We’re back with another out-of-this-world delicious mug cake because you guys couldn’t get enough of this vegan banana mug cake! This time we added an amazing fall twist and we’re seriously OBSESSED.
You guessed it, this vegan pumpkin mug cake is your next must make, single serving dessert. It’s filled with wonderful flavors from pumpkin puree, pumpkin pie spice and an incredible salted maple glaze. I’ve included even more options for customizing this pumpkin mug cake so that you can make it gluten free or add fun mix-ins and toppings!
You’re just 10 minutes and a few staple ingredients away from your new favorite fall treat. Let’s get to it!
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The wonderful world of mug cakes
If you’ve never had a mug cake before, get ready for the perfect single serve dessert. A mug cake is literally just ingredients for cake mixed into a mug and microwaved. The result is an absolutely wonderful, single-serve cake that tastes like the real deal! This vegan pumpkin mug cake is the perfect fall treat for when those sweet tooth cravings hit. Easy, egg-free and filled with pumpkin flavor.
Ingredients in this vegan pumpkin mug cake
This amazing pumpkin mug cake recipe is filled with fall flavors and uses super simple ingredients. Here’s what you’ll need to make it:
- Pumpkin puree: for that perfect pumpkin flavor you’ll need some canned or homemade pumpkin puree. Use up extra pumpkin puree in these recipes!
- Coconut oil: a little coconut oil gives the mug cake delicious moisture.
- Brown sugar: get the perfect amount of sweetness from a bit of brown sugar.
- Flour: we’re keeping this pumpkin mug cake super easy with regular all purpose flour.
- Spices: can’t forget those cozy pumpkin pie spices.
- Baking staples: you’ll also need vanilla extract, baking soda and salt.
- For the salted maple glaze: this simple glaze is made with vegan butter, powdered sugar, pure maple syrup, a pinch of salt and a little dairy free milk as needed.
Easy ingredient swaps
Out of a few ingredients? Here’s what we can recommend for swapping:
- Make it gluten free: simply use a 1:1 gluten free all purpose flour.
- For the brown sugar: feel free to use coconut sugar instead. If you’d like to keep the recipe refined sugar free, use coconut sugar in the mug cake and my paleo powdered sugar in the frosting.
- For the coconut oil: you can also use melted and cooled vegan butter.
Fun ways to customize
- Chocolate lovers: if you like a pumpkin chocolate combo like I do, feel free to add 1-2 tablespoons of dairy free chocolate chips to the batter.
- Nut butter party: instead of the glaze you could also add a dollop of nut butter on top of the cooled mug cake instead of the glaze. YUM.
How to make this pumpkin mug cake
Because this mug cake comes together right in one mug, you’ll just need 10 minutes to make it! Here’s how:
- Mix the wet ingredients. In a small bowl (not your mug, yet) start by mixing together the pumpkin puree, coconut oil, brown sugar and vanilla extract with a fork or small whisk until well combined.
- Add the dry. In the same bowl, mix in the flour, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice and salt.
- Prep your mug. Spray a microwave safe mug with non-stick cooking spray, then pour the batter in.
- Cook it up. Microwave the pumpkin mug cake on high for 1 minute and 30 seconds until the batter is set. Be careful not to overcook it.
- Cool & make the glaze. Let the mug cake cool, and whisk together the ingredients for the glaze. Add 1 teaspoon of milk if the glaze needs to be thinner.
- Drizzle & enjoy. Finally, drizzle the glaze on the cooled mug cake and dig in!
Tips for making the perfect mug cake
Yes, this pumpkin mug is super simple to make, but don’t forget these tips to ensure a delicious, fluffy mug cake every time:
- Don’t forget the baking soda! No one likes a flat mug cake.
- Mix the ingredients in a bowl first before adding them to your mug so that everything is evenly distributed.
- Be sure not to overcook the mug cake or it can get dense. It will be done when the top doesn’t look “wet” anymore.
Can I store the mug cake for later?
This vegan pumpkin mug cake is meant to be enjoyed right away as it is a single serving dessert. Grab a spoon and dig in while it’s warm!
More vegan treats you’ll love
- Vegan Banana Bread Mug Cake
- Blow Ya Mind Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies (gluten free, too!)
- The Best Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls You’ll Ever Eat
- Salted Tahini Caramel Millionaire Bars (vegan + paleo)
- Peanut Butter Cup Freezer Fudge
Get all of our delicious vegan dessert recipes here!
I hope you love this vegan pumpkin mug cake! If you make it be sure to leave a comment and a rating so I know how you liked it. Enjoy, xo!
Ambitious Kitchen
Cookbook
125 Ridiculously Good For You, Sometimes Indulgent, and Absolutely Never Boring Recipes for Every Meal of the Day
Vegan Pumpkin Mug Cake
Ingredients
- For the mug cake:
- 3 tablespoons pumpkin puree
- 2 teaspoons coconut oil, melted and cooled
- 2 tablespoons packed brown sugar (or coconut sugar)
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup all purpose flour (or sub 1:1 gluten free all purpose flour)
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- For the salted maple glaze topping:
- 1 teaspoon vegan butter, melted
- 1 tablespoon powdered sugar, plus more to thicken if necessary
- 1 ½ teaspoons pure maple syrup
- Pinch of salt
- 1 teaspoon unsweetened almond milk (any milk will work), if necessary to thin glaze
Instructions
- In a small bowl, mix the pumpkin puree, coconut oil, brown sugar and vanilla extract with a fork or small whisk until well combined.
