This vegan carrot cake is easy to make with simple ingredients that you probably already have in your pantry.
It's packed with flavor, with just the right amount of moistness. Unlike most carrot cake recipes, ours does not contain a ton of sugar or oil. Try it, and you'll never bake any other carrot cake again!
Check out our best vegan cake recipes collection!
What to expect
Believe it or not, carrot cake can be easily made vegan (that is without eggs, butter, or milk), with very simple ingredients.
The flavor of vegan carrot cake is just as rich and the texture is as soft and moist as that of a regular carrot cake.
The secret is getting the right ratio of liquids, carrots, and flour. Follow our recipe to make the simplest, and most delicious vegan carrot cake you'll ever eat.
Also, in our carrot cake, we use a lot less sugar and oil than most recipes you’ll find online.
So we rely on spices, walnuts, and raisins for flavor, healthy fats, and sweetness, and despite having less sugar, less oil, and no eggs, the flavor of this cake is absolutely incredible and rich, and the texture is light and moist, just like the carrot cake of your best dreams.
The crumb is so soft and perfectly moist, without being overly sweet or heavy.
The carrots have completely melted in the batter, and the ginger, nutmeg, and cinnamon make you feel like it’s Christmas again.
Ingredients and substitutions
Carrot cake batter
- Carrots: whole, to be grated at home. Pre-grated carrots are too dry to make a good and moist carrot cake.
- Flour: half all-purpose flour, half whole wheat flour. The whole wheat flour really helps to absorb some of the moisture of the carrots.
- Cinnamon, nutmeg, and freshly grated ginger: these are the three spices that we love in carrot cake.
- Baking powder: to help the cake rise and get a little lighter.
- Salt: just a pinch, to bring out the flavour of the other ingredients.
- Sugar: we like to use brown cane sugar to add the right amount of moisture and sweetness.
If you don’t want to use regular sugar you can use coconut sugar or date paste. If you do so, keep in mind that the cake will be less sweet, more moist, and with a more natural taste. - Milk: almond milk is our favourite in carrot cake, but any other plant-milk would work.
- Oil: you can pick any lightly flavoured vegetable oil. We like to use sunflower seed oil.
- Vanilla extract.
- Walnuts: they are optional but we recommend adding some. You can replace walnuts with pecan nuts.
- Raisins: also optional, but they add some natural sweetness to the cake allowing us to reduce the amount of sugar.
Vegan frosting
- Dairy-free cream cheese: there are some good brands out there these days, so get the one you like the most.
- Powdered sugar.
- Vanilla extract.
- Lemon zest: I love to add some lemon zest to the frosting, but that's entirely optional. You can also substitute lime zest for the lemon zest.
Instructions
Grate the carrots
The first step is to preheat the oven to 340F or 140C, then wash, grate and peel the carrots.
The best way to clean carrots is to scrape them with a knife rather than peeling them with a vegetable peeler.
This way is faster, and you’ll waste a lot fewer carrots. Once scraped, grate the carrots through the small holes of a box grater.
You'll need about 300 grams or 2½ cups of finely grated carrots.
I like to grate the carrots finely so that they will almost melt with cake batter and you won’t end up eating big pieces of carrot in the cake.
This way they’ll also release moisture more evenly.
I’d recommend grating the carrots yourself rather than purchasing pre-grated carrots. The store-bought carrots are too dry and your carrot cake won’t be as moist as it should be.
Once the carrots are grated, set them aside and prepare the cake batter.
Make the cake batter
To a bowl, add 300 grams or about 3 cups of flour. I like to use half all-purpose flour and half whole wheat flour.
The whole wheat flour is important to absorb the excess moisture from the carrots and to give the cake a rustic texture.
Then add the spices. I put 3 teaspoons of cinnamon and about half a teaspoon of grated nutmeg. Finally, add 16 grams or 1 full tablespoon of baking powder, and a pinch of salt.
Whisk the dry ingredients until combined, then set the bowl aside and prepare the wet ingredients.
To a bowl add 180 grams or ¾ cup of milk. I like to use almond milk as it is quite light and it adds a light nutty flavor to the cake.
Now add 70 grams or ⅓ cup of vegetable oil, choose a neutral one like sunflower oil, then add 150 grams or ¾ cup of sugar.
This amount of sugar is lower than most carrot cake recipes, so if you want your cake sweeter you can add a full cup or 200 grams of sugar. We like ours with less sugar.
I tried to make this cake with several types of sweetener and my favorite was brown cane sugar, for both taste and texture.
Now add a teaspoon of vanilla extract, and about a teaspoon or two of freshly grated ginger, which I think complements perfectly the cinnamon and the nutmeg.
Mix the liquids well with a whisk, then in the same bowl, add the dry ingredients.
Mix with a spatula until the ingredients are just combined, without overmixing.
Overmixing the cake batter will activate the gluten in the flour and will make your cake denser and less fluffy, so try to mix as little as possible.
