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Vegan Carrot Cake Recipe. Vegan Carrot Cake Quick bread loaf with Cashew Cream Frosting. Moist, spiced with Cinnamon and Cardamom, full of carrots. Low oil. Soyfree Palmoil-free. Pin this Recipe Jump to Recipe
This week is amazingly busy. I was planning up the posts last week and realized that both Holi and Easter are this week. Carrots and Mangoes were my choice to appear on the blog this week. So lets get started with this super moist Carrot Cake.
This carrot cake is loaded with shredded carrots and pureed carrots. All that carrot with the spices like cinnamon and cardamom (because Cardamom!), some ginger, and a creamy cream cheese style cashew vanilla frosting make this an irresistible loaf. The loaf is a carrot cake quick bread with mild sweetness. Add spices of choice, some nuts and dried fruit, bake, then frost with an easy cashew cream vanilla frosting. This is an incredibly moist carrot cake. It tastes even better after chilling as the spices infuse the loaf. The frosting is cashews plus little sweetener, lemon and vanilla! I use my mini food processor to shred the carrots. That reduces elbow grease and time needed. Bake this loaf and tag me on Instagram. For a Gluten and Grain free version, try this. What are your plans for Easter?
Other Easter Recipes from the blog
- Carrot Cake Pancakes
- Carrot Cake Ice Cream with candied walnuts and roasted carrots
- Carrot Veggie Pilaf with shredded carrots.
- GF Carrot Cake – Gluten-free.
- Or use the 1.5 to 2 cups of dry ingredients from my gf pumpkin loaf to make this loaf gluten-free. Add 1/2 cup oats and 1 tbsp chia seeds as well to help hold the bread.
Mix the dry ingredients. Soak the shredded carrots in maple. Mix in the pureed carrots + apples. Mix in the dry to make a thick stiff batter. Drop into parchment lined pan and even it out.
Bake until toothpick from the center comes out almost clean.
Cool completely. Slice and serve or frost, slice and serve. Frosting Inspired by Wallflower Girl’s Cashew coconut flour frosting.
Video!
Vegan Carrot Cake Recipe
Ingredients
Wet:
- 2 cups loosely packed grated or shredded carrots
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 2/3 cup sugar, i use a mix of regular and brown sugar. Add 2 tbsp more for sweeter
- 1/4 cup oil
- 2 tsp lemon juice
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tbsp flax seed meal
- 1/2 of a small apple or 1/4 cup chopped apple or use 1/4 cup apple sauce
- 1/3-1/2 cup chopped carrots
- 1/2 inch fresh ginger, optional
- 1/2 cup water or non dairy milk, or use orange juice
Dry:
- 2 cups flour, I use 1 cup whole wheat and 1 cup unbleached white
- 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp or more cardamom
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- 1/3 tsp salt
- 1/3 cup chopped walnuts
- 1/3 cup currants or raisins
Cashew Vanilla Frosting:
- 1/2 cup cashews soaked for 1 hour or overnight
- 3-4 tbsp water
- 1/8-1/4 tsp salt
- 2 tsp or more lemon juice
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
- 1-2 tsp coconut flour
Instructions
- Prepare your pan for baking by lining with parchment or greasing and dusting with flour. Preheat the oven to 365 degrees F / 180ºc.
- Grate or shred the carrots and transfer to a bowl. Add the maple, sugar, oil, lemon, vanilla and mix well. Let sit for 2 mins.
- Meanwhile Blend the flax, apples, chopped carrots, ginger with water until pureed. Add to the carrot bowl and mix well.
- In another bowl, whisk the dry ingredients until well combined. Transfer to the wet and mix until there are no dry flour streaks. Fold in the nuts and currants. The mixture should be a stiff-ish batter. If the batter is too wet/moist (depends on the carrots), add 1 to 2 tbsp more flour and mix in.
- Drop the thick batter into prepared loaf pan. Even it out on the top.
- Bake for 60 to 70 minutes or until the toothpick from the center comes out almost clean. Cool for 15 mins and remove from the pan. Cool for atleast another 10 minutes before slicing.
- Frosting: Blend the soaked cashews with water, salt, lemon, sugar and vanilla. Blend until smooth. (I use a nutri bullet small blender).Taste and adjust lemon, sweet and salt and blend. Add a 1/4 tsp white vinegar for stronger sour flavor. Add some cinnamon for a cinnamony frosting. If the mixture is runny, add 1 tsp coconut flour and blend it. Add more coconut flour if needed to get the desired consistency. Spread the frosting over the cake.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Hi tomorrowbis my bday and i want to make this cake.can i use oat flour instead of wheat.
oat flour instead of all of the flour will not work. Combination of Oat flour and all purpose flour will work
Is nutrition facts for 1 slice or loaf (ie 540 calories)?
2 slices. you get 12 or more slices.
Thx! So delicious. I’ve now made it a half dozen times.
Don’t have flax flour (ran out). I’m vegetarian not vegan so not sure if to replace with 2 eggs?
omit it. should work just fine without the flax
I am interested in making this, but want to substitute the sugar & flour. Any suggestions !
try this with very ripe bananas, chopped dates and omit sugar https://fettabbau-trim.today/2018/01/gluten-free-banana-bread-flourless-carrot-banana-bread.html%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Looks amazing! Is there a way to make this without oil?
yes just omit it
Could I substitute the sugar for sweetner
what kind of sweetener
For the frosting – what sub could I use in place of the coconut flour? My daughter has an intolerance and carrott cake is her favourite and you just HAVE to have frosting on carrott cake.
add a few tbsp more cashews for thicker cream and if its still thin, then add a tsp or so regular flour or cornstarch
Thank you so much
Can spelt flour be used in place of the flour?
yes. you will need a few tbsp less flour. Start with a cup and add a few tbsp at a time until you get a stiff batter
Richa, I made this cake for Christmas and it was amazing! I doubled the recipe as I was using a big round pan and I wanted the cake to be low fat so I only used half of the oil and added some more soy milk. I can honestly say it’s one of the best, if not the best, carrot cake I ever had and another of your recipes that come out just amazing and so delicious! Thank you very much, Richa 🙂
P.S. In 2 days time it’s my birthday so I’m making the cake again. You think I can try making it without oil at all and just substitute it with milk? 🙂
Would you suggest lowering the bake time if baking in a 9×2 round pan?
yes checkat 35 mins
Fantastic! Had to make a couple of changes due to what I have in. Homemade Date Syrup for Maple syrup, Rapdura for the sugar, Apple and Mango juice for the orange juice…omitted the raisins because I don’t like them … realised half way through making it that I was out of Walnuts (sad times) so none of those either, but I carried on, and it still turned out amazing! I feel that is a sign of a great recipe. Thank you for sharing …Next time I will make sure I have Walnuts!
Awesome that it turned out!
what is rapdura? i don’t eat any sugar.. or i should say processed like cane sugar or any of its counterparts. Maple syrup is fine. Thank you!
its unrefined sugar. If you can find powdered form, use that. I use unrefined raw sugar in the recipe. Granulated kind. I put it through a blender to make somewhat powder to use.