The Vanilla Vegan Mug Cake is a most delicious treat you can make in less than 5 minutes! This vegan mug cake recipe is an egg-free vanilla mug cake recipe ready in 2 minutes in the microwave. If you are craving a fluffy vanilla cake, this recipe will fix it quickly!
I love making vegan mug cakes because they are quick fix to a craving and you can make them healthy in all flavors, like my Oatmeal Mug Cake, Protein Mug Cake, Chocolate Mug Cake, or Healthy Mug Cake.
What’s A Vegan Mug Cake?
A vegan mug cake is, as its name implies, a cake baked in a mug and made with plant-based ingredients. Mug cakes are so awesome and popular because they are one-bowl, no-preparation cakes cooked in a microwave.
You literally just have to toss the ingredients in a mug, stir, and put it in the microwave! Now, it doesn’t mean you should not follow a recipe! It’s critical to have the perfect ratio of wet and dry ingredients to make a good mug cake. But once you have it, it’s easy as pie!
There is nothing easier than making your own vegan vanilla mug cake. It is the perfect 90-second vegan dessert to fix any sweet craving.
All you need is to combine all the ingredients directly into your coffee mug.
Ingredients and Substitutions
You don’t even need to use a separate bowl, which is great! The main ingredients you need to make an eggless vanilla mug cake are:
- Flour – the recipe works with all-purpose white flour, gluten-free flour blend, spelt flour, or white whole wheat flour. Oat flour works as well, but the batter will be more fragile and less fluffy. However, almond flour or coconut flour won’t work in this recipe, so don’t be tempted to use them!
- Unsweetened almond milk – or any non-dairy milk you love like oat milk, soy milk, or rice milk.
- Baking powder – or half the amount of baking soda if preferred.
- Vanilla extract or essence
- Coconut sugar or white sugar or erythritol for a sugar-free mug cake. I don’t recommend using maple syrup or any liquid sweetener in vegan mug cake recipes. They make cakes too heavy and too dense.
- Coconut oil – or any light oil like avocado oil, or almond oil. I had great success with apple sauce for an oil-free mug cake option.
How To Make It
Mug cakes in the microwave are very convenient cake recipes to get your baking goodness fix in less than 2 minutes.
To make sure your microwave mug cake always comes out fluffy and moist, there are a few things to consider:
- Microwave power – make sure your microwave is on high power 800W. If your microwave can’t go that high, you will have to increase the baking time by 20-second bursts.
- Mug size – always use a regular size coffee mug diameter of 8cm (3 inches) and a minimum height of 5 cm (1.9 inches). If you were using a wider microwave-safe ramekin, you would have to decrease the baking time. Otherwise, the mug cake would come out dry.
- Baking time – the perfect baking time for a microwave mug cake is 90 seconds in an 800W microwave power and regular coffee mug. However, if you have to change any of these parameters, I recommend starting baking the mug cake for only 60 seconds. Check the texture and keep baking in 20-second bursts until the center is set, moist and fluffy. This will prevent overbaking the mug cake, resulting in a chewy dry cake that won’t taste good.
- Combine all the Vanilla Mug Cake ingredients ingredients in a bowl (photo 1).
- Mix them with a whisk. Transfer the mixture to a small mug or a ramekin (photo 2).
- Bake your vegan vanilla mug cake in the microwave for 90 seconds at 800W (photo 3).
- Finally, serve directly in the mug making sure you wait 1 or 2 minutes before you dig in (photo 4)! It is very hot in the center, and you don’t want to burn yourself.
Step-By-Step Video
Serving Vegan Cake In A Mug
This is a light, fluffy single-serving cake, and it truly reminds me of vanilla cupcakes.
It is even better with frosting. The best vegan frosting ideas for mug cake that only take a few minutes to make are:
- A dollop of dairy-free coconut yogurt or Vegan Whipped Cream with a pinch of vegan chocolate chips.
- A drizzle of nut butter – my favorite is peanut butter or almond butter.
- Buttercream Chocolate frosting – beat 2 tablespoons of vegan butter with 2 tablespoons of icing sugar and 1 teaspoon of cocoa powder! You can also make Vegan Chocolate Frosting, Protein Powder Frosting, or Cashew Frosting.
- Ice Cream – While it’s not frosting, it’s a delicious and quick way to take your vegan cake in a mug to the next level. Use protein powder ice cream or vanilla ice cream made with non-dairy milk like coconut milk or almond milk. They are delicious, with some vegan chocolate chips on top!
- Salt Flakes – add a couple of salt flakes on top of the mug cake for even more flavor.
Boosting Mug Cake Flavors
You can tweak this recipe a lot depending to create different vanilla mug cake vegan recipe flavors using the same recipe. Below are some ideas.
- Banana bread mug cake – replace the oil with 1 tablespoon of mashed banana and add a few banana extract drops. This will also be a great option to make an oil-free vegan mug cake.
- Chocolate vegan microwave cake – add 2 teaspoons of cacao powder or cocoa powder and a splash more non-dairy milk into the batter. This option will fix any chocolate cake cravings!
- Chocolate chip mug cake– add 1 tablespoon of vegan chocolate chips!
