Vegan Carrot Cake Cupcakes

These vegan carrot cake cupcakes are moist and rich and packed with flavor. Topped with a deliciously tangy lemon buttercream and chopped walnuts.

We’ve been going to town on the vegan carrot cake cupcakes you guys! Let’s just say, some recipe testing is just a lot of fun. And having a few batches of these on the go the past couple of weeks has been nothing but a pleasure.

They are so moist, so flavorful and so cute too. The lemon frosting, with some extra tang from a secret (well, not secret at all of course I’m going to tell you) ingredient and a sprinkling of chopped walnuts make the perfect topping.

And on top of all this, they are so easy too.

The recipe is based on our hugely popular vegan carrot cake. That recipe has become so popular that it’s made and served at various coffee shops and cafes around the world! With just a few small changes we adapted that recipe to make the perfect cupcake recipe.

Ready? Let’s get started then!

Ingredients You’ll Need For The Cupcakes:

Ingredient Notes

• Carrots – these should be fresh carrots that you grate yourself. Don’t buy a bag of pre-grated carrots because they will be too dry for this batter. We need freshly grated carrots.
• Distilled white vinegar – this reacts with the baking soda in the recipe and causes the cupcakes to rise.
• Baking soda AND baking powder – we use both in this recipe.
• Canola oil – can be replaced with any other vegetable oil.

Ingredients You’ll Need For The Frosting:

Frosting Notes

• Apple cider vinegar – is our ‘not-so-secret’ ingredient for the frosting. It adds some extra tang to the frosting making it taste similar to a cream cheese frosting.
• Lemon juice – can be fresh or bottled.

How To Make Vegan Carrot Cake Cupcakes

You will find full instructions and measurements in the recipe card at the bottom of the post. This is a summary of the process to go along with the process photos.

• Sift all purpose flour into a mixing bowl and add light brown sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Mix together.

• Prepare your flax eggs by adding 2 tablespoons of ground flaxseed meal to a bowl and adding in 6 tablespoons of hot water (from the kettle). Let it sit for a minute to become gloopy.
• Add the flax eggs, grated carrot, oil, applesauce, vanilla extract and vinegar and mix into a thick batter.
• If the batter seems too thick to come together then step away from the bowl for 2-3 minutes and then come back to it and mix again. The moisture from the freshly grated carrot will seep into the batter, so that when you mix it again it will come together into a batter.

• Divide the batter between 12 cupcake liners.
• Bake at 350°F for 25 minutes. Insert a toothpick into the center of one of the cupcakes, it should come out clean.
• Let the cupcakes cool for a few minutes and then remove them from the cupcake pan and transfer them to a wire cooling rack to cool completely before frosting.

• Prepare your frosting by adding powdered sugar, vegan butter, vanilla extract, apple cider vinegar and lemon juice to the bowl of your stand mixer.
• Start at slow speed, gradually increasing speed until the frosting is thick and smooth.

• When the cupcakes are completely cool, pipe on the frosting and decorate with chopped walnuts.

Recipe Success Tips

Measure the flour properly. I always recommend weighing out your flour. It’s the trickiest measurement in baking and for the best accuracy, it’s worth weighing it out on a kitchen scale. If you don’t have a food scale though then the best way to measure it is to use the ‘spoon and level’ method. Spoon your flour into your measuring cup and then level off the top with a knife. Don’t scoop it and don’t pack it into the cup.

The batter is thick. You end up with a very thick batter here and that’s entirely okay. In fact it’s what you’re going for. So don’t freak out when it starts out so thick it’s like it’s not going to form into a batter, just stir a bit more and those ingredients will start to merge together and form into a batter. A thick batter, but a batter nonetheless!

The frosting. You can use our lemon frosting as pictured here, or you can swap it out for our vegan cream cheese frosting that is made with a homemade cashew based vegan cream cheese.

Storing and Freezing

These carrot cake cupcakes lose none of their moistness or flavor when kept (covered) in the fridge and they last for at least a week, though of course the fresher the better.

They are also freezer friendly (frosted or unfrosted) for up to 3 months!

More Vegan Cupcakes

1. Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes
2. Vegan Vanilla Cupcakes
3. Vegan Strawberry Cupcakes
4. Vegan Lemon Cupcakes
5. Vegan Red Velvet Cupcakes
6. Vegan Funfetti Cupcakes

Did you make this recipe? Be sure to leave a comment and rating below!

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