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.
Have just shared this on my blog! Thanks for the delicious recipe 🙂
Can I use Agave instead of sugar? or can i avoid adding sugar because my dad is diabetic. Thanks a lot from Barcelona
Hi,
Can I ask what you soak the nuts in? Almond milk or water or something else?
Thanks
Hi Christine, just plain water. Then drain and rinse them before you add to the blender.
Do you think the 1/2 cup oil can be replaced with applesauce which would make it a total of 1 cup? TIA!
Hi Chris – I’m not sure that would work – I think it might make it too dense and/or gummy.
Hi – just to say that I replaced the oil with 1/2 cup of shredded apple, and it came out great. It’s light and moist and it browned well. Although I did replace the flax eggs with boxed egg replacer – I don’t know whether that changes anything. (Great recipe by the way – my dad’s only complaint is that there wasn’t enough cinnamon, but he says that about all of my bakes!)
This recipe is amazing! I made this exactly as written and I am so in love! Thank you for sharing this with us! I will definitely be making it again….thinking for Easter….and after I can get some running miles in to counter the amount of this cake I have consumed! My sons non-veg friends came over (10 years old) and ate several squares of this and they loved the flavor! Huge hit! 🙂
Thank you so much for this amazing recipe!!! I made this exact recipe for a group of large meat-eating military men and they all loved it!
Can you make the batter ahead?
Hi Mia, I wouldn’t recommend it. If you want to save time, you can mix the dry ingredients ahead of time, but definitely wait to add the wet ingredients until you’re ready to bake it.
Thank you for this wonderful recipe. I’ve been vegan for 15 years & have not found such a more delicious recipe than this; perfect texture & taste. My boyfriend who is new to the vegan life-style loved his birthday cake! Thanks again.
Hi Jeanine,
For the frosting, does the coconut oil need to be neutral taste?
Have you tried using both neutral and non-neutral? If so, which do you recommend? Thank you!
Either would work – I always buy unrefined coconut oil (which tastes pretty coconut-y out of the jar), but I don’t really taste coconut in this recipe. Although I really like the flavor of coconut so if it bothers you probably use a a neutral one…
Finally! A Vegan frosting recipe that’s free of refined sugar and packed with healthy fats and protein! Thank you, thank you, thank you! I’d like to find a replacement for the sugar in the cake itself- do you think dates or maple syrup might work here too?
Hi ELizabeth, I’ve used maple syrup in the cake before – it’ll just come out a little bit more flat, you might want to increase the baking powder by a 1/2 teaspoon or so.
Thank you! It turned out great!
Hi! I can’t wait to try this! Can i make my own almond milk for this recipe? Also, can I use almonds instead of macadamia nuts for the frosting? Thanks 🙂
I have whole wheat flour and all purpose flour on hand. I also have cornstarch so I could mix up some cake flour if need be. Would any of these work without changing the taste of the cake? If so, which one would work the best or what blend of flours would taste best?
Also, would unsweetened almond coconut milk work in both the cake and frosting? Is almond breeze sweet?
When you say grated carrots, what would be better…shredded carrots or carrots thrown in a food processor?
Thank You!!!
Hi Jamie, you can use all purpose flour or a mix of white/wheat. Unsweetened almond coconut milk would be fine. You can put the carrots in a food processor, just don’t puree them. Hope that helps!
Hi,
Wondering if you have tried using all AP flour instead of the spelt and cake flour. Thanks! 😉
Hello:) It looks amazing but I don’t have a high-speed blender and I really want to make This frosting:( Do you think if I soak the nuts three or more days it will be easier to my blender?:/ Thanks for your answer!:) I love your blog<3
Hi Julia,
I would soak for 24 hours (I don’t think beyond that is going to make it much better, also they might start to smell funky). I think some others have used a regular blender on this thread – just blend slowly and then blend a lot until it’s as smooth as you can get it.
Or you could try this coconut whip – you need a mixer but not a blender: http://www.loveandlemons.com/2013/02/16/carrot-muffins-coconut-whip/
Or this one with tofu cream cheese (also no blender required): http://www.loveandlemons.com/2012/03/08/carrot-cake-jars-vegan/
Thanks for your answer:) I’m 14 years old and I’m from Hungary, but I really want a Vitamix one day:( It will be the best day in my life:) I was just wondering, that a hand mixer would not work, maybe?! Our blender is truly bad:( I love you:)
Ha 🙂 I’m afraid a hand mixer won’t work – the nuts really have to be blended well in order to become smooth and creamy. I’d try the coconut whip link that I pasted above, or regular cream cheese icing – both would work with a hand mixer.
I made this cake for my vegan friend’s birthday and EVERYONE (vegan/nonvegan) LOVED it. I followed the recipe to the tee for the cake, and then for the frosting I used all cashews and ended up omitting the coconut oil (because… well, I forgot that I didn’t have any and I didn’t have any alternatives). It actually still held up really well and was more of a thick glaze. Definitely tastes a bit like cream cheese with the lemon tangy-ness at the end. Lovely recipe – thank you!
so glad you (and everyone!) liked it – thanks for coming back to let me know! xo
This looks amazing. Do you think I can use almonds in place of the macadamias, or would you suggest using all cashews instead? I have soaked almonds in my fridge right now and I quite like the taste of them so I’m wondering if that will work nicely as well?
Hi Susan, soaked almonds should work, I would recommend peeling the skins off though. (Or you can use all cashews).
Can I use all purpose flour instead of spelt and cake?
yep!
I purchased roasted nuts for the frosting recipe, do I still need to soak them?
The nuts should ideally be raw, especially the cashews (so sorry I just noticed I didn’t specify that!). Soaking helps soften them so they’ll blend smoothly, so I wouldn’t skip that step or your frosting might be too gritty.
I made this cake yesterday for my housemates birthday, carrot cake is her favourite and since i am vegan i of course wanted a vegan version. Well, she said it was the best carrot cake she’s ever had! and our other housemates loved it too! it was so moist and tasty, it was just perfect. Thank you so much for this recipe, i will be making it again!
I made this recipe into cupcakes and they were amazing! My husband loves carrot cake and has high cholesterol. After 2 weeks of being very disciplined I thought I’d cheer him up with these. He loved them! I figured no eggs and no butter were one step in the right direction!