Hands down the best carrot cake ever!
I have been told this by several people and 99% of them were not even vegan!
Believe me this is not just me tooting my own horn!
I don’t know why it makes me so happy when non vegans tell me my desserts are the “best they ever had”
The most recent comment I got on social media said: “Thanks to Gretchen Price for your fabulous carrot cake recipe. I tested 6 and yours was the best ❤”
Whether you are vegan or not you have finally found the best carrot cake recipe ever!
But don’t take my word for it, try it for yourself!
Quite possibly the easiest recipe to mix too since there is no mixer required!
This recipe is even so fantastic all by itself that it needs no icing!
Sometimes I just bake the batter right in a large loaf pan!
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Notes for Success:
7″ cake layers are my go-to size when making layer cakes
But this recipe will also fit into a 6 cup bundt pan or 24 cupcakes
Keep in mind for cupcakes this recipe will not rise up to a dome, it will remain flat topped
The original cream cheese icing is very fragile to mix due to the very unstable vegan cream cheese icing, so it is best done by hand.
However I have recently updated all of my cakes that use cream cheese icing and converted them to this NEW 2-2-2 Cream Cheese Icing!
Shelf stable with no refrigeration required since there is no vegan cream cheese in the recipe!
CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL YOUTUBE VIDEO TUTORIAL FOR HOW TO MAKE THIS RECIPE
The Best Vegan Carrot Cake Ever
Ingredients
- Vegetable Oil ¾ cup (177ml)
- All Purpose Flour 1½ cup + 2 tablespoons (200g)
- Baking Powder 1 teaspoon (4g)
- Baking Soda 1teaspoon (4g)
- Salt ¼ teaspoon
- Ground Cinnamon 1¾ teaspoons
- Brown Sugar ½ cup (105g)
- Granulated Sugar ½ cup (100g)
- Ground Flax Seeds 3 Tablespoons (24g)
- Hot Water 6 Tablespoons (90ml)
- Vanilla Extract 1½ teaspoons (7ml)
- Carrots 4 medium (approx 2 cups 250g)
- Granny Smith Apple 1 medium peeled approx ¾ cup
- Orange Zest from ¼ large orange approx 1 teaspoon
- Toasted Walnuts ¾ cup plus more for garnish *optional
Instructions
- Preahet the oven to 350°F
- Grease and parchment line your cake pans (*I am using 3-7" pans)
- Combine the flax with the hot water and let stand to thicken
- In a large bowl combine the sugars with the oil, vanilla extract and the flax mixture, whisk smooth
- Add the orange zest
- Then sift together all of the dry ingredients directly into the bowl and whisk smooth
- Add the grated carrots and apple and the nuts then mix smooth
- Pour batter into greased cake pans and bake immediately at 350°F in a preheated oven for approximately 25-40 minutes depending on the size of your pans. Bake Until they are Done
- Cool cakes while you prepare the Cream Cheese Icing recipe according to that recipe[e post and then assemble cake as shown in the video
The Original Cream Cheese Icing in case you prefer that method!
Original Cream Cheese Icing
Vegan cream cheese is super fragile, so using the stand mixer or any electric beater seems to turn this icing to soup! I find that mixing it all by hand is the best way to go!
Ingredients
- Vegan Cream Cheese 2 Tubs (2cups) (454g)
- Vegan Butter 1 stick (½ cup) (112g)
- Confectioner's Sugar 2 cups (240g)
- Vanilla Extract 1 teaspoon
- 1 Cup Vegan Buttercream
Instructions
- Smooth cream cheese and the softened vegan butter BY HAND with a wooden spoon or spatula
- Add sifted confectioners sugar, mix evenly
- Add extract then add optional vegan buttercream icing
- Mix smooth
Im very new to baking so if you could help me out I’d be grateful! In the recipe it said cakepans(plural), so do I use three cakepans for the three layers? Also what size cakepan do you use and how long is your cake in the oven? How do you know when the cake is done?
Thank you in advance.
