One Bowl Vegan Gingerbread Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
This deliciously spiced and soft one bowl vegan gingerbread cake is layered with an easy silky dairy free cream cheese frosting and topped with vegan gingerbread cookies! The perfect Christmas cake for your holiday celebrations that’s unbelievably dairy free and no eggs!
The only gingerbread cake recipe you need:
If you’re a lover of all things gingerbread, then you need to make this deliciously easy one bowl vegan gingerbread cake.
This ginger cake is packed with flavorful and sweetly spiced with cinnamon, ginger, and cloves with a lovely tender and soft texture, all coated in a silky dairy free cream cheese frosting.
Like my easy vegan gingerbread cupcakes and gingerbread loaf cake (yes, after the Starbucks version!), you’d honestly never know it’s vegan and dairy free, and you can even make it gluten free if you’d like!
It’s the perfect combination of classic Christmas cookie (speaking of which, have you seen all 45+ of these amazingly vegan Christmas cookies?!) meets holiday cake. This vegan gingerbread cake is an absolute showstopper of a cake for any holiday table, vegan or not!
Oh, and did I mention the best part? It’s all made in one bowl!
Ingredients needed:
Because I loved my vegan gingerbread loaf cake so much, I wanted to create a very similar flavor and texture for this tender and delicious ginger cake.
For this vegan ginger cake, you’ll need:
- Flour: I use all purpose flour or cake flour. If you want to achieve a cake flour texture but don’t have any, you can add a tbsp of arrowroot powder or cornstarch to the all purpose flour (or even gluten free 1:1 baking flour!).
- Light brown sugar: because extra molasses is a good thing!
- Spices: a mix of cinnamon, ginger, and cloves!
- Molasses: but of course we cannot have a gingerbread cake without the classic molasses!
- Dairy free yogurt: this is my favorite egg replacement for my cake recipes. It yields the most tender and moist cake that no one suspects is vegan!
- Vegan buttermilk: This is simply a combination of dairy free milk (I recommend soy milk or almond milk, but you can use oat milk!) and an acid, like vinegar or lemon juice.
I like to keep my vegan cake recipes really simple in ingredients, so you’ll see that there’s nothing fancy here that’s hard to find. Plus, the holidays can be stressful enough, and you should have lots of fun while baking this vegan ginger cake!
Overview: Step by Step How to make a gingerbread cake
Once you’ve gathered all of your ingredients, it’s time to make your vegan ginger cake!
Now, the full measurements and written instructions are found down below in the recipe card, but let’s go over the basics here.
- Make the batter: the gingerbread cake batter is a bit runnier than my other cake recipes, but not to worry. It just yields a really really tender and delicate ginger cake that tastes just out of this world! You’ll start by whisking together the dry ingredients, folding in the wet (make sure they’re room temperature!), and dividing the batter into the pans.
- Bake the cake: once the batter is in the cake pans, lightly tap the cake pans onto the countertop. This helps to release any air bubbles in the cake batter and will keep those from baking in the cake. Have you ever sliced into your cake and see little bubbles? Yeah, we don’t want that! Then place the cake pans into the oven (make sure you let it continue to heat for 5 minutes after it says it’s preheated). The cakes take longer to bake than normal cakes, as the batter is very moist.
- Cool the vegan ginger cakes: make sure that you FULLY COOL the ginger cakes before frosting!! I know, I know, you really want to frost your cake. I get it, I’ve been there! But make sure that the cakes feel cool to the touch before you begin to make the vegan white chocolate buttercream.
Once your vegan ginger cakes have cooled, let’s make the vegan cream cheese frosting!
How to decorate your vegan gingerbread cake:
I absolutely love to decorate my Christmas cakes with mini gingerbread houses and gingerbread people. You can do the same by following my gingerbread cookie recipe.
Alternatively, piping little frosting Christmas trees using frosting and ice cream cones is always fun, or even just sugared cranberries and rosemary!
Can I make this gluten free?
Absolutely! Like with most of my vegan cake recipes, you can easily swap in a gluten free 1:1 flour blend (I personally recommend King Arthur Measure for Measure gluten free flour- it’s what I test on all of my cake, cookie, and brownie recipes, and yields the best results!).
Then add in a tablespoon of cornstarch or arrowroot starch for texture, and ta-da! The best gluten free gingerbread cake that’s also vegan, and no one will know 😉
You’re just going to absolutely love this vegan gingerbread cake as much as I do!
If you make this recipe, let me know down below in the comments section, as well as giving it 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!
Happy Christmas cake decorating!
More vegan gingerbread recipes
The easiest vegan gingerbread cookies
Better than Starbucks gingerbread loaf cake
Copycat vegan Starbucks gingerbread latte
Want to save this recipe for later? Add it to your favorite recipe board on Pinterest!
