I make this vegan carrot cake recipe for Jack's birthday each year. Moist, cinnamon-spiced, and slathered in frosting, it's perfect for celebrations.
This vegan carrot cake recipe is a riff on my mom’s traditional recipe. That cake is Jack’s all-time favorite dessert, so she makes it whenever she comes to visit. Then, I make it again for Jack’s birthday. This year, instead of making her recipe as written, I adapted it to make a vegan carrot cake instead!
My mom’s recipe calls for applesauce, which makes her cake super moist and light. Using applesauce, you can actually veganize carrot cake relatively easily. Along with the shredded carrots, it adds enough moisture to eliminate the need for flax eggs or other unconventional ingredients. As a result, the cake batter comes together with pantry ingredients like all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices, sugar, and melted coconut oil.
The results are fantastic. The cake is moist, tender, and filled with warm, spiced flavor from cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla extract. Enjoy it on its own, or take it to the next level by slathering it in rich, creamy vegan frosting. Even Jack – a total carrot cake traditionalist – fell for this vegan carrot cake recipe. I think you’ll love it too!
Vegan Carrot Cake Recipe Tips
- Grate your carrots finely. Finely grated carrots meld seamlessly into the cake, while larger pieces create a chunkier, less uniform texture. For tender, cohesive cake slices, grate the carrots on the small holes of a box grater or on the smallest setting of the grating attachment on your food processor.
- Don’t overmix! This rule applies to baked goods across the board. Mix your batter until just combined – and not any longer – or your cake will be dense.
- Let the cake cool completely before you frost it. The hardest part! Make sure your cake is at room temperature before you slather on the frosting. Otherwise, the frosting will melt.
Vegan Carrot Cake Recipe Variations
- Let’s talk frosting. The frosting recipe below is a cream cheese-like blend of macadamia nuts, cashews, lemon juice, coconut oil, and almond milk. Instead of using powdered sugar, I sweeten it naturally with maple syrup. I love this frosting, but you do need a high-speed blender to get it really smooth and creamy. If you don’t have one, or if you prefer a more traditional vegan cream cheese frosting, find one here.
- Or skip the frosting! This vegan carrot cake is delicious plain. We also love it with a dollop of coconut whipped cream.
- Add a mix-in. If you like your cake with raisins, chopped walnuts, or pecans, gently fold 1/2 cup into the cake batter when you add the carrots.
- Or sprinkle something on top. Sprinkle the frosted cake with chopped toasted pecans or walnuts for crunch, or use shredded coconut for extra warm, buttery flavor. Yum!
More Favorite Vegan Desserts
If you love this vegan carrot cake recipe, try one of these vegan treats next:
- Vegan Chocolate Cake
- Healthy Banana Bread
- Banana Muffins
- Best Peanut Butter Cookies
- No Bake Cookies
- Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
Then, check out this post for 30+ vegan dessert recipes!
Vegan Carrot Cake
Ingredients
For the Cake
- 2¼ cups flour, half spelt or whole wheat, half all-purpose
- 3 teaspoons baking powder*
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 3 teaspoons cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- ½ cup applesauce
- 1 cup almond milk or oat milk
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup cane sugar
- ½ cup melted coconut oil or canola oil
- 2 cups grated carrots
Frosting**
- ½ cup raw macadamia nuts, soaked, drained, and rinsed
- ½ cup raw cashews, soaked, drained, and rinsed
- ¼ cup almond milk or oat milk
- ¼ cup maple syrup
- 2 tablespoons coconut oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F and grease a 9x13-inch baking pan.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the applesauce, almond milk, vanilla, sugar, and oil.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined. Fold in the carrots.
- Transfer to the prepared baking dish and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let cake cool completely before frosting.
- Make the frosting: In a high-speed blender, place the macadamia nuts, cashews, almond milk, maple syrup, coconut oil, vanilla, lemon juice, and salt. Blend until very smooth, for 1 to 2 minutes or more, scraping down the sides occasionally. You can add an extra tablespoon of almond milk if necessary to get your blade moving.
- Store frosted cake in the fridge.
ummm YES please. This looks amazing!!
This looks so delicious! I love carrot cake and the fact that this is ‘mostly’ good for you makes it all the more appealing! Can’t wait to give a gluten free version a try 🙂
The “Genie” is in the cake!! The magic you used to make it delicious to ask for seconds!!
Oh, macadamia frosting. How dreamy. And vegan carrot cake – that’s indulgence without the guilt. Brilliant.
PS such pretty photos!
Love the macadamia frosting here! And did you use whole grain spelt flour or light spelt flour?
My mom makes me carrot cake for my birthday every year. Now that I’m vegan, this recipe will be very helpful in adapting her version! 🙂
Pinned! Can’t wait to make this!
I love this cake, I’m always tempted to try a vegan recipe but something always stops me – this looks so delicious though, I think ill have to try it!
