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!

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Prep Time 15

Cook Time 30

Total Time 45

Servings People

Calories 464kcal

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.

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.

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.