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.
Can these be made into a round layer cake using two cake pans?
Thank you so much for this recipe, Jeanine. I found it really easy to make and honestly think it tastes sooo much better than the diary alternative! The “cream cheese” is so close to the real thing it’s crazy.
Do you think it would be ok if I froze what I can’t eat? And when I’m ready, to let it just if thaw on the counter for a couple hours?
Also forgot to mention that I halved the sugar down to 1/2 a cup and it’s still uber sweet! I might even try 1/4 next time 🙂
This is great! Before i turned vegan (a month ago) i always made great carrot cake with animal products, so i was hoping to find a half decent vegan recepe. Turns out, this vegan version is better than what i used to bake!! My friends now require me to bake this carrot cake every time they come visit. Thanks again…. 😛
Hi Mo, I’m so glad this is your favorite cake! Thanks for taking a minute to let me know!
I made this yesterday for my birthday and followed the recipe with just a few adjustments:
– added chopped walnuts, because walnuts
– since they don’t sell unsalted macadamia nuts here, I only used cashews
– and used agave instead of maple syrup
It came out so soooo good, literally the best (vegan) thing I’ve ever baked! The cake refrigerates well too. Definitely a keeper in my go-to recipes!
Hi Annelien, I’m so glad you liked the cake!
I’ve recently adapted a plant based diet and this was the first attempt at making a vegan cake. My husband is going along the ride with me and mentioned there was carrot cake in his break room at work that looked good but he avoided it. As a kind gesture, I decided to surprise him for Easter and make him a vegan carrot cake which he enjoyed. After making the fabulous corn chowder on the site, I had high hopes this recipe would produce something tasty. I was pleased with the results as a healthy substitute for the “real thing”. I chose to not use sugar, rather I used home made almond milk and blended 3 dates in with the almond milk to add some sweetness. Along with the prescribed amount of applesauce, I also crushed in my blender about a 1/4 cup of fresh pineapple, and used 1/2 cup of raisins and a 1/4 cup of maple syrup in place of the 1 cup of sugar. I used a half cup of walnuts, and also chose to only use 2 Tbls. of coconut oil to reduce the oil content of the recipe. I also used only 1 Tbls, of oil in the frosting. The result was good but my cake did bake faster than the 30 minute time, mine was done at the 24 minute mark but I left it in for 30 minutes and may have dried it out a touch but it was still good. The frosting does do a great job of satisfying the cream cheese flavor although my vitamix blender jar has a wide bottom and the ingredients could not fully whip up into a creamy texture. I still had sand like bits of nuts which would not smooth out because there was not enough volume in the blender to whip the ingredients into a very smooth texture. Next time I will use a hand immersion blender and see if that will work better. I miss my narrow based vitamix jar! I lined my glass baking dish with parchment paper so the cake would not stick and clean up was a breeze. I would definitely make this again.
Love this cake! It’s our new go to birthday and now Easter cake. I double the recipe and make a double round layer cake. So pretty and so good!
Thank you for sharing, I’m so glad this is a favorite! I’m so happy to hear that it worked as a layer cake.
How long did you bake the 2 rounds for? I’m looking to do a layer cake as well and don’t want to mess it up!
I wanted to make a carrot cake for my family for easter and this recipe sounds delicious, but I was thinking of a traditional round, layered cake. Is the frosting thick enough to hold a layer of cake??
I couldn’t possibly read through all the comments, so my apologies if the question was answered above.
Hi Julia,
I personally haven’t tried this recipe as a layer cake – this cake is really moist/dense, I’m not sure it would hold up to layers like a lighter cake might. About 3 comments up, a reader had some success with layers but made a few modifications. I’m not sure if she used the frosting recipe as-is.
The frosting is thick but it’s not as stiff as regular butter cream or cream cheese icing. Also, I’m not sure there would be enough to cover the sides, middle, and top.
Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful!
loved this recipe! I cut the recipe in half, omitted frosting, and made mini muffins (FYI, it made 35 mini muffins and they took 11-12 minutes to bake at 350 degrees).
I’m so glad you loved it! Thanks for the timing tips on the mini muffins 🙂
Hi, I made this cake with soya milk instead of almond, and white sugar instead of cane sugar, and it was great! Thank you!
I didn’t make any frosting and kept the cake in the fridge, and from the second day onwards it was slightly sticky. It still looked and tasted great, but when cutting into it or eating it it was definitely sticky – can’t describe it any other way, sorry!
I want to make it for my mum this week so I would be grateful for any tips please 🙂
Hi Jhanvi, I’m so glad you liked it! It’s a very moist cake due to all of the carrots. You could try baking it a little longer to make it more dry but I personally like my cake on the less-dry side.
Thank you for the quick reply! I wondered whether it might have been the different milk or putting it in the fridge. Either way, it’s delicious and everyone so far has really liked.
Some comments above mentioned flax seeds – did you have a version of the recipe before that used flax meal?
I made this cake as a 2 tier birthday cake and is turned out great!! Was so delicious and got lots of compliment! I made some changes…. reduced a sugar to 3/4 cup, used only a pinch of salt and used sunflower oil. I wanted to make sure that it will rise nicely so used half almond milk and half aquafaba /chickpea water/, half all purpose flour and half self-raising flour. I rarely leave comments but so thankful for this recipe… it’s a winner! Thanks so much.