Georgina x
http://bakeitblonde.blogspot.co.uk/
Adding the macadamias to the frosting was a stroke of genius. I’d love to try this in mini bundt pans!
This looks and sounds amazing, I would never have thought of using macadamia nuts for a frosting, such a great idea!
Your brilliant ideas never cease to amaze me!
What a creative and delicious looking and sounding cake!
Wow! I want to lick that macadamia nut “frosting” off the screen! Carrot cake is my fave! I think I need to splurge and get some macadamia nuts!
Oh, this looks amazing! Carrot cake is my favorite.
Wow that looks delicious. I can almost taste how moist and flavorful it must be, and one of my favorite cakes made Vegan!! The best.
this looks fantastic! i’ve been wanting to try some vegan recipes, this one sounds like it might be my first one on the list.
Hi ! can I substitute the Macadamia nuts with another kind of nuts (I don’t have some right now in my pantry) ? if yes, which would you recommend ? thanks a lot.
Just double the cashews! (1 cup total)
It was my first instinct but I prefered to ask. thanks !
I am making that frosting at the weekend. I never would have thought of it! Pinning this.
This cake is all kinds of delicious. Love the flavour!
me too. i like this
This looks to-die-for! Carrot cake was always my favourite and I’ve had one incredible carrot cake since going vegan but haven’t been able to replicate it at home. Is this frosting tangy like cream cheese? That’s what I’m hoping!
Hi Emma,
I think it’s darn close to cream cheese frosting – it’s not identical, but the hint of lemon gives it a little bit of tang (without tasting lemony).
my dad says this will taste amazing with pineapple, how would i add pineapple to this recipe? please repley
I would say add pineapple puree instead of applesauce, or add pineapple juice with the frosting.
You could sprinkle candied pineapple on top. My cake is now in the oven and it’s been in for about 40 minutes, still looking quite wet and oily. Fingers crossed it comes out nice, I had to give it a go when I read the recipe!
I added 2-3 Tbsp of crushed pineapple and it was amazing….I kept everything as it was just added this….this recipe is our favorite. We eat it all the time….thank you for sharing it with us 🙂
Can this cake be made ahead of time and frozen? with or without the frosting?
Hi Debbie, the cake can be frozen without the frosting. Hope that helps!
I Have just made this cake after reading all the rave reviews and it has sunk in the middle. Can anyone advise me as to where I Have gone wrong???
Ruth
Probably just didn’t bake it long enough. 🙂
Hi! Does it make any difference in the cake’s texture if I swap cane sugar for caster or brown sugar??
Hi Kattia, caster sugar should be just fine. I’d stay away from brown sugar because it’ll add moisture. The cake is already pretty moist and it might not rise well with brown sugar.
This can happen when you open the oven during baking. Be careful to not open until you really think its done, then do so carefully and slowly not letting too much heat out at once, this way you can check your cake is ready.
Altitude
Yeah just happened to me too! I’m wondering if you had tried to make it again following the suggestions given…if so, could you share if it works?
Might need a tablespoon of flour.
Just tried this recipe and it is excellent! Beautiful texture, nice, complex taste. I added about 1/2 cup of chopped raw walnuts, 1/2 cup of chopped raisins, 1/2 tsp cardamom, and 1 tsp allspice to the cake. If I make another change next time I may knock back the sugar a couple of tablespoons or so. When I tasted the frosting I wanted a little bit more tang so I added another tsp of lemon juice.
I have really been wanting a good vegan carrot cake recipe. Thanks so much!
I’m so glad you liked it! Thanks for sharing…
I’v use this recipe all the time ! A few tweak and voila….amazing cake 🙂
Do you think the raisins made it sugary?
For my taste, no. I didn’t really notice it even being excessively sweet and certainly not sugary. Perhaps the extra spice help make it taste rich rather than extra sweet? Hard to say because I tried those variations the first time so I can’t reliably say what it would taste like without. I certainly wouldn’t consider this a sugary cake.
I was wondering what you added all the other ingredients you listed above in? Was it the cake or frosting?
Hello,
I tried the recipe as a tryout as ive been asked to make a 50 people event.
It came out really tasty however i founf the cake to be really moist almost fudgy, could i have done something wrong or is it suppose to be like that?
would appreciate input.
Leo
Hi Leo, it’s pretty moist, definitely not light and airy…
mine came out fudgy too. not a huge fan on texture. but tasted good
Hey guys, I made this frosting – like she says, MUST have a high-speed blender (IDK if the Bullet counts, but it finally smoothed out after 15-20min in there).
To get it tangier, I added Bragg’s Apple Cider Vinegar.
I also messed around w/adding more lemon juice & powdered sugar.
And I interchanged coconut creamer for the almond milk (beggars can’t be choosers…).
The frosting is CRAZY amazing! It’s close enough to cream cheese, my non-veg bf actually loves it.
