This Post May Contain Affiliate Links. Please Read Our Disclosure Policy.
These vegan red velvet cupcakes are ultra tender with a tangy cream cheese frosting. You might not even know they’re vegan!
Why These Cupcakes Are So Good
- These vegan red velvet cupcakes are oh-so-moist, with just the perfect amount of cocoa, a strong depth of flavor, and simply the perfect texture.
- Taken from Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s incredible recipe, these cupcakes are so incredibly decadent that you will hardly be able to believe they are totally vegan.
- The vegan cream cheese frosting is unbelievably sweet and creamy and will become your new favorite frosting for every dessert.
How To Make Them
- Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Line muffin pans with cupcake liners.
- Whisk together the almond milk and apple cider vinegar. Set aside to curdle, about 5-10 minutes. (If it doesn’t curdle, no worries!)
- Into a large bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix.
- Add the oil, food coloring, vanilla extract, and almond extract to the milk-vinegar mixture, and whisk well to combine. Gently fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Mix until the large lumps disappear.
- Fill cupcake liners about two-thirds full. (These cupcakes will rise fairly high, so you don’t want them to overflow!) Place into the preheated oven and bake 18-20 minutes. Be sure not to over-bake! (Insert a toothpick into the center of the cupcakes. When they are ready, the toothpick will turn red, but won’t have any crumbs attached to it.) When they are done, let them cool for a few minutes before removing from the muffin tin. Then transfer the cupcakes to cooling rack to cool completely. (You don’t want to frost warm cupcakes or the frosting will melt!)
- To make the cream cheese frosting, combine cream cheese and butter in either the bowl of a standing mixer or a regular bowl if using a hand mixer. Beat on medium speed until the frosting is smooth. Pour in the vanilla extract, then the powdered sugar, about 1-2 cups at a time. After adding each ingredient, beat on medium speed until fully incorporated. Refrigerate until ready to use.
- Frost with the cream cheese frosting. These look especially awesome with a piped swirl! Try a Wilton 2A round tip to achieve a perfect swirl.
More Incredible Vegan Treats
- Chocolate Cupcakes with Peppermint Frosting {Vegan}
- Vegan Pumpkin Pie
- No Bake Margarita Bars (Paleo, Vegan)
- Vegan No Bake Cookie Dough Cheesecake (Paleo, Raw)
Vegan Red Velvet Cupcakes
The perfect red velvet cupcakes with tangy cream cheese frosting. Delightfully vegan.
Ingredients
- 1 cup almond milk or other plant-based milk, like oat or soy
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
- 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup white sugar
- 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ⅓ cup neutral oil like avocado oil or vegetable oil
- 2 tablespoons vegetarian red food coloring
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon almond extract
Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting
- 8 oz. vegan cream cheese like Kite Hill. See Note
- 8 tablespoons vegan butter softened. We like Miyoko's
- 5 cups powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350ºF and line muffin pans with cupcake liners.
- Whisk together milk and apple cider vinegar and set aside to curdle, about 5 – 10 minutes. If it doesn't curdle, that's OK!
- Sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into large bowl and mix.
- Add the oil, food coloring, vanilla extract, and almond extract to the curdled milk-vinegar mixture. Whisk well to combine. Gently fold wet ingredients into dry, mixing until large lumps disappear.
- Fill cupcake liners about two-thirds full (these cupcakes will rise fairly high). Place in preheated oven and bake 18 to 20 minutes, but be sure not to over-bake. Use a toothpick inserted in the center to tell–the toothpick will be red, but there should not be any batter or crumbs sticking. When done, let cool for a few minutes then transfer cupcakes to cooling rack to cool completely.
- Make the cream cheese frosting: in the bowl of a standing mixer (or use a large bowl with a hand mixer), combine cream cheese and butter. Beat on medium speed until smooth. Pour in vanilla extract, then add in the powdered sugar, about 1-2 cups at a time. Beat on medium speed until completely incorporated after each addition. Refrigerate until ready to use.
- Frost with cream cheese frosting. These look especially awesome with a piped swirl! Try a Wilton 2A round tip to achieve a perfect swirl.
- The brand of the vegan cream cheese can make a big difference here. We like Kite Hill and GoVeggie. Use your favorite!
- Make sure you use vegetarian red food coloring in this recipe.
Approximate Information for One Serving
Calories: 479calProtein: 3gFat: 18gSaturated Fat: 4gSodium: 305mgPotassium: 43mgTotal Carbs: 79gFiber: 2gSugar: 66gNet Carbs: 77gVitamin A: 356IUCalcium: 47mgIron: 1mg
Nutrition Disclaimers
Number of total servings shown is approximate. Actual number of servings will depend on your preferred portion sizes.
Nutritional values shown are general guidelines and reflect information for 1 serving using the ingredients listed, not including any optional ingredients. Actual macros may vary slightly depending on specific brands and types of ingredients used.
To determine the weight of one serving, prepare the recipe as instructed. Weigh the finished recipe, then divide the weight of the finished recipe (not including the weight of the container the food is in) by the desired number of servings. Result will be the weight of one serving.
Did You Make This Recipe?
Tag @40aprons on Instagram and be sure to leave a review on the blog post!
