Vegan Coconut Cake

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This homemade Vegan Coconut Cake will surely impress your guests. It's soft, tender, and brimming with delicious coconut flavor! It's heavenly!

If you love coconut, then you're going to go crazy for this Vegan Coconut Cake! It has the perfect balance of sweetness and coconut flavor that will make your taste buds dance. It's a coconut lover's dream come true!

Plus, you can create this bakery-style cake with simple ingredients and easy-to-follow instructions. This coconutty goodness can be yours in no time!

To make it extra special, I turned my Vegan Buttercream Frosting into a delicious Coconut frosting, but you can also make my Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting or if you're feeling daring, you can use my Vegan Chocolate Frosting instead.

Ingredients, Notes, and Substitutions

️🌟 This is a quick overview with step-by-step photos. For the complete ingredient amounts and instructions, scroll down to the recipe card below.

• Lemon Juice - You can replace it with 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar.
• Granulated + Powdered Sugar - choosing organic will ensure that it's vegan.
• Canola Oil - any neutral-flavored oil will work such as sunflower, avocado, grapeseed, or vegetable oil.
• Cake Flour: produces a light and fluffy crumb. However, all-purpose will still produce a beautiful crumb.
• Soy Milk - it yields a consistency similar to dairy buttermilk when an acid is added. You can use any non-dairy milk, just note that it won't thicken, but the recipe will work.
• Vanilla + Coconut Extract - pure vanilla tastes the best, but you can use imitation. Coconut extract provides a wonderful coconut flavor and I highly recommend it.
• Apple Sauce - it yields a tender crumb. Plain non-dairy yogurt will work too.
• Vegan Butter - I love Miyoko's, but I was out the day of the shoot and I used Good & Gather and it worked beautifully too. I don't recommend tub butter because it tends to contain more moisture and could alter the frosting results.
• Coconut Shreds - You can use sweetened or unsweetened for this recipe. The sweetened variety will be softer and has more moisture in it. It's usually sold as larger shreds which will add more texture. If you don't prefer it that way, you can finely chop the shreds with a knife or pulse them in a food processor.

How to make Vegan Coconut Cake

1. Combine the soy milk and lemon juice and let it sit for 5 minutes to curdle and thicken.
2. Add the oil, applesauce, sugar, vanilla, and coconut extract and whisk to combine.
3. Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together to combine.
4. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.
5. Whisk together until just combined and gently fold in the coconut shreds.
6. Divide batter evenly into each cake pan and bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

1. Add softened vegan butter the bowl and beat until pale and fluffy...
2. Add the vanilla extract, coconut extract and mix until incorporated.
3. Now add 1 cup of powdered sugar over low speed until it's mostly incorporated. Turn up to medium-high speed and mix until smooth and fluffy then repeat step until the sugar is gone.

More Vegan Desserts to Try

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5 from 4 votes

Vegan Coconut Cake

This homemade Vegan Coconut Cake will surely impress your guests. It's soft, tender, and brimming with delicious coconut flavor! It's heavenly!

Prep Time15 mins

Cook Time30 mins

Total Time45 mins

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Servings: 16 People

Calories: 464kcal

Author: Melissa Huggins

Ingredients

US CustomaryMetric

Wet Ingredients:

• ▢ 1 ½ cups soy milk
• ▢ 2 tablespoons lemon juice , fresh-squeezed
• ▢ 1 ½ cups granulated sugar
• ▢ ½ cup canola oil
• ▢ ⅓ cup applesauce
• ▢ 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• ▢ 1 teaspoon coconut extract

Dry Ingredients:

• ▢ 2 ½ cups cake flour (sub all-purpose)
• ▢ 2 teaspoons baking powder
• ▢ ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ▢ 1 teaspoon salt
• ▢ 1 cup shredded coconut , sweetened

Coconut Frosting

• ▢ 1 cup vegan stick butter , slightly softened at room temp
• ▢ 3 cups powdered sugar , sifted (more if preferred)
• ▢ ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• ▢ ½ teaspoon coconut extract
• ▢ 1-4 teaspoons non-dairy milk *only if needed
• ▢ 1 ½ cups sweetened shredded coconut , more if needed

Recommended Equipment

• 2 - 8-Inch Cake Pans
• 2 Mixing Bowls
• Whisk

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Instructions

Cake

• Preheat oven to 350 °F (177 °C). Lightly grease two 8-inch cake pans. *Optional: line the bottoms with parchment rounds for easy cake removal.
• In a medium-sized mixing bowl, combine the soy milk and lemon juice, then let it sit for 5-10 minutes to curdle and thicken slightly.
• When milk has curdled, add the applesauce, oil, sugar, vanilla, and coconut extract. Whisk to combine and set aside.
• In a large mixing bowl, whisk flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
• Slowly pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, scraping down the sides with a rubber spatula to get everything out. Whisk together until just combined. Don't over mix or it can create a dense and chewy cake. Now, gently fold in the coconut shreds.
• Divide batter evenly into each cake pan and bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean (some dry crumbs are fine, just not wet batter). Don't overbake or the cake will be dry.
• Let the cake cool in the pans for 15-20 minutes before carefully removing it. Then let them cool on a rack completely before frosting.

Coconut Buttercream Frosting

• Add the softened vegan butter to the bowl of a stand mixer or use a large bowl with a hand mixer. Beat on medium until pale and fluffy for 2-3 minutes.
• Add the vanilla extract, coconut extract and mix for 30-60 seconds.
• Add 1 cup of powdered sugar over low speed until it's mostly incorporated, scraping down sides as needed. Turn up to medium-high speed and mix until smooth and fluffy. Repeat this step until the sugar is gone. If the frosting seems too thin, add more sugar. If you would like a softer consistency, add 1 teaspoon of milk on medium speed until desired consistency is reached.
• Decorate cake with the frosting and immediately sprinkle the sides and top with the coconut shreds and gently press into the frosting. I did this over a large rimmed baking tray.

Notes

• Lemon Juice: If you don't have it, you can use apple cider vinegar, but only use 1 tablespoon. 
• Canola oil - it yields a light crumb, but any neutral-flavored oil will work such as avocado, sunflower, grapeseed, or vegetable oil. Coconut oil will work too, but it needs to be melted first before measuring and all ingredients need to be at room temp too or it will solidify.
• Coconut Shreds - You can use sweetened or unsweetened. The sweetened variety will be softer and it has more moisture in it. It's usually sold as larger shreds which will add more texture. If you don't prefer it that way, you can finely chop the shreds with a knife or pulse them in a food processor.
• Soy Milk: it curdles and thickens when lemon juice is added and yields a consistency similar to dairy buttermilk. You can use any non-dairy milk you prefer just note that it won't thicken much but the recipe will still work.
• Measuring Flour: For accurate results, don’t scoop the flour with a measuring cup directly from the container. Instead, aerate it first, then scoop it out of the container with a spoon and then into a measuring cup. Don’t pack or tap the cup. Now, lightly sweep a butter knife across the top to remove the excess.
• Measure all ingredients accurately and don't add more or less of any ingredient or it can change the results.

Nutrition

Serving: 1slice | Calories: 464kcal | Carbohydrates: 63g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 23g | Saturated Fat: 7g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 5g | Monounsaturated Fat: 10g | Trans Fat: 2g | Sodium: 170mg | Sugar: 48g

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