Eggless Chocolate Cake, the Best Recipe for this Economy

This Eggless Chocolate Cake is the perfect fast and easy treat for getting that hit of chocolate anytime because it requires no eggs, no butter, no milk. Unbelievable, right? Not to mentions it requires only one bowl! Shall we?

Explore More

• What is Eggless Chocolate Cake?
• Why Use Oil vs Butter in Baking
• Is Eggless Chocolate Cake Healthy
• Ingredients You Need for Eggless Chocolate Cake
• What Kind of Oil for this Cake
• How to Make Eggless Chocolate Cake
• Eggless Chocolate Cake Recipe

What is Eggless Chocolate Cake?

An Eggless Chocolate Cake is made, wait for it, without eggs. This particular cake also contains no butter and no dairy milk, so it's also naturally vegan!

But how? And why?

Eggs in cake provide moisture and when beaten or whipped, some degree of leavening or "lift." Without eggs, this cake gets its moisture from oil and non-dairy liquid, in this case coffee, and the "lift" from baking soda.

The reason why we can bake a cake without eggs is that without eggs (and dairy), we can make this cake with dry ingredients straight out of the pantry. We don't even have to mention that eggs are kiiinda expensive right now, so this cake saves a little but still lets us indulge in the luxury of chocolate.

Price Difference in Cakes With and Without Eggs

Does the price of eggs really make a difference? Let's see just for funsies, based on average grocery prices as of March 2025.

The total cost of this Eggless Chocolate Cake recipe is $3.10, or $0.34 per serving!

The total cost of Chocolate Olive Oil Cake, which has similar ingredients but also uses eggs, is more than double at $6.46.

Is this the Depression Chocolate Cake?

This Eggless Chocolate Cake is similar to Depression Cake, a vintage recipe that was created during the Great Depression, a period of severe economic downturn in American history when eggs, butter, and milk were either unaffordable or in a shortage. Smart bakers came up with ways to use more affordable and available ingredients like oil, dry leaveners like baking soda combined with vinegar, and of course water.

The original Depression Cake recipe works great, but this Eggless Chocolate Cake is slightly more forgiving and more flavor-forward because we're not quite in an economic depression (yet? fingers crossed!). The recipe calls for hot coffee instead of water and blooming cocoa powder in said hot coffee. Blooming in hot liquid is a technique that "blooms" or opens, the flavor of cocoa. And using coffee instead of water intensifies the chocolate flavor even more.

Eggless Chocolate Cake also specifies either avocado oil, which is a neutral oil, or olive oil which has a richer flavor. You can, of course, use whatever generally neutral flavored oil you already have in your pantry!

How to Keep an Eggless Cake Moist?

Without eggs or dairy milk, cakes could be dry, but this Eggless Chocolate Cake is not dry! Hot coffee (or water) and oil provide more than enough liquid for the cake. In fact, because oil is a liquid at room temperature the cake will not dry out as quickly as a cake made with butter.

Why Use Oil vs Butter in Baking

Aside from the fact that the two ingredients having very different flavor profiles, oil and butter render final products with different textures. Oil cakes are denser and moister, and stay moist for much longer than cakes made with butter.

Choosing olive oil can make this Eggless Chocolate Cake a more appropriate choice for people with certain health and dietary needs.

However, cakes and other baked goods, even with olive oil, may have other ingredients like sugar and wheat flour, that affect the nutrient density of the final dish. Which brings us to...

Is Eggless Chocolate Cake Healthy

Let's not kid ourselves here. An eggless chocolate cake is still a cake. That being said, there are nutritional factors that can make an eggless cake a healthi-er choice over other types of cakes for different health and dietary needs.