Forgot to rate… of course is a 5* 🙂
This is the best carrot cake I have ever try and make .thank you so much for sharing
This carrot cake is the absolute bomb and I have made it tens of times already. I am eating whole-grain plant-based with no oil, so I made a few changes to your recipe, but believe me, the cake came out no worse for the wear. I used half splelt and half whole wheat flour and I added only 2 tsps of coconut oil(instead of 1/2 cup), 1/4 cup of sugar and a 1/4 cup of maple syrup(instead of 1 cup of sugar) , and a cup of raisins and a cup of chopped walnuts. Once baked, I could taste the baking powder in the cake, so now I add only 1 tsp baking powder(instead of 3) and 11/2 tsp baking soda(instead of 1) and 1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar to the almond milk. I love that there are two packed cups of shredded carrots in the recipe. I also learned that a 30 minute bake at 350 produced a moist and ever-so-delicious carrot cake. More time would tend to make it slightly drier. This last time I made it, I wanted to get rid of the sugar entirely so I added 1/4 cup of date slurry(made by processing 1/4 dates with 1/4 cup boiling water) instead of the 1/4 cup sugar and the cake came out fabulous. I used Kite Hill cream cheese(It’s made from almonds) with 2 Tbsp maple syrup processed in the blender for the frosting. I will try your frosting sometime soon. I live far away from a Whole Foods and Whole Foods is the only store that sells Kite Hill products. Thank you so much for this incredible recipe!
Delicious! I used homemade cashew milk as I had no almond milk, and I used 3/4 cup of sugar. No macadamia nuts so it was all cashew frosting. Definitely a keeper. Thanks for posting
I’m so glad you loved it! Thanks for sharing!
I made this yesterday and was a little disappointed. Carrot cake used to be my favourite dessert before becoming vegan, so I should mention that I have pretty high standards when it comes to this dessert.
The classic (non-vegan) carrot cakes that I’m used to are based on the “cream method” (i.e. cream sugar into butter first) as opposed to the “quick bread method” featured here (read more here: http://www.veganbaking.net/articles/guides/how-to-veganize-a-cake-recipe). As a result, I found this carrot cake lacking the rich buttery flavour I love. Also, the texture was too spongy (for lack of a better word), as opposed to being tender, dense, and moist.
Overall, I enjoyed it and was very appreciative for the veganized recipe, but I think it needs some work. Maybe a vegan carrot cake using the cream method with Earth Balance would be better?
Hi Seth – thank you for your comments. This cake is definitely more of a quick bread, it’s how my mom made it growing up so it’s the texture, etc, that I like. I hope you find a recipe that suits your taste!
Thanks Jeanine. By the way, I meant to change my rating to 3/5 but I couldn’t figure out how to edit it 🙁
Also, just wanted to add that I topped my cake with toasted pecans. Will definitely do this again. So tasty.
Try Rebecca Lakes changes in the comment below. My carrot cake comes out phenominal, moist, rich basically the bomb! Check it out!
Thanks Rebecca! I’ll take a look.
Absolutely delicious! I substituted the apple sauce with fresh home made pineapple sauce (forgot to buy apples!) and also added sultanas, seeds and chopped nuts to the sponge recipe. It was wonderful…Thank you 🙂
Hi Michelle, thank you, I’m so glad you enjoyed it! Thank’s for comment about the pineapple!
Made this today for a birthday surprise for my vegan sister. I had a lot of help from her two grandsons ages 5 and 11 and their two friends. Everything went pretty well. Grated the carrots quickly in my high powered blender. Everything else was a piece of cake – ha!
My sister loved the cake, but with her two grandchildren helping …. She was gonna love it no matter what.
Me? I can’t say I’d make it again for me, but I’d happily make it for my sister again …. And probably will.
Hi! I wanted to make this for a Sunday potluck. I was wondering if I could make it on Saturday, frost it and just keep it in the fridge covered with plastic wrap? Also is it better eating it cold straight from the fridge or do you recommend taking it out 15 -20 minutes before eating? Lastly, I assume the coconut oil for the frosting is in its solid state? Thanks!
Hi Tanya, yes you can make it the day before and it’s great cold out of the fridge. The coconut oil can be hardened or melted, it’ll get soft anyway in the blender and it’ll firm up again once it chills in the fridge. Hope you like the cake!
Hi, can I use soy milk in place of almond milk. My friend has a nut allergy.
Yes – it’ll work!
I made this using Coconut Flour.
When it was all mixed, before I put it on the tray, it was very clumpy. Is that normal?
When it was done in the oven 50 min or so it came out very soft and pudding like.
I let it cool but it didn’t change the texture.
Is that normal?
It didn’t really look like carrot cake.
Did I do something wrong?
Hi Nuno, coconut flour cannot be used as a 1:1 replacement in baking. I suggest following the recipe as written or googling for a recipe that specifically uses coconut flour.
Ok thanks.
I’ll try the recipe as is written for next time.
Just had a bunch of coconut flour on hand.
Do you think it’s still good to eat?
It wouldn’t be unsafe to eat. Also, here are a few other recipes you might be interested in that use coconut flour:
https://www.loveandlemons.com/vegan-raspberry-coconut-scones/
https://www.loveandlemons.com/gluten-free-chocolate-chip-cookies/
The rule is that you want to use a ratio of about 1/4 coconut flour to other flours because coconut flour is so dense. Hope that helps!
What’s the best way to make this gluten free?
Hi Cassandra, I think others have successfully replaced the flour with an all purpose gluten free blend, although I haven’t tried it myself… I’ll try it next time and let you know how it goes.