- Next stir in flour, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice and salt and mix until just combined.
- Spray a microwave safe mug with non-stick cooking spray, then pour the batter into the mug.
- Place the mug in the microwave and microwave on high for 1 minute and 30 seconds, or until the batter is no longer wet on top. Be careful not to cook for too long, or the cake will get tough.
- Remove the mug from the microwave and let cool for a few minutes.
- Whisk together all of the glaze ingredients except the milk, only adding it if the glaze is too thick to drizzle.
- Drizzle the glaze over the mug cake and dig in!
Recipe Notes
Nutrition
Recipe by: Monique Volz // Ambitious Kitchen | Photography by: Eat Love Eats
Absolutely delicious and so easy to make! 10/10
Perfect! Glad you are enjoying this recipe, Jena!
Looks great, but 40g of sugar in one serving is A LOT! I wonder how it would taste with 1/2 the amount. I guess I’ll have to try. Thx!
Hope you enjoy!
Made this last night with my 3 year old and it SLAPPED! It took us 5 minutes, was manageable measurements for her, and we had some fun “baking” together. So good we’ll probably make it again tonight! Great recipe to get the littles away from the TV for a bit.
Made the pumpkin puree following the recipe from this web site, for the sweet purpose (with vegan butter, cinnamon and demerara sugar). Using this puree, the pumpkin mug cake turned out heavenly! I just used oat flour instead of wheat flour and added dark choco chips. 🙂 I microwaved it a bit longer so about 2 min.
Sounds great! Glad this recipe came out great for you 🙂
This is so good! I usually don’t like the texture of mug cakes but this one is great. Love the glaze, too!! The slight maple flavour goes really well with the pumpkin. I made the banana pumpkin muffins (also amazing) and used some leftover pumpkin for this!
So happy to hear this! Glad you enjoyed this recipe ❤️🙂
Ooh I love this! It makes just the right amount and the glaze is the perfect addition!
Easy and delicious! It’s ice having a pumpkin cake for one instead of a full loaf! I’ll definitely be making again:)
Perfect! SO glad you enjoyed ❤️
Unfortunately this was very disappointing due to only being able to taste baking soda. Not sure if it’s supposed to be baking powder.
I haven’t had much success with microwave mug cakes in the past, but this one is a winner! I used applesauce instead of coconut oil and it came it out great. I also used whole wheat pastry flour. I topped with a seasonal pumpkin spice almond butter and pumpkin spice Greek yogurt.
Yay!! So glad it came out great with those subs 🙂
This was so delicious! The only oil-type ingredient I had was avo oil, I don’t love avo oil in baked goods because I can usually taste the oil, but in the case of this pumpkin mug cake, I couldn’t taste it! I also used Bob’s red mill one-to-one flour. This mug cake was perfectly sweet and, because I chose to undercook it a little, it was perfectly dense. The pumpkin and pumpkin spice flavors were on point. I can’t wait to make this again!
I’m so glad it turned out great!! Thanks for the review, Iman 🙂
I microwaved mine for just 1 minute and it was definitely firm enough. Good balance of sweetness, and the drizzle was yummm.
Nice! So glad you enjoyed it, Melinda!
This is amazing! So, so easy and tastes incredible. Thanks so much for this recipe!
I’m so happy you love it!!
Such an amazing 2pm pick-me-up with some afternoon coffee! I opted for chocolate chips instead of the maple glaze (I reduced the brown sugar by 1/2 a TB as well), and it was a good way to use up the end of a can of pumpkin I had in my fridge. Mmmmm so yummy!!
Nice! Love chocolate chips in here, and this is so perfect with coffee! Thanks for leaving a review 🙂
This was the best mug cake recipe-so easy and fun to make! I made 2 cakes substituting the coconut oil for ghee because my son doesn’t care for coconut and one for myself substituting almond flour for a gluten free cake. The almond flour didn’t cook up as well however the taste and texture was still pleasing. Would highly recommend using any leftover pumpkin for this recipe!
So glad you tried and loved it! Thanks for the note on the almond flour 🙂
This is just amazing and so easy!!! Perfect as is, or can top with a little whipped cream to further simplify:)
Can you use almond or coconut flour instead of all purpose?
I’m not sure if they’d yield the same texture! I think a GF 1:1 all purpose flour would work, though 🙂
I had leftover pumpkin purée as we all do after opening a can of pumpkin. Saw this recipe and decided to use it up. This was so good!!! I could drink the salted maple glaze! Delicious!
Awesome!! Happy you loved it. Isn’t that glaze addictive?!
So quick and easy to whip this up! I’ve tried other mug cake recipes, but this is by far my favorite!! Its just so so good
These were great and the best part my husband loved it. I did put some nut butter on his because he likes it.
I don’t have a microwave – am I able to make this in the oven?