Hi Welcome! Well you picked a great recipe to start out with! Yes to 3 pans, as I bake my layers separately. If you do not have the 7″ Pans as I am using here you can divide the batter between 2-8″ Pans instead but you will only have 2 layers of cake.
Step #6 in the instructions talks about the oven temp, time to bake and also a good link to an article I wrote called UNTIL ITS DONE
Have fun with it! You are going to LOVE this recipe! Post to my facebook page when you are all finished!
Hi! This recipe looks fantastic! I’m wondering if you’d know if the carrot cake would be ok to freeze? I have to travel and I don’t trust other people’s ovens 😂 so I’d love to have it prepped thankyou!
Hi Thanks Yes you can freeze it
Hi! Love the look of this recipe. Do you know if you can freeze it? I need to make it tonight but eat it Saturday or Sunday. I normally freeze my cakes but haven’t tried this one before. Thanks 🙂
yes you can !
What should I use as cake flour substitute?
Hey there you can use all AP flour
hey gretchen!! theres 2 versions of the same recipe on your site. 1 says 140 g ap flour and the other says 157g? i don’t know which to use ? love you girl
Yes I realize I posted twice! LOL Im not sure why or how that even happened, I guess I love this recipe so much I had to post it twice! As for the grams discrepancy, let’s cut the difference and say 150g LOL
It’s not going to make a big difference here, this is a very wet mix
Hi Gretchen
Love this recipe. How can I make this awesome carrot cake GLUTEN FREE. Thank you for your help.
I figured out my issue XD. Cold brown sugar. I thought about it the other day and realized that had to be the issue. Sure enough it was!!! The sugar and the oil came together perfect. Someone stuck it in the fridge and being a home baker I should’ve known better. It tastes amazing and yes you were right 3 times the charm!
oh wow! Thanks for letting me know! Im glad you figured it out! Who ever would have thought that! LOL yes 3 times always the winner! hahaha
Hello gretchen’s i cant fine the original tropical carrot cake recip ,cant you sand me please the recip
Hi Nicole, my non vegan blog is shut down
I just couldn’t keep up the cost to host it on the internet and maintain it monthly anymore
I had always said I would continue to share my recipes for free & give free tutorials on YouTube for as long as I could afford to do so, and well.. I just can’t anymore.
Many people had been helping through Patreon & PayPal, but at this point it is just not enough to pay for everything to keep it all going.
The cost to host such a huge database was close to $400 a month (with the maintenance cost, I needed to hire a tech guy to help keep it running smoothly)
So that cost was severely outweighing any small profits I had been making though running ads on the videos & blogsite.
I have not kept any of the non vegan recipes, since for over 4 years now I have been strictly vegan;
so for me they are of no use. They were all housed in the database and that has shut down. Sorry
Not to mention I am not comfortable sharing non vegan recipes anymore,
as it promotes animal abuse and torture not to mention animal agriculture is a disease on the earth as well as human health.
Thanks for your support and encouragement though the ages!
~Gretchen
i used 140g and i forgot to mix the sugar and oil first. instead i mixed the sugar with the flour and i think it made it too thick. i’m going to try again tomorrow! thanks so much for your quick response!!!
awe! Ok! You will really love this recipe I promise!
oh no same exact thing happened i don’t understand. its so much more thick and not smooth like yours not sure where i went wrong . i measured everything . usually i’m good at recipes
i used canola oil & made my own cake flour is the only things changed . maybe flax got too thick . im not sure. it was for my boyfriends birthday today. oh well maybe i can try again 1 day
Oh no! this is terrible news. I know the recipe is correct because I have made it several times and also some of my friends have as well and LOVED it.
Its possible the cake flour? Since making your own is primarily brad flour (which is a harder flour, and will definitely absorb more liquid in the recipe causing a drier batter) so perhaps it is that?
