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.
Made this yesterday and it was SO amazing!! I could literally eat the entire pan right now. I’m not a big fan of super sweet deserts, and this cake is the perfect balance.
Hi! What flour would you recommend?
I used half spelt and half almond flour and 40min on the oven but it’s still raw outside and inside . Help please!! I love this recipe! I’d like to surprise my boy for this BD.
Hi Sofia, the recipe calls for half all purpose and half spelt, so I’d recommend using that combination instead of almond flour. Almond flour is so different than regular flour so it’s never a 1/1 swap. Hope that helps!
Thanks Jeanine!
And for a healthier option could I try with whole wheat or oats flour and what would be the measurements?
I would do whole wheat instead of the spelt… so in other words I’d do a 50/50 combo of white flour and whole wheat… the cake would be too dense with all whole wheat. I wouldn’t use oat flour for this one.
Thankkkkk you so much Jeanine! Everyone loved the cake. 100% recommended. I replaced the coconut oil for coconut yogurt for a healthier option…. I made this recipe 3 times in one week. Regards 🙂
This frosting!!! WOW!! I just found your blog but this is not my last time visiting here. I am making my birthday cake and had a mad hankering for the cream cheese frosting of my youth. I had to sub out a couple ingredients because of my pantry, but it was a home run!! I am shocked at how amazingly delicious it is. Thank you!!
PS: I subbed coconut butter for coconut oil, same amt. and Coconut vinegar for lemon juice-1 tsp instead of 2.
It really tastes like cream cheese frosting!!!
I loved it!!! I made a couple of changes to the recipe… I used only half of cup of cane sugar, I added a little of orange zest and some of the orange juice. And finally I added raisins. It came out FABULOUS!!! Thank you so much for sharing it ???
SV.
Yay!! So glad you loved it 🙂
I’m excited to try out this recipe for my (vegan) mother-in-law’s birthday. I don’t have macadamia nuts on hand. Can I substitute hazelnuts? Or is doubling the amount of cashews (ie. only using cashews) a better idea? Thanks for the recipe and input!
Hi Alicia, it would be better to double the amount of cashews. I hope you love it!
Best carrot cake ever (I add nuts and seeds)! Everyone I made it for loooved it too 🙂
Any recommendations on how to make it gluten free?
I doubled this and made some alterations:
I used oat flour and AP flour 3 to 1
I added a cup of soaked raisins
I usef half brown sugar, half white
I did my own spice mixture
I reduced the oil by half and added half to the applesauce
Great recipe to help me get started, thank you!
Is it Original Almond Milk, or Original Unsweetened Almond Milk? The Original has cane syrup in it, so I didn’t want to make a mistake and have it be too sweet.
How long do you need to soak the nuts for the frosting
Hi Sharon, about 2 hours. If you have a high powered blender, like a Vitamix, you don’t need to soak them.
Does anyone know how I can use this recipe to make cupcakes? I’d like to make them for Easter at my usual family gathering! I’m just not quite sure if I’d need to adjust the recipe or baking time any. Please let me know!
Hi Kaley, I’d bake them a little less – I’d check them around 25 minutes.
Looks so delish. Im alergic to almonds, can I sub a different milk like cashew, flaxseed, or coconut milk for the almond milk?
Hi Megan – yep, any milk will be fine! (not the thick coconut milk in the can, but the beverage type of coconut milk).
I’ve made this for the third time already, each time the people raved about it! And they still talk about it months later! The last time I tried it with Spelt flour, and it turned out perfect as well.
Hi there! I’m wondering if I can make two 9 inch round cakes with this recipe? I want to make this for my bday coming up in a couple of days. And will the frosting be enough for a two tiered cake? Thanks so much! Hope to hear from you!
Hi I really loved the previous cheesecake frosting and recipe you used. Is there anyway we could get both frosting recipes! Pleassseeee
Hi Cassie, there’s a cream cheese one in this recipe (it’s listed using vegan cream cheese, but regular cream cheese will work): https://www.loveandlemons.com/vegan-pumpkin-snack-cake/
That was so good! I added a splash more lemon juice to the icing as the maple syrup was a bit dominant and ended up with a gorgeous cake, thanks so much.
A question: we need to travel for a couple of hours to a summer wedding and take vegan cake. If we refrigerated it well beforehand, would the icing survive the journey if the temperature is 60-70 Fahrenheit?
I tried this recipe 4 months ago. People still talk about it. It is soooo good!
Hi Nina, I’m so glad everyone loves it!!
I tred this recipe 4 months ago. People still talk about it. It is soooo good!
I have to comment on this recipe because it is so fantastic! I halved the recipe and only used cashews for the frosting because that’s what I had. I soaked the cashews in hot water for 30 minutes and used a regular blender (just blended it a bit longer to make sure it had a smooth consistency). Otherwise I followed the recipe exactly and it turned out perfect! The frosting really does taste pretty close to a true cream cheese frosting. Thank you for sharing this recipe. I will definitely be making it again!
I’m so glad you loved the cake!!
This is an AWESOME recipe. I followed the cake recipe exactly, except I used whole wheat flour. For the icing, I made a few adjustments by adding 2 tbsp of cane sugar and 2 tbsp of corn starch. I was having a hard time getting it to form some consistency, but then I realized I was doing it wrong. I used crushed up almonds and cashews. I did not soak them, just crushed them. I decided to use it as a pour over sauce. It was actually delicious. It was super yummy and a breath of fresh air as I am a new vegan and did want to miss out on a nice piece of cake. My family loved it, and did not believe it was Vegan. It held together nicely without any egg at all. Thinking about making it for Thanksgiving. Thank you for this recipe.
Hi Paris, I’m so happy to hear that the cake was a hit with the whole family! xoxo