Top 5 easy vegan dessert recipes
Quick answer
For easy vegan desserts that nobody will guess are plant based, make Pick Up Limes' chocolate layer cake, Rainbow Plant Life's fudgy brownies, Fitgreenmind's three ingredient aquafaba chocolate mousse, Live Eat Learn's vanilla tofu brûlée and Minimalist Baker's apple crisp. That gives you a party cake, a crowd pleasing bake, a quick chilled dessert, a make ahead showstopper and a cozy fall classic.
Vegan desserts have come a long way. The best ones today are not a compromise. They are simply very good desserts that happen to skip the eggs, butter and cream, so everyone at the table can have a slice, whether they eat plants only or not.
We picked five that real creators have tested and fine tuned, from a celebration cake to a mousse made with the liquid from a can of chickpeas. Every pick links to the original video or recipe, and the button under each one saves it to Recepti so your favorites stay in one place.
1 The best vegan chocolate cake
By Sadia Badiei, Pick Up Limes on YouTube
With over a million views, this is the cake Sadia makes when she wants to impress. Plant milk and a splash of vinegar turn into a quick vegan buttermilk that keeps the crumb soft and moist, and a rich chocolate frosting holds the two layers together. She also explains cocoa versus cacao and which coconut oil to use, which helps first timers.
- Time
- About an hour, plus cooling
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Key ingredients
- Plant milk and vinegar as buttermilk, flour, cocoa powder, coconut oil, chocolate frosting
The button copies this recipe's link and opens Recepti. Tap +, paste, and tap Import recipe.
2 Fudgy vegan brownies
By Nisha Vora, Rainbow Plant Life on YouTube · Written recipe
Nisha's brownies have the shiny, crinkly top most vegan brownies never get. Her trick is whipping aquafaba with sugar until thick and glossy before folding in melted dark chocolate and vegan butter. A little espresso powder deepens the chocolate without tasting like coffee. Let them cool fully before slicing, because they keep setting as they rest.
- Time
- About 50 minutes, plus cooling
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Key ingredients
- Dark chocolate, Dutch process cocoa, aquafaba, cane sugar, vegan butter, espresso powder
The button copies this recipe's link and opens Recepti. Tap +, paste, and tap Import recipe.
3 Three ingredient aquafaba chocolate mousse
By Maya Leinenbach, Fitgreenmind on YouTube
This short has been watched well over a million times, and it is easy to see why. Maya whips the liquid from canned chickpeas with a little powdered sugar until it looks like meringue, then gently folds in melted dark chocolate. After a few hours in the fridge it turns into a light, airy mousse. Most dark chocolate is already vegan, but check the label.
- Time
- About 15 minutes, plus a few hours chilling
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Key ingredients
- Chickpea water (aquafaba), powdered sugar, dark chocolate
The button copies this recipe's link and opens Recepti. Tap +, paste, and tap Import recipe.
4 Vanilla tofu brûlée
By Live Eat Learn (@liveeatlearn) on TikTok · Written recipe
This one sounds odd and tastes wonderful. A block of silken tofu soaks in a simple vanilla syrup in the fridge for a few days, with no blender needed, and turns into something smooth and custard like. A layer of sugar torched on top gives you the crackly crème brûlée finish.
- Time
- About 15 minutes hands on, plus 3 to 5 days soaking
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Key ingredients
- Silken tofu, vanilla bean, sugar, water, a kitchen torch
The button copies this recipe's link and opens Recepti. Tap +, paste, and tap Import recipe.
5 The best vegan apple crisp
By Dana Shultz, Minimalist Baker
Written recipeThe best vegan apple crispminimalistbaker.comDana's apple crisp is fall in a baking dish. A mix of tart and sweet apples gets tossed with lemon, cinnamon and a touch of ginger, then buried under a crunchy oat, almond and pecan topping. It is naturally sweetened and made in one bowl, so cleanup is easy. Serve it warm with coconut whipped cream or vegan vanilla ice cream.
- Time
- About 1 hour 20 minutes
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Key ingredients
- Tart and sweet apples, lemon, coconut sugar, cinnamon, oats, almond meal, pecans, coconut or olive oil
The button copies this recipe's link and opens Recepti. Tap +, paste, and tap Import recipe.
Keep your favorite vegan desserts in one place
Good dessert recipes have a way of getting lost in saved videos and open tabs. Recepti is a free web app that keeps them together. Paste a link from YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook or a food blog and it saves the ingredients and steps, with the creator's name and a View original post button.
When a recipe lives only in a short video, Recepti works from what is said and shown in it. You can scale the servings up for a party, switch between metric and imperial, and start as a guest in your browser with nothing to download.
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Questions
Which of these vegan desserts is the easiest?
The aquafaba mousse. It needs only three ingredients and about 15 minutes of work, then the fridge does the rest. If you have never whipped aquafaba before, give it time. It takes several minutes with an electric mixer to turn thick and glossy.
Which ones can I make ahead?
The tofu brûlée has to be made ahead, since the tofu soaks for a few days. The mousse is best chilled for a few hours or overnight, and the brownies get chewier on the second day. The cake and the apple crisp taste best fresh but keep in the fridge for a few days.
Do I need any special ingredients?
Not really. Aquafaba is just the liquid from a can of chickpeas, so save it the next time you make hummus. Vegan butter, plant milk and dark chocolate are easy to find. The only extra tool is a kitchen torch for the brûlée.
How do I save these recipes so I can find them later?
Paste each link into Recepti and it keeps the ingredients, steps and creator credit together. Several of these creators bake in grams, so you can switch to cups and teaspoons with a tap. Our guide to converting a recipe to metric explains how it works.
Every recipe here belongs to the creator named above. We link to the original post and do not copy full recipes or photos. Times and difficulty are our own estimates from each recipe.