Cocoa is labeled "healthy" because it is considered a good source of certain class of antioxidants called flavanols. Cocoa has about 380 different flavanols (source: National Institute of Health) and other phytonutrients that have been researched for their potential health benefits. According to research at the National Institute of Health, "dark chocolate or standardized cocoa supplements or drinks can modestly lower blood pressure and improve blood cholesterol and the health of blood vessels in adults. And some longer term observational studies have found that those who eat more cocoa might have a lower risk of certain cardiovascular diseases." (quote: New York Times)

Olive oil can be a healthier choice than a cake made with butter for people looking to tip the balance of their fat intake toward omega 3 fatty acids. It depends on personal health and dietary needs

This particular recipe for Eggless Chocolate Cake is also dairy-free. So if you're careful about consuming animal fats that are present in dairy, then olive oil is a better choice than butter.

** As a quick note, almost all of the cake recipes I've shared so far are dairy-free, and it's partially by design because as a single, childless woman, I don't usually keep milk, buttermilk or even yogurt on hand.

Ingredients You Need for Eggless Chocolate Cake

Because this Eggless Chocolate Cake is something I spontaneously decide to make on some random Wednesday afternoon (usually as a way to procrastinate, surprise, surprise), I want to be able to bake it right away without having to go to the grocery store to buy additional ingredients. I almost always have flour and cocoa powder in the freezer as well as sugar because it doesn't go bad.

Here is a list of the ingredients you need, all of which come from the pantry:

• Cocoa powder, ¼ cup
• All-purpose flour, 1½ cups 
• Sugar, 1 cup
• Baking soda, 1 teaspoon
• Salt, ½ teaspoon
• Avocado oil, ½ cup
• Vanilla extract, 1 tablespoon
• Apple cider vinegar, 1 tablespoon
• Hot coffee, 1 cup

For Chocolate Icing:

• Confectioner's sugar, 1 cup
• Cocoa powder, 2 tablespoons
• Vanilla extract, 1 teaspoon
• Water, 2-4 tablespoons
• Sprinkles! - optional

What Kind of Oil for this Cake

Use the best tasting oil to you, which means a very neutral oil like avocado, or a richer, flavorful oil like olive oil.

If you use olive oil, the flavor of the oil will be subtle in the final cake, but choose an olive oil on the deeper, fruitier side rather than on the intense, peppery side. 

• Avocado oil. This brand and this brand are good ones that are available in most grocery stores (not organic). For an organic, cold pressed avocado oil, this one.
• Olive oil. I like this California-grown olive oil, but it's also VERY expensive and since we're trying to save money not using eggs, I am saving that for times when I am eating straight olive oil like as a dip for bread, and using this mild, organic olive oil for the cake.

Additional Ingredients Notes and Resources

Cocoa Powder. For this Eggless Chocolate Cake I use organic, unsweetened natural cocoa powder. Make sure it's cOcOA powder, not cAcAO powder. Both cocoa powder and cacao powder come from the cacao plant, but taste different. Cocoa powder is made from beans roasted at a higher temperature so it's a little more palatable. Cacao powder is made from beans roasted at a lower temperature. It's more bitter, but retains more of the nutritional content. Cocoa powder usually costs less than cacao powder.

Coffee or Espresso. I just save a cup of coffee from my morning pot, and either use it hot or if it's cooled, just re-heat. If you have a well-stocked home bar, you might have some kind of coffee-based liqueur like Bailey's or Kahlua. Those are perfectly fine substitutes 1:1 ratio for the regular coffee or espresso in the recipe. See below for how to incorporate an alcohol-based substitute into the recipe.

Apple Cider Vinegar. "ACV" provides the acid that reacts with baking soda to create fizz and provide lift for the cake, and has a subtle natural sweetness. Any brand of apple cider vinegar works as long as it has the "mother" which looks like a mysterious dark floating figure in the bottle. This is the well-known apple cider vinegar brand that's available everywhere. I use this organic, raw, unfiltered brand.

Flour. You can use any form of wheat flour for Orange Olive Oil Cake. I used this brand of organic, unbleached, all-purpose flour. I have made this cake with half whole wheat flour and as expected, it works perfectly well.

All other fresh herbs and produce from either the Santa Monica Farmers' Market on Wednesday, or Whole Foods Market when I can't find what I need at the farmers' market.

