Rich, moist and utterly decadent this easy to make two-layer Gluten Free Vegan Chocolate Cake is sure to impress chocolate lovers everywhere! You don’t even need to be a gluten free or vegan eater to enjoy a slice. This recipe is adapted from my regular gluten free chocolate cake. It uses aquafaba instead of eggs as a plant based alternative.
By the way, if you like this chocolate aquafaba cake you might also be interested in my vegan vanilla cake as well!
Listen. I think we can all agree that 2020 has been….challenging.
We’re just about half way through the year and these past six or so months have felt like six or so years. I mean, what even is happening?
Don’t worry though! I’m not going to go on about any of that here or now. Today, the only thing I want you worrying about is how big you want to cut your slices of cake.
So let’s get to it!
How to Make this Gluten Free Vegan Chocolate Cake
Each ingredient here serves an important role in coming together to make this gluten free vegan chocolate cake. Breaking it down bit by bit:
- Gluten Free All Purpose Flour – use your favourite here. Any general GF all purpose blend will work here whether it’s homemade or store bought will work. This makes up the foundation of this cake.
- Starch – potato starch works best but arrowroot and tapioca starch are also great options. The additional starch is necessary in this recipe because it provides additional binding properties (that eggs typically provide) and it makes for a lighter, fluffier cake (also usually achieved from using eggs).
- Unsweetened Cocoa Powder – provides the chocolate-y flavour
- Sugar – just use a regular granulated or caster sugar
- Baking Powder & Baking Soda – It’s what makes this cake rise
- Salt – Enhances overall flavour
- Dairy Free Milk – Adds moisture
- Oil – Adds moisture. Oil should be used instead of butter because it has a higher fat content which is important to use alongside the cocoa powder
- Vanilla – Adds flavour
- Hot Coffee – Hot liquids and coffee enhances chocolate flavours. Additionally, the hot liquid help dissolve the cocoa powder and coffee for a smoother batter
- Aquafaba + Cream of Tartar – Aquafaba is used in place of eggs. The cream of tartar lightly whipped along with the aquafaba helps to stabilise the aquafaba and adds another element of leavening to the cake.
Altogether this aquafaba cake is fairly easy to make without too much effort required. It mostly just comes down to a few main steps of:
- Whisking & sifting the dry ingredients together
- Stirring in the wet ingredients
- start with the oil, vanilla and milk
- then the coffee
- finally adding in the whisked aqaufaba
- Dividing between cake tins & baking
FAQ’s & Tips
What is aquafaba? Aquafaba = bean water. It’s the goopy water you find in cans of beans. It’s starchy properties aren’t too unlike egg whites make it a great alternative to eggs in baking like with this aquafaba cake. You can even make meringue with it.
Why sift? Sifting will help you eliminate any lumps and clumps of flour and cocoa and it will help aerate the dry ingredients making for a cake that is ultimately lighter.
How to sift? After mixing the dry ingredients together I use a measuring cup to scoop up the flour and pour it over a fine mesh strainer held over the mixing bowl. Lightly shake and tap the sides of the strainer until all of the flour mixture has gone through and that’s it.
Cool on a piece of baking paper. The aquafaba will make the cake feel a little sticky at times. To prevent the cake from sticking to the cooling rack I recommend placing a sheet of baking paper down before the cake.
Cool the cakes fully before frosting. Make sure the cakes have fully cooled to room temperature before frosting or else the frosting will melt into the cake.
Make a crumb coating. Spread a thin layer of frosting all over your cake, then chill the cake for 10-15 minutes before frosting the rest. This will make for a smoother frosting layer with less crumbs mixed throughout.
Enjoy!
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Gluten Free Chocolate Cake (Vegan Option)
Rich, moist and utterly decadent this easy to make two-layer Gluten Free Vegan Chocolate Cake is sure to impress chocolate lovers everywhere! This recipe is adapted from my regular gluten free chocolate cake. It uses aquafaba instead of eggs as a plant based alternative.
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 cup (245 grams) gluten free flour blend*
- 1/4 cup potato starch (or arrowroot or tapioca starch)
- 1 teaspoon xanthan gum, (omit if your gf flour has xanthan)
- 2 cups sugar, (400 grams)
- 1/2 cup (60 grams) cocoa powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (240 ml) dairy free milk (can be dairy free if needed)
- 1/2 cup (125 ml) vegetable oil*
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup (240 ml) hot coffee (or hot water)
- 6 tablespoons (90 ml) aqaufaba
- 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
Chocolate Buttercream (Use this frosting or another frosting of your choice)
- 1 cup (227 g) dairy free butter or margin (or regular butter if you don't need this to be dairy free)
- 4 cups (500 grams) powdered sugar/ icing sugar
- 3/4 cup (85 grams) cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3-4 (45-60 ml) tablespoons dairy free milk
- Dairy free chocolate chips for topping, optional
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350°F/180°C. Grease two 8-inch cake pans. I recommend also lining the bottom of the cake pans with baking paper.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together most of the dry ingredients: gluten free flour blend, starch, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cocoa powder.
