This chocolate coconut Easter egg nest is the most adorable cake for your vegan Easter celebration! With a rich chocolate coconut cake, cream cheese frosting, and chocolate coated coconut, this Easter cake is decorated to be an easter basket and is so much fun to make!

chocolate coconut easter cake on a plate

Components of this vegan cake:

So here’s what goes into this epic Easter egg nest cake:

  • Rich and decadent dairy free vegan chocolate coconut cake full of real coconut
  • Decadent dairy free cream cheese frosting
  • Chocolate coated toasted coconut flakes (instead of shredded wheat!)
  • Vegan chocolate eggs and homemade vegan Cadbury Creme Eggs – served alongside my easter egg cheesecake, they’re perfect! 

What Easter candies are vegan?

While the cake is absolutely amazing and incredible, I think the decorations on the cake are equally the star of the show. Many holiday candies in general are not vegan. During Easter, especially, Cadbury chocolate is very popular but unfortunately contains dairy and eggs. 

There are, however, some fun vegan Easter candies available, both store bought and homemade! 

For this vegan Easter Nest Cake, I used both. The pastel colored coated eggs are from Doisy & Dam, a British company. They do ship to the US but not directly from their website. I purchased mine through Holland & Barrett. 

over head of easter cake sliced

The vegan Cadbury eggs on top are actually homemade! It’s super simple, and the filling tastes just like a Cadbury Creme egg. 

Other vegan Easter candy includes:

Overview: How to assemble an Easter egg cake (with photos)

This easter nest cake may seem complicated, but it’s actually quite simple (and messy, so be sure to use clean hands and have a towel ready ha!). 

Here’s how to make and assemble this chocolate coconut easter cake:

  1. Make the vegan chocolate coconut cake: This recipe is based off of my amazing vegan chocolate cake recipe. Only this time, we’re using full fat coconut milk, and adding in coconut flakes. You can make this cake either in a stand mixer with paddle attachment or in a large bowl with a hand mixer. Additionally, you can make this cake as an 8″ three layercake or a 6″ three layercake. 
  2. Cool the cakes: It’s imperative that you fully cool your cake layers on a wire rack before assembling your cake.
  3. Make the cream cheese frosting: Simply cream together vegan butter and vegan cream cheese together. Add in the powdered sugar, and continue mixing.
  4. Frost the cake: Next up, apply a full coat of frosting around the Easter egg cake.
  5. Coat the cake in chocolate coconut: Toss the toasted coconut flakes in chocolate, then press the coconut flakes against the cake. It helps to have refrigerated the cake a bit for the frosting to take the coated chocolate coconut. I also recommend allowing the melted chocolate to cool a bit (not be very hot) after melting, as you’re then pressing it into cold frosting, so you don’t want it to melt the frosting and fall. I also recommend placing a piece of parchment paper underneath the cake stand or plate to help with your clean up!
  6. Decorate the easter nest cake! I like to let the chocolate set for a few minutes. You can place the cake in the fridge to help this process. Then you can decorate with your chocolate vegan Easter eggs, vegan candy eggs, vegan Cadbury Creme Eggs, or vegan Jelly beans if you’d like! Then just slice and serve!
chocolate coconut cake frosted with cream cheese frosting
melted vegan chocolate
coconut coated in chocolate
chocolate coconut cake with toasted coconut flakes
assembled vegan chocolate coconut easter cake
sliced chocolate Easter egg cake on a plate

Cake variations:

  • Don’t like dark chocolate? You can use vegan milk chocolate (Pascha Organics is my favorite!) or even vegan white chocolate to coat the toasted coconut!
  • Want a coconut cake instead of a chocolate coconut cake? Use my vegan coconut cake recipe as the base for the cake component.
  • Try different decorations: You can do homemade chocolate molded Easter eggs and fill them with sprinkles instead!
sliced vegan chocolate coconut cake

Watch how to make a vegan Easter cake!

Want to save this recipe for later? Add it to your favorite recipe board on Pinterest!

vegan easter cake Pinterest pin

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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sliced chocolate Easter egg cake on a plate

Chocolate Coconut Easter Egg Cake (Vegan!)

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  • Author: Britt Berlin
  • Prep Time: 20
  • Cook Time: 26
  • Total Time: 46 minutes
  • Yield: 16 1x
  • Category: Dessert
  • Method: Baking
  • Cuisine: American
  • Diet: Vegan
Print Recipe

Description

This chocolate coconut Easter egg cake is the most adorable cake for your vegan Easter celebration! With a rich chocolate coconut cake, cream cheese frosting, and chocolate coated coconut, this Easter cake is decorated to be an easter basket and is so much fun to make!