If you do try again I would say just use 125g of your homemade cake flour and see
i watched the video a couple times and noticed my oil and sugar don’t mix together cohesively. the oil stayed at the top and sugar at the bottom, so maybe this is the step i’m messing up. even when i mixed the flours in, there was oil on top. it really is 240ml of oil right? i will buy cake flour and make sure to mix the sugar and oil properly . makes me sad but we learn from our mistakes right haha XD . gonna not add all the flour next time also. thanks so much Gretchen . i’ll let you know what happens next time lol , i’m gonna nail this recipe darnit !! 🙂
Yes that’s correct. Interesting that your oil wont mix in? That’s odd, because I used to use canola for all my recipes before I decided to go with the coconut oil more recently. Definitely double check your measures and see about getting the cake flour. Im sorry you’ve had so much trouble, but you are right in that mistakes are the best teachers, however Im not so sure you are making any mistakes! 3rd times a charm?? Keep me posted!
Dear Gretchen,
I discovered your channel a few years ago when I planned my wedding (and wanted to bake all the cakes myself). Naturally, I fell in love with you and your recipes 🙂
After the wedding I haven’t baked as much (it comes and goes in phases), but to come back to your channel and see that you veganize your recipes and share them with us… I can’t tell you how delighted I am! I am going to bake this cake right now!
Have a great weekend
Love,
Katharina
awe Hi Thanks! Im so glad you’re back!
Hello, I do love this carrot cake but my favorite is the other recipe with brown sugar I think you called it tropical carrot cake, is that recipe no longer available??
HI Janeth! All the non vegan recipes are still available at http://www.gretchensbakery.com
for as long as I can afford to keep that website up!
If I want to make this non vegan do I just sub the flax seed mixture for eggs ? I love the vegan version but would like to do it non vegan.
Where do you get vegan buttercream
Hi Gretchen.
Since I saw this recipe I knew I had to make it, but I do not have cake flour right now.
Will there be a big difference if I do not use the cake flour and instead use the regular flour? or maybe DIY cake flour?
yes you can use all purpose, just take out 2 Tbs OR CLick here for DIY
Today I made the recipe and really it is incredibly good, delicious! but I do not know if I got the right texture, my carrot cake was dense and slightly wet, looks different from the recipe photo.
To bake it I used mini loaf pans, and bake it for 37 minutes. Maybe I needed to cook it more?
Hi Melissa! It’s hard to say exactly what could be the problem, as you speculate maybe longer baking would help, but also slight measurement discrepancies could also be the culprit. I always want folks to weigh ingredients with a scale rather than with cups CLICK HERE FOR MORE since that can always cause a recipe to be very different than intended.
I alwyas then ask that you go back to the recipe, make sure you used all the same ingredients as I did and then mixed exactly as shown in the video
Hi! Is this recipe for 1 layer? Because I don’t have a lot of mixture
this is for 3-7″ layers, you can HALF all the ingredients for 1-9″ layer
Thank you for your recipe! I’ve tried it and it was very good!
Now I am planning to repeat it for 30 people party,What should be the proportions?
30 people is such an odd number for cake baking LOL- when I had my bakery I would tell people, you are sort of in the middle of 2 cake sizes. a 10″ round cake serves about 25 people (not enough) and a half sheet cake serves closer to 50 (too much!)
But too much cake is better than not enough so I would recommend that size. 1 recipe for this cake will go into 1- 12″x18″x1″ pan for 1 layer of cake.
You will repeat that again for the 2nd layer for a 2 layer half sheet cake.
triple the icing recipe
Hi gretchen, can i bake this recipe in a bundt pan and also can i use egg replacer in place of the flax seeds. i have the bobs red mill egg replacer. if yes how much.
yes to bundt pan, and replace the flax with 2Tbs Bob’s Red Mill
Made this cake for a family reunion at the request of my sister who wanted a carrot cake. Because I was in charge of all of the deserts, I made several of your recipes and a couple of my other favorite bakers. When packing up to head out, I left two cakes behind, one being this carrot cake : (
Needless to say, my sister was not pleased but when I got home, I packed up the two cakes and gave them to her. I spoke to her the next day and she said the cake was delicious and it was almost gone. I think she is secretly happy that she got the cake all to herself. I hope she at least shared with her husband…lol. I love your recipes and always receive compliments on them. No one notices that they are vegan unless I tell them.
