This heavenly Vegan Black Forest Cake is incredibly delicious and made without any dairy ingredients. The recipe is simple and can also be made sugar-free and gluten-free. It’s perfect for a birthday or as a dessert for a cozy afternoon.
Actually, I wanted to share this recipe earlier on my blog but somehow I couldn’t get around to it yet. Usually, I’ve baked this Vegan Black Forest Cake for a birthday party or another festive occasion without photographing it first. In fact, this cake is always very popular with guests, although it’s even vegan, made of plant-based ingredients and much healthier than regular chocolate cakes with creamy layers.
Vegan Black Forest Cake – The perfect dessert
I don‘t bake rich festive cakes for myself so often. Mostly, I make a simple Carrot Cake, Apple or Cherry Pie or my best healthy Banana Bread. But if it should be a cake, then it has to be a Vegan Black Forest Cake! My family and I love this cake so much and we always serve it as dessert on Christmas. This cake tastes incredibly delicious! The combination of a fluffy chocolate cake, which contains no eggs and no dairy ingredients, plus fruity cherries and a light cream layer is absolutely heavenly.
You only need a few ingredients and it‘s easy to make!
To make this cake, you don‘t need many ingredients and the best thing, it’s relatively easy to make! The batter for the chocolate cake comes together very quickly in one bowl. If you have three round baking tins, you could even bake three layers at the same time. Otherwise, you can bake the whole batter in one baking form and then cut it into three even layers. That’s how I do it.
A fruity filling of juicy cherries with plant-based cream
The filling is made of cherries from the glass (or canned) and whipped plant-based cream, which is also the frosting. You can choose whether you use regular cream or dairy-free cream. I always use this plant-based cream for whipping because it gets perfectly stiff. I don‘t know if this recipe works with coconut cream either because I haven‘t tried it yet.
A noble Vegan Black Forest Cake
I‘ve decorated this cake with round pipes of remaining cream plus cherries on top and sprinkled over some grated chocolate. You don‘t need more decoration, because the cake looks beautiful like so. I think, it even seems majestic and noble. This cake is:
- Vegan
- Dairy-free
- Egg-free
- Without Butter
- Creamy
- Fruity
- A delicious Dessert
- Can be made Gluten-free and Sugar-free.
Bake a small cake or a big cake
This little Vegan Black Forest Cake is perfect for a single household or a small family. The recipe is for a 7-inch round baking tin, but you can simply double the recipe if you want to bake a large 10/11-inch in diameter cake. Have fun trying!
Vegan Black Forest Cake
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Ingredients
For the chocolate cake:
- 1 ⅓ cup (175 g) (gluten-free) flour
- 3 tbsp (25 g) cornstarch
- ½ cup (100 g) raw cane sugar or erythritol
- 5 tbsp (30 g) cocoa powder
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp baking soda
- 1 pinch of salt
- 5 tbsp (60 ml) neutral oil e. g. canola or sunflower oil
- 200 ml sparkling water or plant milk
- 2 tsp apple cider vinegar
For the cherry compote:
- 12 oz (350 g) cherries canned
- ¼ cup (50 g) raw cane sugar or erythritol
- 3.5 tbsp (30 g) cornstarch
- 1 cup (240 ml) juice from the cherries
For the cream:
- 14 oz (400 g) dairy-free whipping cream
- 2 sachets of cream stabilizer optional
- ½ tsp ground bourbon vanilla or 1 tsp vanilla extract
For the decoration:
- 7 cherries
- 3-4 tbsp grated vegan chocolate
Instructions
Chocolate cake:
- Preheat the oven to 355 °F (180 °C) and line the bottom of a 7-inch (18 cm) round baking tin with parchment paper.
- Mix the flour, cornstarch, sugar, cocoa, baking powder and salt in a mixing bowl. Add oil and sparkling water and mix with a whisk to combine, add the baking soda and apple cider vinegar last. Fill the batter into the baking tin and bake for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool completely, then cut into 3 equal cake layers.
- (Optionally, you can divide the batter in 3 baking tins and bake for about 15 minutes).
Cherry compote:
- Drain cherries and collect the juice.
- Stir 2-3 tbsp of the cherry juice with sugar and starch. Bring the remaining cherry juice to a boil in a pot, stir in the starch mixture using a whisk and bring to a boil again while stirring constantly. Then remove from the heat, let cool a bit and gently fold in the cherries.