Add the grated carrots
Add in the grated carrots, give it another quick mix.
Then add in 50 grams or half a cup of crushed walnuts and 50 grams or ¼ cup of raisins.
These two ingredients are optional, but they add a nice touch of natural sweetness and some healthy fats.
Don't worry if the batter seems too thick, the carrots contain lots of water that will come out while baking, making the cake super soft and moist.
Bake the cake
Once the ingredients are combined, transfer the cake batter to a baking dish lined with parchment paper.
You can use a round one, a squared one, or a rectangular one. You can even use a muffin pan if you like.
Here we use a rectangular baking dish that is 28 x 18 cm or 11” x 7”, but we also tried using a 23cm or 9” round one.
Bake in the oven at 340F or 170C for about 40-45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
And now the hardest part of making carrot cake. We have to wait for the cake to cool down completely before eating it or before applying any frosting.
I’d say wait at least three hours. This time will allow the excess moisture in the carrots to escape and a light, soft crumb to form.
If you don’t wait, the cake will be way too moist to be enjoyable. I like to take the cake out of the baking dish to speed up cooling.
Make the frosting
In the meantime, we can prepare the cream cheese frosting. Now, this is totally optional, but I’ll show you how to make it anyway, because yes, it’s pretty delicious.
To a bowl add 250 grams or 9 ounces of dairy-free cream cheese. There are a lot of brands available these days, so pick the one you like and that you find in your local supermarket.
Add 2 to 3 tablespoons of powdered sugar, then I like to add the grated zest of half a lemon or lime and a teaspoon of vanilla extract.
Combine the ingredients together, then when you have a smooth cream, take the carrot cake out of the baking dish, and liberally apply the frosting on top of the cake.
Now, since usually dairy-free cream cheese has little to no saturated fats, and there’s no butter added to this frosting, it definitely tends to melt faster than regular cream cheese frosting.
So if you don’t apply it immediately you’ve got to keep it in the refrigerator.
You can top the frosting with some walnut pieces if you like, and with some grated lemon zest.
To serve the cake, you can cut it into small squares. Use a bread knife to cut carrot cake.
Storage
If you apply the frosting, store the carrot cake in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.
If you don't apply the frosting, then store the carrot cake at room temperature under a cake dome, or in a food-grade plastic bag for up to a week.
You can freeze the carrot cake if you like. Let thaw in the refrigerator.
Similar recipes
If you liked this vegan carrot cake, you might also like these other vegan cakes:
- Vegan orange cake with easy orange curd
- Italian carrot cake with orange juice
- Vegan blueberry lemon pound cake
- Easy vegan lemon cake
- Fluffy vegan vanilla cake
- Vegan coffee cake with coffee custard
- The best vegan apple cake
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For many more dessert ideas, check out our desserts category page.
Recipe
Vegan Carrot Cake
Equipment
- grater with small wholes
- rectangular baking dish 11” x 7” or 28 x 18 cm. You can also use a round cake pan that is 9" or 23 cm.
Ingredients
For the cake
- 2½ cups carrots finely grated
- 2 cups flour half all-purpose flour, half whole wheat flour
- 3 teaspoons cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon nutmeg grated
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 pinch salt
- ¾ cup sugar I use brown cane sugar
- ¾ cup almond milk
- ⅓ cup sunflower oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 inch ginger grated
- ½ cup walnuts
- ¼ cup raisins
For the frosting
- 9 ounces dairy-free cream cheese
- 3 tablespoons powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ lemon grated zest (optional)
Instructions
For the carrot cake
- Preheat the oven to 340F or 170C. Line your cake pan with parchment paper.Peel and grate the carrots with the small wholes of a grater. Set aside.
- To a bowl, add the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking powder, a pinch of salt, and whisk to combine. Set aside.
- To a larger bowl, add the sugar, almond milk, oil, vanilla extract, grated ginger, and whisk to combine.
- Add the dry ingredients to the bowl with the wet ingredients and combine with a spatula till the dry ingredients absorb the liquids. Do not overmix.
- Add in the grated carrots, crushed walnuts, raisins, and stir to combine, without overmixing.
- Transfer to the cake pan and bake in the oven at 340F or 170C for 40 to 45 minutes. or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
- Let cool down completely - that means for at least 3 hours - before either frosting it or eating it.
For the frosting
- In a bowl, mix the dairy-free cream cheese with powdered sugar, vanilla extract, and optionally lime or lemon zest. If you don't apply immediately, keep in the refrigerator to set.
- Apply frosting on top of the carrot cake, slice with a bread knife and enjoy.
Nutritional Values
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Heidi
This looks incredible! I would like to cut the oil because I am trying to diet. I was wondering if I could replace the oil with applesauce and still retain the moistness in the cake?
Louise Valentin
Hello Heidi! I'm so happy you feel like making the carrot cake. Yes, you can indeed replace the oil with applesauce - I use a 1:1 ratio. Hope that helps. Cheers, Nico