This vegan carrot cake is the best ever! It’s moist and rich and topped with a tangy lemon buttercream frosting and crushed walnuts.
Carrot cake is pretty awesome! It gives you the feeling that you’re eating something pretty darn healthy. I mean you’re getting your veggies in!
And when it’s vegan carrot cake, well….. then you can feel pretty saintly about it!
Okay okay, I’ve said I’m never going to mention guilt and food in the same sentence on this blog, and I’m going to stick to it, but you know, there’s indulgence and then there’s feeling saintly about indulgence, which is not like indulgence at all really.
So go on, have your vegan carrot cake and eat it too, while feeling saintly about your good choices 🙂
And you know one of these days I’ll even make a gluten-free version (update: it’s here!) and THEN, well then, you know, you can just about ascend to heaven on a cloud while you eat it.
Jokes aside, this carrot cake is super good, it has a wholesome hearty vibe, while being moist, rich, and delicious.
Topped with a tangy lemon buttercream frosting and crushed walnuts, this cake is ideal for any special occasion. Or just for Sunday afternoon tea.
How To Make Vegan Carrot Cake
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 baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Mix together.
- Add light brown sugar and grated carrot to the mixing bowl.
- Prepare your flax eggs by adding 2 tablespoons of ground flaxseed meal to a bowl with 6 tablespoons of hot water. Let it sit for a minute to become gloopy.
- Add the flax eggs, oil, vanilla extract, apple cider vinegar and chopped walnuts to the mixing bowl.
- Mix everything together. If it seems like it won’t come together and the mix is too dry then step away from the bowl for a couple of minutes and then come back to it. The carrot will have released more moisture into the batter allowing it to come together into a thick batter.
- Divide the batter evenly between two cake pans (sprayed with non-stick spray and lined with parchment paper along the bottoms).
- Bake at 350°F for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of one of the cakes comes out clean.
- Let the cakes cool in the pans for a few minutes before transferring them to a wire cooling rack to cool completely before frosting.
- When the cakes are cool, frost and decorate with crushed walnuts.
The Frosting
Two things: firstly, I frosted it with a lemon frosting and added apple cider vinegar. This was to try and get a slightly more ‘cheesy’ flavor to it.
Well, it didn’t really work, it was really good, but I would not say it was in any way ‘cheesy’. It was still really good though, with a perfect amount of tang, so I went with it!
Secondly, I have since made a fabulous vegan cream cheese frosting using a homemade vegan cream cheese. It is seriously delicious, so if you want to give that a try instead, then go for it. The lemon buttercream frosting recipe from our vegan lemon cake is also a winner if you want to use that instead.
Chef’s Tips
Measure your flour correctly. If you have a food scale then measure the flour out on a food scale for total accuracy. If you don’t have a food scale then use the ‘spoon and level’ method to measure your flour. Spoon the flour into your measuring cup and then level it off with a knife. Don’t scoop the flour and don’t pack it into your cup.
Carrots must be freshly grated. If you buy pre-grated carrots then they will have dried out a lot by the time you use them. You need freshly grated carrots so that they are packed with moisture.
The walnuts. Walnuts are entirely optional but they are really delicious both in the cake itself and sprinkled on top for decoration. Another great option is chopped pecan nuts.
Be patient mixing the batter. When you’re mixing this batter you may start to wonder if I’ve missed out some important ingredients in the form of liquids! You may start thinking it will never come together! Don’t worry, so long as you used freshly grated carrots, it will definitely come together. Just step away from the bowl for a couple of minutes, the carrots will release more moisture into the batter. When you come back and mix again, it will form into a thick batter.
Adapting For Different Cake Pans
- 7-inch. This cake makes two thick 7-inch cake layers.
- 8-inch. It also works perfectly for 8-inch cake pans. The layers are slightly thinner, but still perfect, and 8-inch cake pans work great with the recipe exactly as is, no other changes at all.
- 6-inch. If you want to make this cake in 6-inch cake pans then I would suggest making it as a 3 layer cake. Baking time will be around 25 minutes.
- 9×9 sheet cake. You can also make it as a 9×9 square sheet cake. Baking time is 35 minutes.
- 9×13 sheet cake. It also works as a 9×13 sheet cake though it is a fairly thin cake so 9×9 is preferred. Baking time for 9×13 is 25 minutes.
Vegan Carrot Cake Q&A
You can make this cake gluten-free by simply switching the regular flour for a gluten-free all purpose flour blend. You can also check out our recipe for vegan gluten free carrot cake. It’s totally divine.
Sure! This recipe adapts to 12-18 cupcakes depending on how full you make the cupcake liners. You can also check out our vegan carrot cake cupcakes.