- Lemon mug cake – swap 2 tablespoons of almond milk with lemon juice.
- Cinnamon roll – add 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon.
- Peanut butter mug cake – replace oil with 1 tablespoon of peanut butter or almond butter for less saturated fat. Also, increase non-dairy milk by 1 tablespoon!
- Protein mug cake – add 2 teaspoons of protein powder and increase the milk by 2 tablespoons. However, depending on the protein powder brand, this may dry the mug cake batter. Always add more non-dairy milk to achieve a cake batter that looks like regular cake batter, not too dense!
Frequently Asked Questions
Using a microwave is not the perfect method for baking food as it can degrade some precious nutrients from the food.
Great news, you can also bake this vanilla mug cake in the oven at 350°F (180°C) for 10-12 minutes.
Make sure to use an oven-proof ramekin!
Mug cakes work in the exact same way as regular cakes, but their smaller size makes it happen much faster (10 minutes faster in the oven).
Cooking them in the microwave accelerates this even more as the microwaves make water molecules heat up very quickly which in turns make the gluten coagulate while the baking powder creates bubbles and make the cake rise.
Mug cakes are typically between 250 and 400 calories a piece. My vanilla mug cake below contains 330 calories per serving.
More Quick Vegan Mug Cake Recipes
If you like vegan mug cakes, you’ll love these:
Did You Like This Recipe?
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Vegan Vanilla Mug Cake
Ingredients
- 4 tablespoons All-Purpose Flour - unbleached, or whole-wheat flour or all-purpose gluten-free flour (read note below)
- ¼ teaspoon Baking Powder
- 2 tablespoons Coconut Sugar - or white sugar or sugar-free erythritol
- 3 tablespoons Almond Milk - (at room temperature) or any plant-based milk of your choice
- 1 tablespoon Coconut Oil - melted or apple sauce for the oil-free version
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla
Instructions
- In a microwave-safe mug, add flour, baking powder, coconut sugar, almond milk, melted coconut oil, and vanilla. My coffee mug has a diameter of 3 inches (8 cm) and a minimum height of 1.9 inches (5 cm). This prevents the batter from overflowing.
- Whisk the ingredients together until it forms a smooth batter with no lumps.
- Bake in the microwave for 90 seconds at 800W. If your microwave works at lower power, you may have to increase baking time by 20-second bursts. If your mug is low and wide, your mug cake will bake faster, and you may have to bake only 60 seconds first, then adjust baking by 20-second bursts as well.
- Enjoy immediately with dairy-free coconut yogurt and vegan dark chocolate chips on top or plain.
Oven baking
- Bake at 350°F (180°C) for 10-12 minutes in an oven-safe greased ramekin.
The best mug cake I’ve ever had! So glad I came across your recipe as I’ve tried so many eggless mug cakes in the past and they have all been absolutely terrible, but your recipe is a mug cake miracle! Thank you for my new, cheeky midnight fix! 🙂
I am so glad you find my blog ! Enjoy all the vegan mug cakes around here.
I put a good dollop of left over vegan dunkaroo frosting. My sweet tooth is satisfied, thanks to you 🙂
Its so good i had one table spoon of cinnamon its so delicious thx ☺️
Hi
Does the all purpose gluten free flour need to have xantham gum in it?
Thanks!
The recipe won’t raise with gluten free flour and be pretty dense so I usually don’t recommend it for this microwave recipe. I always use a gluten free all purpose flour with guar gum in recipes that are ok with gf flour. My fav brand is Bob red mills. Enjoy, XOXO Carine
I made these with blueberries and vegan white chocolate chips and omg it was soo good! Great consistency
This was good but it would have benefited from a little salt!
I tried using a gluten free flour and only baked for a minute or so in a ramekin! It was dense but just a little worried that I may have consumed undercooked dough. Any thoughts on this? I baked in 20 seconds burst at 900W
This recipe is not designed to use gluten free flours that can be gummy and won’t raise as well. I only tried spelt or all purpose flour and it’s my recommendation here. Enjoy, XOXO Carine
I’ve tried the recipe around 3X now, and every time it has come out gummy. Any advice on how to fix this? I use regular oil or melted vegan margarine, and vanilla extract. I also weighed the ingredients.
A cake with flour becomes gummy if the gluten develop too much, this happens when you over mix it. Just combine in few seconds stir that’s the all. Enjoy, XOXO Carine
So it does have milk then.
Not milk, non-dairy milk! it can be almond milk, oat milk, soy milk any vegan milk alternative you like. Enjoy, XOXO Carine
I doubled the recipe and it worked great! The only thing I didn’t like is that mine had a bit of a chalky undertaste (from the baking powder?), but I used some Smucker’s blueberry syrup as a topping and it ended up tasting like a blueberry muffin! Very quick and easy, and satisfied my sweet tooth when I was in a pinch with no eggs and only some almond milk in the fridge. I’ll probably be making this one again, and I may even snag some chocolate chips next time I’m at the grocery to make it even better!
I am glad you love this mug cake! In fact, if you double up the recipe it may change the texture and required longer baking time. Enjoy, XOXO Carine