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.
Hello,
I made this recipe today, but added agave syrup, 2/3 cup. And made the almond milk into ricemilk which was 3/4 cup ( because of the agave syrup). I made like little mini cakes and put them in for like 50 minutes .. (because all the time i check they weren’t done yet).
But still, the inside is really wet and undercooked .. Is it because i replaced the sugar or should it be wet.. ?
The cake tins are 1 inch by 4 inch (i think).
The taste is lovely though <3
Hi Denise,
Since the carrots have so much moisture, I definitely recommend using dry sugar in here – I used raw cane sugar, another reader (in an above comment) had success with coconut sugar.
Have you tried using coconut flour in your receipes?
I’ve experimented with it, but it’s not usually my favorite (it’s really dense). Also it’s not a 1 to 1 substitution, it requires a recipe with lot more liquid than recipes with other flours.
Just made this into cupcakes, and they are out of this world. The vegan “cream cheese” frosting, is better than the real thing! I added more lemon to give it more tanginess as someone suggested above, and I licked the vitamix, spatula, and chilling bowl clean, lol.
Great recipe, thank you! The birthday boy and his colleagues will be thrilled!
I’m so glad – thanks for coming back to let me know! So glad the birthday boy approved 🙂
How did you convert the baking times to make cupcakes vs cake ?
I have made 2 of these cake within a week’s time because it was that good. It taste better and even more moist than baking a non vegan based cake. Awesome recipe.
This looks great! Can I use soy flour for this recipe? Its a good source of protein but when I tried to make pancakes with it they turned out a gloppy mess. If I can use soy flour, how much can I use & if I need to combine it with regular flour/whole wheat flour?
I’ve never used soy flour so I’d recommend searching for a recipe online that uses it specifically… I’m guessing if it didn’t work as a 1-1 swap for pancakes that it would make for a funny texture in this recipe.
Thank you, I will probably end up using white whole wheat flour. Can’t wait to try it!
Hi, my family is Lacto-vegetarian so I was wondering if I could just replace the Almond milk with dairy milk? Also, since I have all purpose flour on hand only, is it fine to use that in place of spelt and cake flour? Finally, can you replace the coconut oil with melted butter? Sorry for asking so many questions, I’m just worried all the substitutions might ruin what looks like a great carrot cake recipe.
Those replacements should all be fine – the only one I’m not sure about (I haven’t tried), is the melted butter, but I’ve used vegetable/canola oil before.
Hope that helps!
I just wanted to say I made this recipe for my daughter’s first birthday. I used 1/2 whole wheat and 1/2 unbleached all purpose flour. I also reduced the sugar to 1/2 cup and used coconut sugar. I made coconut whipped topping. She LOVED it (and so did we).
Thank you so much!
Hi!!! This recipe seems lovely, here in Brazil our carrot cake is different (it lacks the spices and nuts yours usually have, and we often use chocolate frosting instead of cream cheese), and I really want to try to do this one for my birthday, because it sounds really good!
I have a question, though: can I use soy milk instead of almond milk? Almond milk is not easy to find around here, and making my own would be a bit expensive. Do you think it would change drastically the taste/texture? Thank you!
This turned out well! I used a little less than half the sugar. So you know: it’s doable but tastes more like sweet bread and less like cake. Although with a sweet frosting it’s fine.
I also made this gluten free using a GF flour mix. I used coconut milk instead of almond. It was very dense, dry, and not extremely carrot-y. I don’t know if this is a result of the flour, the carrots being fresh and not pre-cooked, or the batter being quite thick (I probably should have added more fluids).
I did not make the frosting.
Wow!
Great recipe, awesome taste!
I’d bookmarked it for about a year until I finally tried the recipe for a friend’s birthday today – and it turned out well! Only the dough was a little too dense, I think that’s because of the smaller baking pan, and the frosting was nice but not great, maybe because I used cashews only. I’m curious to try again with macadamia nuts.
Anyways, I’m delighted it turned out so well though it was my first try!
Thanks from Dresden, GER! 🙂
Ok, so I just made this recipe, gluten free, for the second time in 3 days. I learned from first go round (which got rave reviews, but I knew it could it be better :)) and I am absolutely thrilled with the results.