How to Make Eggless Chocolate Cake

Make Vegan Chocolate Icing and Frost

Pro-tip: Make the icing JUST BEFORE you're going to ice the cake because it hardens quickly. If the icing gets too hard in the bowl, add more water a ½ teaspoon at a time until it is spreadable again.

Tools and Equipment for Eggless Chocolate Cake

There isn't any special tool or piece of equipment required for Eggless Chocolate Cake, and in fact, I highly encourage you to skip hauling out heavy stand mixers, or even a hand mixer for this. However, that doesn't mean there are a couple of things that might make this cake easier than it already is to get from pantry to plate.

• 8-inch square pan. The recipe here specifies an 8-inch square pan and it's the one I used because that's the type of pan I have that's the right volume. You can absolutely use a 9-inch round cake pan with minimum 2-inch high sides that's well-greased and lined with parchment paper to make removal easy. You can also use other shaped pans, see below.
• Parchment paper to release the bottom of the cake without ripping off any of the orange slices.
• Glass mixing bowls
• Whisk
• Spatula
• Sifter

Can You Use Different Cake Pans or Sizes to Bake Eggless Chocolate Cake?

Yes! You can use slightly different sized and shaped pans.

• 9-inch round cake pan is the closest fit, which you can bake for the same amount of time.
• 8-inch round cake pan will yield a taller cake, so the pan needs sides at least 2-inches high, and needs to bake for a longer time. Check the cake at 40 minutes.
• 9-inch square cake pan is not ideal, as it's actually too big and the cake will be very flat.

Can You Bake the Cake in a Loaf Pan? Yes! An 8-inch or 8½-inch loaf pan is the closest fit. Bake the cake for a little longer. Because the cake relies on only baking soda for lift, the cake may not be able to rise quite as high in a loaf pan, so it will be slightly denser.

Ingredients Substitutions and FAQs

Different Type of Flour? You can use any form of wheat flour for Eggless Chocolate Cake. This brand of organic, unbleached, all-purpose flour is the one I use. I have made this cake with half whole wheat flour and as expected, it works perfectly well. For gluten-free flours... glad you asked! See next...

Can You Make it Gluten-free? Yes! Two baking-ready gluten-free flours my gluten-free experts friends have recommended are Measure-for-Measure by King Arthur and Pamela's, both of which you can substitute into recipes 1:1.

Substitute for Coffee. Use plain hot water. You can also use a coffee or espresso liqueur like Bailey's or Kahlua, though use ½ cup, add ½ cup water to dilute!

Sugar. You can use brown sugar, dark or light, to substitute for plain white granulated sugar in the cake. (But not for the icing!)

Substitute for Apple Cider Vinegar. Use whatever vinegar you have, even distilled white vinegar. To be honest, the amount is so small, gets used up in the baking soda reaction, and the cocoa and coffee flavors are so intense, you won't actually taste the vinegar at all.

Best Chocolate Desserts with Cocoa Powder

If you, like me, hoard cocoa powder by the kilo but can't remember the last time you baked with actual chocolate because if you have actual chocolate you just eat it, these recipes are the best things you can make with cocoa powder.

• Chocolate Olive Oil Cake, uses eggs, but still dairy-free, baked in round pan
• Olive Oil Brownies, uses eggs, for those midnight chocolate emergencies
• Brownie Baked Oatmeal, no eggs, no dairy
• Chocolate Chia Seed Pudding, no dairy

Food for Afterthoughts

Someone must have put decaf in my large non-fat cafe vanilla au lait to go last week because I was sleepwalking through life. I was late for Tea, now late for Coffee, and I just don’t know if I’ll be able to recover. Someone bring me a double espresso on the double so I can *snap* out of it, and while we're at it, why don't we just add a shot or several of kahlua, okay? Thanks.

Ah well, better posting late than never, and I couldn’t let this Chocolate Cake go without its fifteen minutes of delicious fame.

*pause pause pause* Okay, that’s enough fame.