Storing and Freezing
Keep the cake covered at room temperature where it will stay good for 3-4 days, or keep it covered in the fridge where it will stay good for up to a week.
It is also freezer friendly for up to 3 months.
More Vegan Cakes
- Vegan Vanilla Cake
- Vegan Chocolate Cake
- Vegan Red Velvet Cake
- Vegan Banana Cake
- Vegan Lemon Cake
- Vegan Strawberry Cake
Did you make this recipe? Be sure to leave a comment and rating below!
Vegan Carrot Cake
Ingredients
For the Carrot Cake:
- 2 cups All Purpose Flour (250g)
- 1 tsp Baking Powder
- 1 tsp Baking Soda
- ½ tsp Salt
- 2 tsp Cinnamon
- 1 tsp Nutmeg
- 1 ½ cups Light Brown Sugar (300g)
- 2 ⅓ cups Grated Carrot (255g)
- 2 Flax Eggs (2 Tbsp Ground Flaxseed Meal with 6 Tbsp Water)
- ½ cup Canola Oil (120ml) or Vegetable Oil
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1 Tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar
- 1 cup Walnuts (100g) Chopped, Optional
For the Lemon Buttercream Frosting:
- 4 cups Powdered Sugar (480g)
- ½ cup Vegan Butter (112g)
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar
- 2-3 Tbsp Fresh Lemon Juice
Decoration:
- Walnuts Chopped
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Spray two 7-inch cake pans or two 8-inch cake pans (see notes*) with non-stick spray and line the bottoms with circles of parchment paper.
- Sift the all purpose flour into a mixing bowl and add the baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Mix together.
- Add the light brown sugar and grated carrot to the mixing bowl.
- Prepare your flax eggs by adding 2 tablespoons of ground flaxseed meal to a bowl with 6 tablespoons of hot water. Let it sit for a minute to become gloopy.
- Add the flax eggs, oil, vanilla extract, apple cider vinegar and chopped walnuts to the mixing bowl.
- Mix everything together. If it seems like it won't come together and the mix is too dry then step away from the bowl for a couple of minutes and then come back to it. The carrots will have released more moisture into the batter allowing it to come together into a thick batter.
- Divide the batter evenly between the two prepared cake pans.
- Bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of one of the cakes comes out clean.
- Allow the cakes to cool in the pans for a few minutes before transferring them to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
- While the cakes are cooling, prepare your frosting.
- Add the powdered sugar, vegan butter, vanilla extract, apple cider vinegar and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice to the bowl of your stand mixer.
- Start mixing on low speed gradually increasing speed until your frosting is thick and smooth.
- If your frosting is too thick then add in the extra tablespoon of lemon juice, a drop at a time and only as much as needed to get to a spreadable consistency.
- Frost the cake and decorate the top with chopped walnuts.
Video
Notes
- Measure your flour correctly. If you have a food scale then measure the flour out on a food scale for total accuracy. If you don’t have a food scale then use the ‘spoon and level’ method to measure your flour. Spoon the flour into your measuring cup and then level it off with a knife. Don’t scoop the flour and don’t pack it into your cup.
- Carrots must be freshly grated. If you buy pre-grated carrots then they will have dried out a lot by the time you use them. You need freshly grated carrots so that they are packed with moisture.
- The walnuts. Walnuts are entirely optional but they are really delicious both in the cake itself and sprinkled on top for decoration. Another great option is chopped pecan nuts.
- Be patient mixing the batter. When you’re mixing this batter you may start to wonder if I’ve missed out some important ingredients in the form of liquids! You may start thinking it will never come together! Don’t worry, so long as you used freshly grated carrots, it will definitely come together. Just step away from the bowl for a couple of minutes, the carrots will release more moisture into the batter. When you come back and mix again, it will form into a thick batter.
- Adapting for different size cake pans:
- 7-inch. This cake makes two thick 7-inch cake layers.
- 8-inch. It also works perfectly for 8-inch cake pans. The layers are slightly thinner, but still perfect, and 8-inch cake pans work great with the recipe exactly as is, no other changes at all.
- 6-inch. If you want to make this cake in 6-inch cake pans then I would suggest making it as a 3 layer cake. Baking time will be around 25 minutes.
- 9×9 sheet cake. You can also make it as a 9×9 square sheet cake. Baking time is 35 minutes.
- 9×13 sheet cake. It also works as a 9×13 sheet cake though it is a fairly thin cake so 9×9 is preferred. Baking time for 9×13 is 25 minutes.
- Gluten-free: You can make this cake gluten-free by simply switching the regular flour for a gluten-free all purpose flour blend.
- Cupcakes: This recipe adapts to 12-18 cupcakes depending on how full you make the cupcake liners.