Cream:
- Beat cream with an electric hand mixer on high speed for about 1 minute, then add cream stabilizer and continue beating until stiff. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour, until ready to use.
Assemble the cake:
- Spread half of the cherry compote evenly on the bottom cake layer, then spread over a thin layer of cream. Top with the second cake layer, spread over the remaining compote followed by another cream layer. Top with the third cake layer and frost the top and sides of the cake with remaining cream (save a small portion of the cream for the decoration and fill into a piping bag).
Decoration:
- Pipe 7 rounds of cream on the top of the cake and place a cherry over each one. Sprinkle with grated chocolate and refrigerate cake for at least 1 hour- before serving.
- Enjoy!
Notes
- Instead of all-purpose flour, you could make this cake gluten-free by using a gluten-free flour blend.
- You can use leftover cherry compote as a topping for coconut rice pudding, waffles, scrambled pancakes or other dessert or sweet breakfast recipes.
- The cake lasts for about 4-5 days in the fridge and is also great for freezing.
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The cake itself was delicious. However, I had a lot of trouble getting the vegan whipped cream to stabilise (I used Elmlea double cream and 1/2tsp cream of tartar). I re-whipped it so many times but it just kept melting back to cream texture again. It would be stiff for about half an hour but then start to degrade again, by the next day the definition in the piping was completely lost and the cake was falling apart. Luckily my friends aren’t fussy and we just shoved it in bowls and ate it as a trifle cake. I also found it difficult to stack due to the whole cherries being in the complete, the layers just kept slipping so I might chop the cherries next time too.
Can’t fault the taste and flavours at all but might try vegan gelatin next time, I’m determined to get that cream set!!
Hi Zoe,
I recommend trying another vegan whipping cream brand.
Greetings,
Bianca
Hi Bianca,
I made this cake last year and it was delicious. My husband is requesting it again for his birthday. I am in Canada and here the canned cherries all come in heavy syrup (not water). So making the compote was very thick in the end. Is the cherry juice from your recipe actually juice from cherries? Or do you mean the syrup that the cherries come in? Thanks!
Hi Sarah, glad your cake turned out great! 🙂 Thank you ♡
The juice is just the water (not syrup).
Greetings, Bianca
Wow this turned out unbelievably good. I made this for my father’s birthday (we have a black forest cake birthday tradition) and my whole family absolutely loved this cake. They all agreed that this is the best black forest cake that they ever had (and that’s saying a lot because we’re in Austria). Thank you so much for this wonderful recipe ! 🙂
Awesome! I’m very glad that it turned out great and everyone loved it! 🙂
Thank you so much for your amazing feedback! 💓
Sorry Bianca, but the key ingredient in a Black Forest Cake is the Kirsch. Without it, it’s just a Chocolate Cake with cherries and whipping cream : )
You can add Kirsch if you like! 🙂
Love this recipe! I used it for my christmas day dessert, and it works perfectly. I decided on a different recipe that i’m more familiar with for the chocolate cake part, and added a little cherry liquor to the compote, but other than that I followed it. The cake was very well received, it’s rich, looks amazing, and the flavours go so well together. I freezed the leftovers as slices after, and it freezes well!
Glad you love this recipe! Thank you so much for your great feedback! 🙂 ❤️
Hab das erste Mal Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte gemacht. Hat super funktioniert. Einfach klasse geworden!!!!!
Fantastisch, das freut mich total! 🙂
Can I use Apple cider vinegar with mother instead of the plain cider vinegar?
I think that shoudn’t be a problem. 🙂
Hi Bianca,
What baking temperature and time would you recommend for this recipe if I intend if doubling it and cooking it in a 10” or 11”pan?
Hi Sarah,
the baking temperature is the same and I would recommend to bake it for the given time and then check for the cake every 5 minutes by using a wooden stick. As long as the stick comes out of the cake with dough on it, it will need more baking time. In case your cake gets too dark, you can put a sheet of baking paper on it.
I made this cake for the second time yesterday and it turned out even better than it did the first time, which I didn’t think was possible. We all think it’s better than any Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte we’ve had in Germany :).
What a great compliment! Thank you very much for your feedback. <3