon streusel.

Then just bake the crumb cake!

Coffee Crumb Cake Add Ins

To jazz up this classic crumb cake, you can add in the following to the base vanilla cake layer:

• Vegan chocolate chips
• Fresh berries (make sure to lightly flour them to prevent them from sinking!)
• Walnuts, pecans, almonds, seeds

Coffee Cake Tips & FAQs

Oat flour substitutions. If you don’t need this vegan coffee cake to be gluten free as well, you can absolutely swap in all-purpose flour here. If you’d like to use a gluten-free 1:1 baking flour blend, such as Bob’s Red Mills or King Arthur Flour, please to swap that in! All of these suggestions can be made at a 1:1 ratio.

For refined sugar free. As mentioned above, if you’d like to make this crumb cake entirely refined sugar free, you can use coconut sugar. If you’d like to make it lower in sugar, you can use a sweetener like Wholesome Sweets Allulose or Monkfruit.

For lower fat. To make this a low fat coffee cake, simply swap out the vegan butter for applesauce at an equal ratio. This will mean using just applesauce and dairy free milk as the base.

Can I make this in a round 10″ springform pan?

Absolutely! You can definitely use a round pan instead of a square one here if you’d prefer. The baking time will be around the same, so start checking your can after 35 minutes.

Can I make this just a regular vegan coffee cake instead of gluten free?

Definitely! You don’t need to make this a gluten free vegan coffee cake if you don’t want to nor need to. Use the flour suggestions above and adjust accordingly.

I hope you love this vegan coffee cake recipe as much as I do! It’s truly so wonderful with a fresh cup of coffee in the morning, especially on a holiday morning or special brunch!

If you tried this recipe, let me know how it went by leaving a comment down below, as well as a rating ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ so that others may find it.

As always, I absolutely love to see your beautiful creations on Instagram and Pinterest, so be sure to tag me there and I’ll re-share them!

Happy crumb cake baking

More Vegan Breakfast Treats & Pastries

Best Vegan Cinnamon Rolls

Easy Vegan Belgian Waffles

Vegan Blueberry Muffins

Easy Vegan Apple Crumb Cake

Best Vegan Buttermilk Pancakes

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If you make something from The Banana Diaries, I would love to see your creations! Make sure to leave a review in comments section, as well as giving it a rating so that others may find the recipe. Also, follow along with me on Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and Facebook for more vegan recipe inspiration!

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