- Storing: Keep the cake covered at room temperature where it will stay good for 3-4 days, or keep it covered in the fridge where it will stay good for up to a week.
- Freezing: It is also freezer friendly for up to 3 months.
- This recipe has been updated with new photos but the recipe itself is unchanged.
Lucy says
I am going to make for my grand daughter! My question is do you think I could use coconut flour?
Alison Andrews says
I don’t think it would work for this recipe Lucy. It’s not the kind of flour that you can do a straight swap with.
neal says
I found the apple cider vinegar in the frosting overpowering. I made another batch, substituting almond milk for the apple cider vinegar. Thanks for the recipe.
megan says
I’ve made many cakes before & never seen one that only uses oil as the liquid. I wound up having to add almost 3/4 cup of almond milk. I don’t have a kitchen scale but am usually pretty close with flour etc…
I’m anxiously waiting to see how it turns out!!
Alison Andrews says
Hi Megan, the recipe only uses the oil (and the flax egg liquid, vinegar etc) as the wet ingredients because it has 9oz of raw carrot added to it, which is an extremely wet ingredient. The batter starts out dry but after you add those grated carrots and mix in a bit it just gets wetter and wetter as the moisture from the carrots seeps into the batter. Sure, it’s still thicker than a regular cake batter with all that chunky carrot but it turns into a batter like you see in my pictures.
Kirsten says
I had the exact same problem, the mix was so dry it looked like I was making carrot cookies. Had to add about half a cup of almond milk… Perhaps your carrots had a lot more liquid come out of them than the few of us that have commented about the mix being dry! 🙂 Fingers crossed it will still bake nicely!
Alison Andrews says
This is entirely possible – I baked a batch of cookies the other day that was the exact recipe I had made before but I was using a different brand of vegan butter, and suddenly I needed to use more non-dairy milk than I used before as my batter was WAY too dry. So yes, different ingredients bring different results. Being flexible in baking is always a good thing. Hope your cake came out well!
Rachel says
I made this cake for my own birthday, doubling the recipe and using three 9 inch round cake tins. I used melted coconut oil instead of olive oil, and found the batter to be dry so I added about 1 cup total of almond milk. This did the trick! I did not use the frosting above, instead I made a vegan cream cheese frosting. I too forgot the nuts in the batter so I just layered some between the layers and sprinkled on top. My non-vegan family members were extremely impressed, claiming that this cake is even better than any carrot cake they’ve tried! Thank you so much for this recipe 🙂
Alison Andrews says
Awesome Rachel! So glad it was a success! Thanks so much for letting us know the adjustments you made. 🙂
Cecilia says
I used this recipe but subbed a few things. I used all oat flour, 1/3c coconut oil, and roughly less than 1c coconut sugar and this cake was amazzzzing. I’ve made this recipe 2x-the first I pressed the batter into a donut pan and the second time in disposable bakeware for coworkers. This cake gets better in the fridge IMO. The first night warm seemed dry to me(that’s on me reducing my oil) however, here we are two days in and it is so yummy I had to leave feedback. I also can’t get my head around tofu cream cheese or carrot cake without cc frosting. Since my family and I are dairy free simply for healthier living, I did indulge in 1/3 fat cream cheese with a little vanilla extract and coconut sugar. Bonkers! Love love love! Thank you!
Alison Andrews says
Awesome Cecilia! Thanks for posting! 🙂
Jessica Miller says
Hi Alison,
Do you think I could pop the batter into a loaf tin instead for a loaf cake or would it not rise enough?
Thank you!
Jess
Alison Andrews says
Hi Jess, I ‘think’ it would be fine! It would just affect the cooking time, you’d likely need to leave it in longer, I’m not exactly sure how much longer, you’d just have to check it regularly to see when it’s cooked.
Adriana says
Hi, I am planning on making this cake for my husbands birthday and I have a lot of cake flour in my pantry that I need to use up. Can I make this cake with it or must it be APF? TIA
Alison Andrews says
Hi Adriana, I really can’t say for sure as I haven’t tried it like this. The issue with using cake flour in vegan baking is that it contains less gluten than all purpose flour, so it binds less. It could work out absolutely fine here, but you just wouldn’t know until you try it. Probably the worst that would happen is that it would be more crumbly. If you do try it with cake flour then let me know how it turns out. All the best! 🙂
Adriana says
Alison,
Thanks for your quick reply! I will stick to all purpose flour this time around as it’s for my husbands birthday, but next time I’ll experiment.
Thanks once again!
William C says
Is the flaxseed meal required for the cake to come out good? I have ALL the other ingredients planning to make this tomorrow morning for my best friends birthday.