Ingredients

Scale

Chocolate Coconut Cake:

  • 1 cup (240 mL) full fat coconut milk*, room temperature
  • 2 tsp apple cider vinegar
  • 3 1/4 cups (400 g) all purpose flour or gluten free 1:1 baking flour, sifted
  • 1/2 cup (60 g) all natural cocoa powder
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/8 tsp sea salt
  • 1 1/4 cups (250 g) granulated sugar
  • 2/3 cup (11 tbsp or 155 g) unsalted vegan butter*, room temperature
  • 3/4 cup (190 g) unsweetened applesauce, room temperature
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/2 cup (120 mL) hot water + 1 tsp dissolvable espresso powder (or 1/2 cup brewed coffee, decaf if desired)
  • 1 cup (95 g) toasted coconut flakes

Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting:

  • 2 cups vegan butter, softened
  • 4–5 cups powdered sugar, sifted
  • 1 cup vegan cream cheese

Decorations:

  • 4 cups toasted coconut flakes
  • 1 cup melted vegan chocolate, room temperature
  • Vegan candy eggs (see notes) for decoration

Instructions

  1. Be sure to read all instructions before beginning. Measure out all ingredients for the cake.
  2. Prep: Preheat the oven to 350F, and prepare three 6″ cake pans. You can use 8″ cake pans if you’d like. Grease the bottoms and sides of the pans and line the bottoms with parchment paper. Set aside. Prepare the vegan buttermilk by mixing together the coconut milk and apple cider vinegar in a small bowl and set aside for 5-7 minutes to curdle. The coconut milk won’t curdle like it does with soy milk or almond milk (more on that in my post on how to make vegan buttermilk), but it will act similarly. We will refer to it as buttermilk in this post.
  3. Make the batter: In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and sea salt. Set aside. In a stand mixer with paddle attachment or a large bowl and a hand mixer, cream the vegan butter and sugar until fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and bottom of the bowl as needed. Then add in the applesauce and vanilla extract, and mix again on medium speed until combined. To the mixture, add in about half of the flour mixture, along with half of the buttermilk. Mix on medium speed until the flour starts to combine with the wet. Add in the remaining flour mixture and buttermilk, and mix again just until there are no more dry streaks. Slowly pour in the hot coffee and coconut flakes, and mix on medium speed until the coffee has just mixed into the batter.
  4. Bake the cakes: Pour the batter into the three cake pans evenly. Place the cakes into the oven and bake for 26-28 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. If using three 8″ cake pans, the cakes will bake a bit quicker. Remove the cakes from the oven and allow them to cool in their pans for 10 minutes. Then carefully transfer them to a cooling rack to cool completely, about 45 minutes.
  5. Prepare the cream cheese frosting: When ready to frost, beat the vegan butter and cream cheese together until creamed, about 3 minutes. Then sift in the powdered sugar and continue beating until it becomes a fluffy frosting, using dairy free milk as needed to help with consistency.
  6. Frost the cake: place the bottom layer onto a cake plate and adding about 1 cup of frosting to the top of the cake. Spread it just to the edges, then add the second layer and repeat. Top with the third layer and frost with the remaining frosting. Then place the cake into the fridge for the buttercream to cool and set while you make the chocolate coated coconut.
  7. Coat the coconut in chocolate: Melt the vegan chocolate and evenly coat the toasted coconut in the chocolate. Allow the chocolate to cool a bit more, and remove the cake from the fridge.
  8. Decorate the cake: This next part will be messy. Press the chocolate coconut flakes into the cake frosting until the entire cake is coated. Then place the cake carefully into the fridge to set for 5 minutes. When ready, top the cake with the vegan candy eggs, and enjoy!
  9. Storage: Store any leftovers covered at room temperature for up to 2 days or sliced in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days.

Notes

Vegan buttermilk: Coconut milk will not curdle like soy milk and almond milk; however, the acv in the coconut milk will still react with the baking soda, and thus create a reaction. 

Gluten free: Use gluten free 1:1 baking flour (I recommend Bob’s Red Mill in the blue bag, and I do NOT recommend Namaste GF flour).

Vegan Candy Eggs: I used a combination of Doisy & Dam vegan candy coated chocolate eggs and my homemade vegan Cadbury Eggs. Please see the full post for more vegan Easter candy options.

More Vegan Easter Desserts You’ll Love: