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.
I’ve been looking for a vegan carrot cake with a traditional cream-cheesy frosting flavor, and I don’t use those disgusting (IMHO 😉 fake cream cheeses, so I’m very excited to try this recipe for a birthday celebration this week. One question though… I’ve always liked carrot cakes with nuts and raisins (one guy posted he added them with no other adjustments to recipe, do you agree?), AND crushed pineapple. Given that the pineapple is “wet”, do you have any suggested modifications I might need?
Made this tonight and it was so delicious! Followed the recipe exactly and didn’t need to add a thing! I’m not into soaking things so I read that you can just boil the nuts for 15 min and that worked great! This is my first vegan recipe that actually tastes good! Thank you !
so glad you liked it!
My cake didn’t came right :-(… I followed the recipe step by step. The cake was raw from the inside.
For the frosting could I use a kitchen-aide mixer, I don’t have a high speed blender or food processor, please help
Hi Dora, no because it won’t process the nuts into a creamy sauce (it’ll just mix them around and sort of break them up). You’d have to go with a more traditional cream cheese frosting recipe (sub in vegan cream cheese if necessary), that can be made in a mixer. (this one: http://www.loveandlemons.com/2012/03/08/carrot-cake-jars-vegan/, or a coconut whip frosting: http://www.loveandlemons.com/2013/02/16/carrot-muffins-coconut-whip/)
Mmmm I loved this recipe! The frosting was delicious! I only let the macadmia and cashews soak for three hours and it still worked out beautifully. What a nice treat.
Hi Mariam – so glad you liked it!
My frosting stayed pretty runny after refrigerating. I think next time I’ll reduce the almond milk. Do you have any other suggestions that might work? It still tasted amazing and my dad licked his plate clean. This recipe is amazing. Thanks!
Hi Danielle,
Yep, just reduce the almond milk – if it becomes too thick you can always stir more in later. And/or if you soaked your nuts, you can also try soaking them for a little less time.
Glad you liked it!
Cake is absolutely amazing. Mine is actually pretty light- not fudgy like others have said. I found the frosting too runny also- used a thermomix and had only soaked nuts for 4 hours. Next time I won’t add any almond milk til it’s all blended as I wanted to add more lemon but didn’t want it to get any runnier!!!! Thanks so much this is an absolute winner of a recipe:))
I am going to make this for my boyfriend for his birthday! I don’t have a metal baking pan though…has anyone made it with a glass baking dish? If so, did you modify the recipe? I can try to find a baking pan from someone if necessary but I was just wondering if the glass dish would do. Thank you!
Hi Caitlin, I usually make it in a glass pan (and the dish pictured is ceramic, not metal). Should be fine 🙂
This looks so delicious ! I’ve just always loved carrot cake, and now a vegan one ?! perfeccct
I ahve to admit i’m not an expert in baking, but i tried it, as it looked wonderful, but was a bit suspicious about the dry/wet ratio.. I put slightly more flour (like a couple of teaspoons of flour) as the mix looked really runny, but the cake was completely uncooked. It raised then collapsed, was burnt on the outside and raw on the inside. Are you guys sure that it only needs such little flour and so much liquids? Or could it be the wrong temperature? I put my fan assisted oven at 220, which is the max, you wrote it should be 325. So disappointing to throw it in the trash. Any idea what i did wrong? Thanks
Hi Kris, I’ve made this recipe tons of times, I would recommend following it exactly and baking it at 325 (Fahrenheit).
Kris sounds like your oven is Celcius, and not Farenheit. You have to halve Farenheit to get Celsius. So you should have used 175 degrees. Sounds like your oven was way too hot 🙁 Sorry.
English girl here. Is one cup equal to 4oz? Many thanks
1 cup = 8 oz. (One day we’ll offer both forms of measurements in our recipes!)
I’ve been looking for a carrot cake recipe like this one! Pure heaven in a baking dish! Thanks!
@ Mo, thanks for adding that you used an Osterizer blender. I was nervous about making it with my $30/older Oster blender. I might start it in the food processor and then transfer to the blender? If anyone has any other suggestions for a non-high powered blender let me know! I’ll post back later if it works out for me. This frosting just looks to yummy to not give it a try.
Hello. I tired this and it’s delish. I have extra frosting and just curious as to how long it will keep in the fridge. Thanks
glad you liked it! It’ll keep about 4-5 days, it might separate, but just stir it as you’re ready to use it again…
I made this cake tonight…and oh mee gee. It is the best carrot cake I’ve ever had. I’m not vegan, or even vegetarian for that matter but I love experimenting. I’m at my folks for the weekend so I used their blender. (an Osterizer which they received as a wedding gift 38 years ago!) I was worried about how the frosting would turn out, but I was patient and blended for quite a while, and added a splash more almond milk and it turned out beautifully. I gave my dad a nice large slice without telling him it was vegan until after he finished…he really couldn’t believe it. He asked for 2nds! We are talking about a meat + potatoes / refined sugar kind of man here. I can’t rave enough about this recipe, I had to hold back from eating half the cake!
Ha – I’m so glad you and your family liked it – I love it when I can win over the “meat & potatoes” folks 🙂
Just made this this evening. It is delicious! The nicest carrot cake I’ve ever made 🙂 The frosting took a while but tastes lovely… My husband says it’s a little grainy but perhaps I didn’t blend it long enough. Does it ever get totally smooth? Thank you.
great alternative to the classic carrot cake! also it is more healthy
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Sharon Weaver, you read my mind ha ha! I generally don’t comment until after I’ve tried the recipes. I will say that I have every intention of making this Fathers Day weekend and will be commenting after. I will say that everything I have made off of this blog has been nothing short of amazing!
ha, let me know if you give it a try!
Are there any comments by those who actually made this? All the comments anticipate making it, but I like to read about results!
I wanted to ask if there is any way to modify this recipe for someone who is vegan and also allergic to gluten. I would love to make this as a surprise for a good friend of mine but she can’t go anywhere near gluten as she is highly sensitive. Thanks!
Hi Meg, you could use oat flour, or a combination of oat flour and almond meal, or an all-purpose gluten free baking mix such as Pamela’s. Hope that helps!
Good Day,
Recipe looks great. Trying to do a birthday cake for daughter. Can I freeze the icing?
Hi Leslee,
I don’t think it would freeze (and thaw) well, but you could make it a day in advance and chill it in the fridge. Stir it before you spread it. If its too thick stir in a little more almond milk.