Never Miss A Meal!
New Recipes Straight To Your Inbox
A curated selection of our most recent recipes, delivered straight to your inbox once a week.
Leave A Review
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Can I use coconut oil instead of canola and also can I omit the cream cheese what can I substitute for that.?
You could try a different vegan frosting if you do not want to make the cream cheese frosting. You can try my paleo/vegan cream cheese frosting here:
https://40aprons.com/paleo-pumpkin-chocolate-chip-muffins/
You can use coconut oil instead of canola oil, too.
Hi, I was just wondering if almond milk works instead of soy milk because I have tried and the almond milk doesn’t seem to curdle, I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong…
These will work with the almond milk but it tends to not curdle quite as much. I figure it’s just a texture/fat thing? But either way, it will work!
I am looking for a red velvet cupcake for a friend of mine. She is gluten intolerant and is on a sugar free diet.
Thank you for this great recipe. I actually made this gluten free as well as I have a friend who is allergic to both gluten and dairy products. The cupcakes turned out amazing and my friend got to enjoy her first ever red velvet cupcake
Awesome! What did you use in place of the AP flour?
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe! 🙂 I tried these today and they turned out amazing! However, to give it a healthier twist, I changed up the recipe a little. I used one table spoon of food coloring and a handful of fresh shredded organic beetroot! Turned out amazing! I now have the perfect red velvet cupcake recipe.
How do these turn out when used to make a cake? Since the batter is a little more liquidy than normal cake batter, does it stick to the pan?
That’s an awesome idea! I bet it deepened the flavor perfectly too. I’ve used this recipe to make cakes so many times.. it really doesn’t stick to the pan at all! What I do is grease the pan then “flour” it with some cocoa powder and it turns out perfectly
Hi! I’m going to try this recipe soon.
Just a very quick, yet important note; some red food coloring is not vegetarian, nor vegan. E120 (Carmine or Cohinical Red) is made from the female bodies of an insect. This could be very important to those who are on a strict vegetarian/vegan diet for ethical reasons etc, and for those who bake these cupcakes to friends and family that are vegan.
Cheers,
Christine Dahl
You’re very right! And I thought it was mentioned in the post; I will update 🙂 Thanks!
Thank you so much for this information about certain red food colorings. I will definitely keep this in mind when I’m baking vegan desserts.
You’re welcome!!!
Hey,
Just want to say thanks for the recipe. My wife is vegan and this is her favorite cupcake. I normally get her cupcakes from a vegan bakery here in Atlanta, but thought i would attempt making these cupcakes from scratch. They came out beauitful.
Thanks!
Scott F.
Atlanta, Ga
That is wonderful! I’m so happy she loves them. They’re easy, right? And so delicious! Thanks so much for taking the time to read, make the recipe, and comment, Scott!
Hi There!! I was just wondering whether this recipe could be used for a layer cake instead? I really like the sound of it as a vegan cake- perhaps just tweaking a few of the ratios? Any tips would be much appreciated! Thank you!! xx Morgan
Totally! If I were you, honestly I’d just make a little extra to be sure I has enough, but I wouldn’t otherwise change the recipe. I actually think I’ve made this as a layer cake before. And wrapped the layers in plastic wrap right out of the oven (but with enough time to cool so they didn’t uh, melt the plastic) to make them super moist. Let me know how it goes! 🙂
Hi! I don’t have any type of electric mixer, can I make the frosting with a LOT of elbow grease? I would be following the peppermint one minus the peppermint. Can I also substitute vegan margarine instead of shortening?
As for the cupcake matter itself, did I read correctly to assume that if I am only using vanilla extract (no almond or chocolate) to use 3tsp total?
One more thing, if I am making these for a Saturday event, can I make them on Thursday evening and frost them Saturday afternoon? I would likely make the frosting day-of because room-temp frosting is so much easier to manipulate, though I guess I could also make it Thursday and leave it out Friday night/Saturday morning.
Thanks in advance!
Hi! I think that yes, you can definitely make the frosting with a lot of elbow grease. Just make sure that everything is properly creamed before adding the powdered sugar and then whisk REALLY well in between each addition. Definitely sift the powdered sugar before using. You can definitely use vegan margarine, too; I really don’t like shortening but I wanted the frosting to be a bright white. Otherwise, it’s vegan butter all the way!
And yes, LOTS of vanilla extract. Adds to that aromatic chocolate!
And yes, that should be fine. As long as you keep the cupcakes in an airtight container you should be good to go. And I agree – make the frosting in advance and leave it out for several hours or just make it that day. I’ve done that many times – no point in making the cupcakes that day and fanning them frantically because you realize you miscalculated cooling + frosting + makeup time and are running late! Or is that just me.. hrmm.. 🙂
these are super amazing! I have made them a couple of times, and even was complemented by a chef at a vegan restaurant (friend took them along as a birthday cake surprise for her Vegan friend and had a spare so gave it to the chef). Just as an alternative, I have been using coconut oil instead of the canola and WOW! so yum
I’m so so glad you like them! That’s a major compliment from the chef, too 🙂 The coconut oil sounds like it was be just awesome in these – dense but healthier, a bit aromatic. Yum! Great idea – I’ll be stealing that from you!