Vegans and non-vegans alike will love this vegan Christmas cake.
Flavored with orange and some fancy chocolate bitters, this festive cake will be the hit of your holiday dessert table!
For another, non-vegan version of this cake, see my Chocolate Creamsicle Ombre Halloween Cake.
Another great Christmas cake is my chocolate yule log recipe.
For ease of browsing, here are all of my cake recipes in one place. Thanks for stopping by!
This Cake is Vegan Approved
I brought a version of this cake to a vegan dinner party and the host and all the guests proclaimed it the best vegan cake they’d ever had. Chocolaty, moist, and delicious!
I frosted it with vegan buttercream, using Smart Balance in place of butter, and I decided to frost it “naked” so the chocolate cake showing through would be somewhat reminiscent of birch bark.
Vegan Chocolate Christmas Cake
This cake is delicious. It is moist but not dense–it has just a bit of spring to it when you bite it.
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It’s deeply chocolatey and also orangey, because I really cannot get enough of the chocolate orange combination.
I flavored both the cake and the frosting with a touch of orange oil, although you could certainly use freshly grated orange zest if you’d rather.
I also added a couple of dashes of Mexican chocolate bitters to the frosting. It sounds fancy, but it’s just like adding a dash of vanilla to something.
Once you buy some, you’ll have it and will find a bunch of ways to use it. (I’m pretty sure it needs to go in chocolate chip cookies).
Plus, the bitters give a slight chocolate flavor and aroma to the frosting without turning it brown. Sneaky!
How to Make a Chocolate Cake Vegan
The cake base is just Hershey’s Perfectly Chocolate Chocolate Cake, a recipe I turn to again and again when I need chocolate cake because it’s incredibly moist and very easy to make.
It’s one of the few cakes I don’t use my mixer to make.
You can see another version here in my Day of the Dead cake.
All I need is two bowls and a whisk.
How To Veganize a Chocolate Cake
Veganizing this cake was really easy, too:
- I just swapped out chicken eggs for flax eggs
- melted Earth Balance for my usual butter. The original recipe calls for vegetable oil, so that’s always an option for the fat as well.
- used full fat coconut milk for the milk. You could certainly use any nut milk you prefer, or you could leave out the milk altogether in favor of coffee.
- The butter in the frosting is Earth Balance (the tub kind because that’s all I had), vegan powdered sugar, orange oil and chocolate bitters. That’s it!
Since the tub Earth Balance is soft, you shouldn’t add any extra liquid to the frosting to thin it out to spreading consistency. It’s already at spreading consistency.
Easy!
Whether or not you’re vegan, this vegan chocolate Christmas cake will make a striking centerpiece on your table, and you can dress him up however you want.
Is This Cake Hard to Make?
No, I promise it’s not.
As a matter of fact, this cake was featured in the holiday 2019 issue of IMPACT Magazine, and the editor thought it sounded so good that she and her daughter made their own.
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See?
Here’s what they said about the cake:
I made your cake over the weekend and we loved it! Everyone asked for second helpings.
Brenda Drew, Editor, IMPACT Magazine (and home baker)
So see? You can make and enjoy this cake no matter your skill level. As I said, you don’t even need a mixer to make it (but a hand mixer will definitely come in handy for making the frosting!)
Other Seasonal Cake Decorating Ideas
While I am fond of the naked look for this cake, I can also see it topped with sugared cranberries and some rosemary.
Maybe stick a Tasteful Woodland Creature or two on top as well. Or not. Your call.
You could also make small Christmas trees using pretzel rods for the trunks and then drizzling them with green candy melts in the shape of trees (basically a triangle shape). Let them dry and then place the trees either in the top of the cake, press them around the sides, or both!
However you decorate yours, I’d love to see it. Email me or post it to the Pastry Chef Online facebook page.
Let’s stop talking about this tasty vegan Christmas Cake and just make it already, okay?