Print
One Bowl Vegan Gingerbread Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
- Prep Time: 15
- Cook Time: 35
- Total Time: 50 minutes
- Yield: 16 1x
- Category: Cake
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Vegan
Description
This deliciously spiced and soft one bowl vegan gingerbread cake is layered with an easy silky dairy free cream cheese frosting and topped with vegan gingerbread cookies! The perfect Christmas cake for your holiday celebrations that’s unbelievably dairy free and no eggs!
Ingredients
- 1 cup (280 g) molasses
- 1 cup (240 g) dairy free yogurt, room temperature
- 1 cup (200 g) light brown sugar
- 3/4 cup (168 g) avocado oil or neutral oil
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp ground ginger
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground cloves
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp sea salt
- 4 (500 g) cups all-purpose flour, sifted (swap in gluten-free 1:1 baking flour for GF)
- 1 cup (240 mL) vegan buttermilk, room temperature
- 1 batch vegan cream cheese frosting
- Vegan gingerbread cookies, for decoration
Instructions
- Prep: Preheat the oven to 350F and prepare three 8″ cake pans with parchment paper and oil. Make sure that the oven is fully preheated before you place your cakes into the oven. Prep the vegan buttermilk if you haven’t already done so.
- Make the batter: In a large bowl, whisk together the molasses, dairy free yogurt, light brown sugar, oil, and vanilla extract. Then add in the ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, baking powder, baking soda, and sea salt. Whisk until combined. Then pour in the flour and vegan buttermilk, and whisk just until the flour is incorporated into the wet ingredients.
- Bake: Divide the batter into the cake pans evenly and lightly tap the cake pans onto the counter top to release any air bubbles. Place the cake pans into the preheated oven, and bake the cakes for 35-37 minutes, or until the toothpick comes out clean. The cakes are soft to touch, so don’t worry!
- Cool: Remove the cakes from the oven and allow them to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before removing and transferring to a cooling rack to fully cool before making the frosting.
- Make the cream cheese frosting: Follow the instructions for making the vegan cream cheese frosting.
- Frost the cake: Once the frosting is ready, frost the cake on a cake stand. I personally place the cake back into the fridge after icing to fully set and cool before decorating. Chill the cake for 10 minutes.
- Finish decorating and enjoy: Then finish with the decorations. Slice and enjoy! Store any leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days.
Notes
Gluten free: I recommend King Arthur Measure for Measure gluten free flour for both the cake and the cookies if desired.
Gingerbread cookies: You can make a small batch of the gingerbread cookies by dividing the recipe into 1/4 of what it is, or you can make even more gingerbread cookies to go along with your cake!
I made this cake and it came out delicious! The buttercream was great and had a good flavor. I did adjust the recipe a bit. I used about 1 teaspoon of baking powder instead of what was called for and added about 2-3 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar so it would react with the baking soda. It came out moist and with a great ginger flavor:)
Aw this is so wonderful to hear!! Thank you so much for leaving this review! Enjoy and happy holidays/happy new year!!
Hi! I really want to make this cake but i have a very small fridge and can’t fit a three layer cake inside. Could i half this recipe and just make a smaller cake? or would the measurements and cook time/temperature be off?
Hi Autumn! Oh absolutely! You can definitely half the recipe, if you want to still make a layer cake, I would use 6″ cake pans. The layers will probably bake for 20-25 minutes in a 6″ cake pan! If you want to still make an 8″ cake but as a single layer, you can bake the cake batter all in one pan, but it will bake longer, like 35-40 minutes!
Hi! I want to make this for a friends birthday this Saturday, looks lovely!
I live in Sweden though and can’t find molasses anywhere… what could I use instead?
Hi Natalie!
Totally understandable! So normally, you could swap in maple syrup, but molasses does provide so much of the flavor in this cake that I worry it would taste too maple-y and not enough like gingerbread. Would that be alright with you? If so, that’s an easy 1:1 swap!
Hi! Does this cake travel well if I make that morning or the night before? I see you suggest keeping it in the fridge, so would I need to keep it on ice packs to travel for 2 hours?
Hi Sabrina! Yes, that’s exactly what I would do! I would try to do the night before so that the frosting sets in the fridge overnight. Then I would travel with it covered and have ice packs near! I’ve travelled before with cakes and as long as it’s the night before, I think it works well!
Thank you! What is best to use to cover it?
Made this for a birthday cake- perfect for this time of year and it was so delicious! Everybody loved it, and most were non-vegans. My family have been obsessed with your gingerbread loaf which is ridiculously good, and so we were eager to make this cake and it lived up to all expectations. Perfectly spiced, not overly sweet, really quick and easy to make, deep rich flavour, and perfectly balanced with a cream cheese frosting. ob-sessssed with the cream cheese frosting, my mother who the cake was for isn’t a fan of icing, usually prefers cakes without it, but she LOVED this icing because it’s creamy, smooth and not too sweet. I made your vegan cream cheese which worked perfectly in this- much more flavour than store bought, and integrated much better. Thank you again for wonderful recipes!