Gluten Free Flour Mix: 126g millet (4.44oz), 94.5g sweet rice flour(3.33oz), 94.5g tapioca starch (3.33oz) + 1 tsp xanthan gum
Added: 3/4 c walnuts, 3/4 c raisins, 3/4 c shredded coconut.
Kept liquid ratios same because I subbed 3/4 c drained crushed pineapples instead of the applesauce
Made 24 carrot cake cupcakes.
Brilliant Recipe. Will make time and time again.
I’m so glad you liked it – thanks for sharing your gluten free mix! I’ll have to try it next time 🙂
Wow, I’ve made this cake about 5 times now (and sold 4 of them) and the reviews were amazing. They sold in half a day! Thank you so much for this amazing recipe, it’s one of my favorite vegan recipes.
Hi Esther, I’m so happy to hear that!!
I made this for a work gathering at 530 am this morning. I made it using a gluten free flour blend I whipped up, added walnuts and golden raisins and used lite coconut milk instead of almond. Iced with another recipe I have. Typing it out it seems like I made many modifications, but really this was nice base recipe for a DELICIOUS CARROT CAKE (first I’ve ever made). Very simple, straightforward, and it GOT RAVE REVIEWS!! One small slice left with my name on it (6 pm). Just making a cup of tea and then its gone. Will definitely make again.
I’m so glad you (and everyone) liked it!
Tried this recipe for my husbands birthday with cupcakes! It is awesome & everyone loved it!! I added 2 tbs of ground flax meal and 6 tbs of warm water (flax eggs) super moist! Thank you for this recipe and the frosting is genius. : )
I was wondering what the nutrition value for this recipe would be?
Thanks for coming back to let me know! Glad everyone loved it 🙂
I’m making this for my husbands bday now and it’s been in the oven for over an hour and still is super dense/gooey. Not cakelike at all. I used a metal 9″ round. I’m leaving it in the oven with hopes it’ll cook more but I don’t think it will because it’s gooey even just under the top. Any suggestions?
Oh no, I’m so sorry it’s not working out! I think maybe the smaller pan (I used a 9×13) might have made it too heavy to rise well?
Ahhh gotcha. Thank you! Sigh…
The flavor is still delicious, especially with the frosting!!
this recipe looks divine and i cannot wait to try it out tomorrow! i was just wondering, what could i sub the oil for. more applesauce or will the texture be off? pls lmk. im sure this will be heaven! (:
Thank you for sharing! This was so, so yummy. As a non-baker, this is a recipe I would feel comfortable reaching for in a pinch.
I made some minor adjustments: cut cane sugar in cake batter to half (carrot = plenty of natural sweetness) and used almond milk, agave, and only cashews in the frosting. I didn’t have any lemon so used 2 tbsps of regular vinegar + 2 tbsps of crushed, frozen pineapple. The frosting came out velvety smooth, and its tartness balanced the sweet cake.
I used 2 cups spelt, 1/4 cup unbleached all purpose flour. It came out perfect for me: somewhat toothy but not super sense.
Just in case any other fellow noobs out there run into this problem: when I first mixed the melted coconut oil into the batter, it completely started to chunk up (separation from the almond milk, probably due to temperature difference? Or maybe it’s similar to water/oil??). Anyhoo, I had to melt it down in a double boiler before proceeding with remaining steps.
Hi Rae, I’m glad you liked it, thanks for sharing your substitutions, sounds delicious. Thanks for pointing out the coconut oil thing – in more recent recipes I try to make sure to specify almond milk at room temp so that doesn’t happen.
So I have a Ninja- do you think that would work to make the frosting??
Hello! I am looking to make a double layered cake, and I love the idea of using this frosting. Do you think it is stiff enough to cling to the sides of a cake?
Thank you!
Hi Antonina, this frosting might be too thick – I’m not sure if it’ll cling to the side of a cake without eventually sliding off…
The carrot cake came out delicious. It was super moist and just smells really good. My roommates said it was really tasty. My only complaint is that the frosting is an acquired taste but after a while it taste like cream cheese. It could have done better with another frosting I feel.