My expectations, as with many vegan-izations, were set to low with this specific recipe. This was especially so when I decided to take a chance on a cultured cashew cheese product instead of making my own. (Hey, it had the lemon in it already and I had a bad experience with homemade cashew ice-cream one time.) Now, the macadamias I did do from scratch. Though, I did let them soak for twenty-four hours. Also, while on the topic of the is-this-going-to-taste-ANYTHING-like-cream-cheese-frosting, let me also mention that I used a bit more macadamias than the recipe called for. (Again, not a good experience with that cashew ice-cream.)
Okay, so, this carrot cake is my new favorite vegan conversion. Just fantastic.
I’ll probably use brown rice syrup next time in lieu of the granulated sugar (and a significant amount less—I don’t need my food as sweet).
Ha, I’m glad you liked it 🙂 Thanks for coming back to let me know!
This sounds yummy. Gonna def give it a spin when I get the time to! Vegan baking has continued to be far tastier than non-vegan!
This was AMAZING!!! I loved it. I made it as part of my gift for my two year anniversary with my boyfriend. He’s vegan as well and his favorite cake is carrot cake and he said this was the best carrot cake he’s ever had 🙂
The only substitution I used was Silk dairy-free plain yogurt instead of the coconut oil. I never use oil in my cooking since I’ve found dairy-free soy or coconut yogurt works just as well 🙂 It bakes the exact same. So for all the people trying to eat a lower-fat diet, I highly recommend dairy-free yogurt as a perfect substitute for oil, it tastes just as amazing! 🙂
It saves 1,090 calories and 133g of fat for the whole cake, or for one slice (1/8 of cake) 130 calories and 17g of fat.
Do you substitute the same quantity of Silk Dairy free yogurt for oil – 1/2 cup?
Yes I substituted the same amount of Silk Dairy free yogurt for oil, 1/2 of a cup, or almost an entire 5.3 oz container.
I also prefer lower-fat versions. Did you make the frosting as-is?
I used only cashews instead of macadamia nuts for the frosting since they tend to have more healthy fats instead of saturated and just less fat in general. (One cup of macadamia has 84g but 1 cup of cashews has 45g) I also did not put lemons in it but otherwise made it the same way.
I did not make a low fat icing because my boyfriend has genetic (type 1) diabetes and really surgary but low fat icing is bad for him. Even with this icing, It only had about 6g of fat per slice though.
I also used the organic Truvia sugar baking blend instead of sugar because it has 75% less calories than sugar but tastes just as sweet and amazing 🙂 It also saves about 570 calories. It cooks the exact same too.
Thank you for the suggestion. I am trying to cut back on oil as well. I will try the yogurt next time.
I took this to work this morning to share with non-vegans for a co-worker’s birthday. It is the best carrot cake they have ever had.
I’m so glad your co-workers loved it!
I feel like you may be missing the purpose of dessert. As a baker when someone asks me for a low fat alternative I point them towards a bowl of apples.
Send your recipe pleaseee
I haven’t done it with this recipe, but I would just cut up pineapple and stir it into to the batter in the end. I have used it in other carrot cake recipes with great success.
As for the frosting, I will be soaking dates in water and then blending them with a hint of maple syrup. Same thing for the cake. It is a sweetner with fiber!
Can’t wait to try this.
looks great! I’m going to try this for Easter. I am trying to figure out how big the pan is.
thanks, linds
so sorry for my slow reply! The recipe is made to fit in a standard 9×13, the pan in the photo is slightly smaller, but a pan similar to 9×13 will work!
Hi I want to make this but don’t want to make in a squared pan preferably a round one should I add more time in the oven???
Hi Nahomy, depending on the size if your round pans, you might need two since a large rectangle pan is much larger than, say and 8×8 round pan. The time will depend on the size if your pan, no matter the shape.
We had a huge success with this cake! Used coconut sugar and it worked perfectly! We could not use the frosting due to nut allergies, but the frosting we made was amazing with the cake! Definitely a keeper!
I have made this cake numerous times..in fact right now I have made Carrot Cake cup cakes..little sweeties that are eaten up every time. Great recipe!
Hi Donn, I’m so glad it’s a favorite!!
I have made this cake a million times & everytime it just gets more & more delicious ? i love this recipe. So soft & fluffy & the frosting is to die for ?
Yay, I’m so happy it’s a favorite!!
Absolutely amazing recipe! Like literally amazing .I never had a carrot cake this good. It is super moist and flavorful. The spices compliment each other and the frosting is incredibly light and flavorful. Only recipe I use now.
Hi Brooke – I’m so glad you loved it – yay!!
Thanks so much for this! It was a hit! No one even knew it was vegan. People went for the carrot cake instead of the other desserts. Life saver!
Hi Stephanie – I’m so glad you (and everyone) loved it! xoxo
This was excellent. I‘ be prepared for a Party and everybody was loving it. Thank you very much from Berlin Germany
Hi Oliver, I’m so happy to hear that everyone enjoyed it!
Added walnuts, held back a little sugar, loved it, so good
This looks awesome! Has anyone tried a gluten free version? If so, please share details. Thank you!