- Sift the dry ingredients together with a fine mesh sieve.
- Whisk in the milk, oil and vanilla until a thick, smooth batter forms.
- Stir in the hot coffee and continue whisking until smooth and combined.
- In a separate, small bowl add the aquafaba and cream of tartar. Whisk vigorously until frothy, about 30 seconds. This can be done by hand with a balloon with or with electric beaters.
- Add the whisked aquafaba to the batter and mix until fully combined. The batter should be smooth, thin with small bubbles throughout from the aquafaba.
- Evenly distribute the cake batter between the prepared cake pans. Place in the centre of the oven and bake for 32-35 minutes or until a tooth-pick/knife comes out clean when inserted into the centre.
- Allow the cakes to cool in the pans for about 10 minutes before removing from the tins and and transferring to a cooling rack. Allow the cakes to cool completely before frosting.
- In a large mixing bowl beat the butter/margarin for 1 minute. Add in the cocoa and vanilla. Begin adding the powdered sugar and cocoa one at a time, alternating between one cup of sugar and one tablespoon of milk. Beat on medium speed until light and fluffy. Keep covered and stored in the refrigerator until ready to use.
Frosting
Notes
- Cool the cakes on a piece of baking paper on top of the wire racks to keep them from sticking to the racks.
- Don't omit the xanthan gum unless your gluten free all purpose flour already has xanthan in it.
- Keep the cake stored in the fridge.
Marianna says
This cake is so delicious.
I didn’t have xanthan gum so used chia seeds instead and it worked really well.
I also had to use vinegar on the place of the cream of tartar, because I couldn’t find it here in Brasil.
Even with those changes I got an amazing cake! Even my no vegan very picky family loved it!
Sarah Nevins says
Ooh that’s really helpful to know about the chia seeds! I’m so glad you enjoyed it – thank you so much for coming back to let me know how it went 🙂
Jo says
Amazing cake for my son’s birthday who is on a gluten and dairy free diet!
Saving this one! Thank you!
Sarah Nevins says
Oh wonderful! Hope you son loves it 🙂
Carmen says
The cake was delicious.I did use a diferent frosting.
Your recipe of the frosting was confusing,. The ingredients didn’t specific coffee, however later your recipe call for coffee.
Other than that I gave you two 👍👍
Sarah Nevins says
Thanks Carmen! I’m so glad you enjoyed the cake 🙂
Sorry about the frosting! The instructions should have said ‘cocoa’ and not coffee – thanks for pointing that out to me!
Siya says
Hi! Instead of using the Aquafaba can I use egg replacer instead? If yes, then how many eggs should I try to replace?
And, I know this might be difficult, but do you know any recipes for icing that don’t use butter and use oil instead?
Thank you
Sarah Nevins says
Hi Siya!
When you say egg replacer, do you mean replacing the aquafaba with eggs, or with a different type of egg substitute? I saw you tried and liked my vanilla sponge cake so I’ll assume that eggs are ok for you in general – in which case you might want to look at my regular chocolate cake recipe: https://www.asaucykitchen.com/gluten-free-chocolate-cake/ This aquafaba cake is based off of that one so the ingredients are almost identical aside from the eggs and potato starch (the non vegan version doesn’t need it).
If you’re interested in using a different type of egg substitute in place of the aquafaba I’m not as sure. I’ve been meaning to play around with this recipe using a dairy/non dairy milk in place of aquafaba. The main problem I see there could be that the cake would likely be much more dense. That might not be a bad thing depending on how dense it would be since this is a chocolate cake, but I’m not too sure how viable that option is without playing around first.
On a similar note, yoghurt (dairy or non dairy) might be a another good option to use in place of the aquafaba because it will provide moisture and protein which will help with the cake structure.
You could try using a generic kind of grocery store egg replacer that’s meant specifically for baking. In this case you would need enough to replace 3 eggs. Just keep in mind that results may vary depending on the brand.
I wish I could give you more specific help here but I would definitely want to test a few recipes before I could confidentially say for sure. I hope this helps anyways!
Siya says
That’s so helpful! Thank you so much 😊
Sarah Nevins says
My pleasure 🙂
Addison says
This cake is wonderful! I shared some with my co-workers and they couldn’t believe it was vegan!!
Sarah Nevins says
Yay! So glad everyone enjoyed it! Thanks so much for coming back to leave a review!