Alison Andrews says
Hi William, yes it is definitely a required ingredient as the recipe has been created using this. If you omitted it, it might work out okay or it might really not. Since you want to make it for a birthday, I wouldn’t experiment at this stage, and rather just get the flaxseed meal so you can follow the recipe exactly. All the best!
Rugile says
Hey! Amazing recipe! Just wanted to know, can I use coconut oil or any kind of oil instead of vegan butter because it is impossible to find one in my country!:(
Alison Andrews says
Hi Rugile, thank you! Honestly I have never tried using coconut oil as a replacement for vegan butter in the frosting. It may work fine, I actually don’t see why it wouldn’t really, but can’t say for sure. If you read ingredients on margarines you can usually find one that doesn’t have animal products. Of course I can’t say for your country as I don’t know where you’re based, but I have found this to be the case in quite a few countries so it’s worth mentioning. All the best.
Vivian says
I used coconut oil and it turned out great! Thanks for this recipe.
Alison Andrews says
Lovely! Thanks for posting! 🙂
Kendra` says
I made this and added 1 cup of raisins and 3/4 of a can of pineapple tidbits (drained) and it was amazing
Alison Andrews says
What a great idea Kendra! You know, I never thought of using raisins, which is weird, because it’s a perfect addition to carrot cake! And the pineapple sounds awesome too. Thanks for posting! 🙂
Anne says
Not sure what went wrong but I measured and mixed everything accordingly and my batter was a doughy ball rather than something I could pour into a pan! I’m going to try and add some things to get it to the right consistency and I’ll update soon
Alison Andrews says
Oh no! Did you weigh the flour? It’s so easy for flour measurements to end up with too much if not weighed, it’s a tricky business! The batter is ‘quite’ thick on this one with all those grated carrots in there, but not doughy of course. Hope you manage to fix it! All the best!
Anne says
That’s the only thing I didn’t do- weigh! I added some water and that seemed to thin it out a little but I ended up pouring it all into one 8″ round pan. The batter tasted alright and it baked properly at 350 for 30 mins.
I mixed up the frosting and ended up adding some unsweetened soy milk and it’s pretty good !
I’ll update with taste pretty soon 🙂
Alison Andrews says
Brilliant – I hope your innovations saved the cake and that it was still good! 🙂
Anne says
24 hours later and that cake was all gobbled up!
Jennifer says
Hi, my dough ended up very thick too and barely spread to cover the pans. Everything was measured appropriately. Smells great, hopefully tastes good and will still turn out all right. I added some golden raisins to the batter and ginger for a lil extra spice.
Alison Andrews says
Ginger and golden raisins sounds like an awesome add! Hope it comes out great!
Hamid Abedini says
How many carrots will I need and does 1.5 cups mean 1 and a 1/2 cups?
Alison Andrews says
Hi there Hamid, it’s around 3-4 large carrots, but this definitely needs to be weighed so that the right amount of grated carrot is added in. Any leftovers you can throw into a salad. 🙂 Yes, 1.5 cups means 1 and a 1/2 cups.
Naadia says
The cake turned out so delicious!! Thank you for the recipe although the cups and gram measurements were confusing so I just followed the gram measurements. Anyways the frosting was so delicious and the cake was moist but not dense!
Alison Andrews says
Hi Naadia! It’s actually better to follow gram measurements with cakes, particularly with flour, and weigh things, it works out more accurately! So glad to hear it came out well! Thanks so much for posting. 🙂
Karen says
Richly moist and satisfying cake.
Danielle says
Hi do you think I could use gluten free flour for this recipe. Thank you
Alison Andrews says
Sure Danielle, you would need to use a gluten-free all purpose flour blend, Bob’s Red Mill brand is a good option, and then increase the baking soda and baking powder by 1/4 tsp each. Usually in going gluten-free in cakes I would suggest increasing the oil as well, but in this case I don’t think it would be necessary. All the best! 🙂
Danielle says
Thank you for the advise. I am going to try this tomorrow ☺
Danielle says
Hi I made the cake with gluten free flour and it was amazing. I found the icing to sweet so will just do a butter icing next time. Thank you for reciepe
Alison Andrews says
Cool Danielle! Great to hear it came out well – thanks for posting!
Patricia G. says
YOU can also use oat flour – and the gluten free if you need it. Oat flour is a whole grain flour, but is much lighter than whole wheat. I use it in most of my baking – we don’t have to be gluten free in our home, but I just like it as a nicer flour to bake with.
Sonia Joseph says
I made this cake four times and each time it turned out perfect!! I gave it to all my nonvegan friends, and they told me it was great for any cake. Baking it again for an activity fair!
Alison Andrews says
Wonderful! Thanks for sharing! 🙂