Vegan Greek New Year's Cake

by Vaishali Honawar · Apr 16, 2024 · 27 Comments

5 from 16 votes

Total time: 1 5

This melt-in-the-mouth and vegan Greek New Year's Cake, called vasilopita, is flavored with orange and almonds. It is perfectly, but not cloyingly, sweet and it's also moist and delicious.

Overhead shot of a sliced vegan Greek New Year's Cake with slices of orange on a white cake stand.

Cultures across the globe have long cooked up certain dishes for luck as the calendar turns, and today I have for you one of my most favorite: this vegan Greek New Year's Cake.

I will start out by saying this is my version of a Greek New Year's Cake and I am not claiming any authenticity. I stayed faithful to the ingredients that are used in the Greek cake, which is called a vasilopita, but created my own recipe spinning off from my Vegan Lemon Yogurt Bundt Cake. From what I saw online, it is not as if there is a single version of a Greek New Year's Cake, and different cooks put their own spin on it. Some even call it a sweet bread and add yeast for the leavening. So--no harm done!

A fun story about this cake is that cooks used to add a coin to the batter (preferably a gold coin) for luck. I considered that, but then had frightful visions of Jay swallowing it, and decided against. Instead, I studded the cake with slivers of almonds, which tied in nicely with the overall flavor of the cake.

Whether you are superstitious or not about the new year, you will feel quite lucky biting into a slice of this cake! If you make it, I'd love to hear.

Table of Contents

Why you will love this recipe
Ingredients
How to make Vegan Greek New Year's Cake
More vegan cake recipes
Recipe card
Reviews

Why you will love this recipe

Delicious. You will fall in love with the flavor of this cake. It has subtle but definite notes of orange and almond and the crumb is so silky and tender, it will literally melt in your mouth.
Easy. This is a really simple batter, and you probably already have the ingredients on hand. Even if you are a new cook, you should be fine so long as you follow instructions.
Gorgeous. The oranges in the recipe add a lovely color to the crumb, and you don't even need a glaze or icing--just dust the cake with powdered sugar for a really pretty presentation.
One-bowl batter. You will need to blend up the oranges but otherwise there's not much cleanup.

Closeup of a slice of vegan new year's cake on a blue-green plate with fork.

Ingredients

2 oranges. You will use both the zest and pulp of the oranges.
1 cup sugar. Use any granulated sugar. I use vegan cane sugar.
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 cup vegan yogurt (I used my homemade cultured cashew yogurt. You can use any unsweetened storebought yogurt.)
½ cup vegetable oil. I used avocado oil. Use any unflavored vegetable oil.
½ cup extra virgin olive oil. I like some olive oil in this recipe for a great Mediterranean flavor, but I used half avocado and half olive oil because a whole cup of olive oil would end up overwhelming the subtle orange flavor.
½ cup super fine almond flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon nutmeg (optional)
2 ½ cups unbleached all purpose flour
3 tablespoons cornstarch
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup sliced almonds. You can choose not to add these, but they add amazing flavor and a nice surprise in each bite.

Overhead shot of a sliced Greek new year's cake with orange slices and a dusting of powdered sugar.

How to make Vegan Greek New Year's Cake

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Oil a bundt cake pan.
Zest the oranges, then peel them and deseed if necessary. Blend the orange segments until you have a thick puree. You should have a cup of puree.
Add the orange puree to a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer along with the sugar, vanilla, yogurt and the oils. Mix using a hand mixer or a whisk, or on medium speed in the stand mixer.

Wet ingredients for new year's cake blended in bowl.

Add the almond flour to the bowl along with salt and nutmeg, if using. Then sift in the all purpose flour, cornstarch, baking powder and baking soda.
Mix with a spatula first to keep the flour from flying all over, and then for 20 seconds in the stand mixer or with a hand mixer. If using a whisk, stop as soon as the batter comes together. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl to make sure you don't have any dry streaks of flour.
Stir in the sliced almonds, if using.

Dry ingredients added to wet ingredients for cake batter.

Almonds stirred into the Greek new year's cake batter.

Pour the batter into the prepared bundt pan and smooth with a spatula. This cake comes out fairly easily from the pan, once it has baked, but if you are new at this add a dusting of flour to the bundt pan after oiling it to ensure you can unmold effortlessly. You can also use a springform pan to bake this cake, which will make unmolding far easier.

Let the cake stand on a rack for 10 minutes, then run a knife gently along the edges and the center tube of the pan. Place a plate on top and turn the cake upside-down quickly to unmold. You might need to tap gently on the pan.
Place the plate with the cake on the rack and continue to cool. Once it has cooled, dust with powdered sugar and serve.

Overhead shot of baked vegan greek new year's bundt cake.

More vegan cake recipes

Closeup of two slices of vegan Greek new year's cake on a cake stand.

Recipe card