Don't let its small price and small size fool you. The Escali Primo is an accurate and easy-to-use food scale that I have used for years. It's easy to store, easy to use, has a tare function, and easily switches between grams and ounces/pounds for accurate measurements.
Vegan Chocolate Christmas Cake
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Equipment
Ingredients
For the Cake
- 8 oz about 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
- 14 oz 2 cups granulated organic sugar
- 2.25 oz 3/4 cup cocoa powder, sifted
- 1 Tablespoon espresso powder
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 8 oz full fat coconut milk shaken well
- 4 oz melted and cooled Earth Balance (stick or tub)
- 2 Tablespoons flax meal (whiz it up in a blender or food processor to make it as fine as you can) mixed with 5 tablespoons water
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 3-4 drops orange oil or the zest of an orange and/or 1/2 teaspoon orange extract
- 8 oz 1 cup boiling water
For the Frosting
- 8 oz Earth Balance (I used the tub kind)
- 16 oz 1 pound or 4 cups vegan powdered sugar
- 3-4 drops orange oil (or zest of 1/2 orange and/or 1/4-1/2 teaspoon orange extract)
- 2-3 shakes chocolate bitters (totally optional but really lovely)
Instructions
For the Cake
- Line 3 6″ (or 2 8″ or 9″) pans with parchment, spray sides with pan spray and set aside.
- Preheat oven to 350F.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, espresso powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
- In another bowl, whisk together the coconut milk, Earth Balance, flax meal/water mixture, vanilla and orange oil.
- Pour the wet into the dry and mix well for about 3 minutes using either a whisk or a large wooden spoon. The batter should be fairly thick and smooth.
- Pour in the boiling water and stir carefully to combine–it will take a minute for the water to want to mix with the thick batter, so go slowly and don’t splash yourself. Scrape the bowl and stir a bit more.
- Pour the batter evenly into the prepared pans. Bake on the center rack for about 30 minutes for the 6″ cakes and maybe 35-40 for 8″ or 9″ cakes or until the cakes read 200F on an instant read thermometer and have just started to shrink from the sides of the pans.
- Cool on racks for 15 minutes before turning out to cool completely.
- Frost and decorate as desired.
Did You Make Any Changes?
Nutrition
And here’s your printable holiday recipe card. You can click and save it as a pdf or right click to save it as a jpeg. You’re also more than welcome to download my three holiday recipe card templates as well.
Thank you so much for spending some time with me today. Have a lovely day.
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How many chicken eggs would you use in place of the flax? I can’t have milk products but not allergic to eggs and desperately want cake for Christmas!
Hey, Loren. Use 2 large eggs, and you’re good to go!
I’ve saved this to make next month– thanks for providing a vegan version!
Of course. You are most welcome! Enjoy!
I know this is an older post but was wondering if I could substitute milled chia seeds instead of flax seeds?
Yes, I think that would be fine. Chia gels like flax, so I think they’d make a fine egg replacer, Sarah. 🙂
That cake does look perfectly Christmas-y! Love that it’s vegan too 🙂
Thank you so much, June! Yes, I think he’s very festive! Hope you have a wonderful Christmas!
I adore your flavor profiles, Jenni, and I’m a fan of the classic Hershey’s recipe too. I had to share this beautiful cake over at my place. Lovely, lovely work!
Oh wow, thank you so much, Brooks! That means so much coming from you–I always admire your work! xo
This Vegan Chocolate Christmas Cake is a stunner. Even if I’m not vegan, I am tempted to bake this. My son may actually like this one so I’ll share this recipe with him. Thanks for sharing and have a great holiday season, Jenni!
Thanks so much, BA, and I hope you are feeling better! It’s delicious–folks were surprised when I told them it’s vegan!
What a gorgeous cake! I made a vegan chocolate cake for my birthday and am debating making one for Christmas, too!
Thanks, Megan! I sent most of this guy to work with The Beloved. There’s one vegan there who fell all over himself over it, and everyone else couldn’t believe it wasn’t “regular cake!” =)