Oh No! But Im glad everyone loved everything!!
Hi! I want to say the cake came out amazing! I will definitely be making it again.
awesome! thanks for the feedback!
This actually is THE BEST CARROT CAKE!!! I followed the recipe exactly and it turned out brilliantly. The taste was amazing. The carrot, apple and walnut combo is soooooooooooo delicious. Ive made this cake 3 weekends in a row now. I love your recipes Gretchen. Keep up the awesome work from Louise in New Zealand
Hi Gretchen, In the UK we have plain flour and self raising flour, which of these flours would I use for your recipe?
Many thanks,
Danielle
Plain flour will be fine!
I LOVE carrot cake and this one was the best ever I tried :-D. I will definitely make it again, lots of times. I made only the cake, without the cream cheese icing, because here in Germany we don’t have vegan cream cheese and I don’t know vegan butter, and I try not to use margarine, because the process of manufacturing it is too industrialized amd unhealthy. But the cake was the best ever even without the icing! Thank you!
Can i use this receipe under fondant.
technically yes, but since cream cheese icing will never get “stiff” when cold it will always stay soft, you run the risk of your fondant not being clean edged looking since the underlying cream underneath will still stay soft, and the heavier fondant will weigh it down.
Hi Gretchen,
I loved your recipe it reminds me of vegan carrot cake that I made in the past. Can apple sauce be substituted for granny’s Smith Apples? Also, I could not find the Vegan Buttercream Icing Recipe, when I click on the highlighted link nothing open up?
Hi Cathy, the apples here are in place of some of the carrots, so to add a “liquid” like applesauce in place of the shredded apples will not give you a good result, it will make it heavy and dense, almost raw -like.
Thanks for the heads up about the link I will fix that- in the meantime here it is CLICK HERE
Hi Gretchen! Do you think cannend crushed pineapple, possibly even with some of the excess juice squeezed out, would be a suitable replacement for the grated apples?
Hi, do you make your own buttercream and is cake flour self raising flour? I’m in the UK so i don’t understand all you terminology. Thank you for your amazing cake recipes. x
Hi Yes all my buttercream recipes are here CLICK HERE and no Cake Flour is technically NOT self rise CLICK HERE for more
Hi Gretchen – is there a reason for 7 inch cakes, vs the 8 inch cakes you traditionally made? Is is an aesthetics thing or with going vegan do the cakes bake better? I like the look of three layers, but how many cake pans does a girl want to have in a regular ole kitchen, right?
Hi Gretchen,
Just came across your website. I was looking for the best vegan carrot cake recipe. I have a special birthday party coming up this weekend and the birthday boy loves carrot cake. He is not vegan, so I want a cake that tastes just like a traditional vegan cake. I don’t want him to be able to notice that it’s vegan. In fact, I would LOVE it if he thought this was the best carrot cake he’s ever had. With that said, I cannot afford to make any mistakes on this cake. Could you tell me what products (brands) you used for the vegan icing. I’ve never bought some of these items and sometimes these kinds of products can be a hit or miss. Right now, I can’t afford to miss.
Could you tell me which brands you use to make the frosting?
Vegan Cream Cheese 2 Tubs (2cups) (454g)
Vegan Butter 1 stick (½ cup) (112g)
Vegan Buttercream
Also, for the cake, what kind of oil did you use?
Thank you so much in advance!
Hi Sue! Sorry for the late rely! I was helping a friend move!!
You will LOVE this recipe! I have pretty much been Tofutti brand cream cheese loyal, especially for anything BAKE! Nothing else will work so don’t waste your money! However I have used Violife Cream Cheese for cream cheese icing and it is great, actually better than Tofutti for icing.
Be sure to mix it BY HAND though! The electric mixer will turn your icing to SOUP! It is very aggitative sensitive!
The buttercream is an optional addition to my cream cheese icing, I do like it, but you can always just use straight CC-Icing
That said be sure to find an vegan butter that is low moisture (and this is hard to know until your buttercream breaks in a curdled mess in the bowl, so I always use Earth balance it is pricey but worth it- it makes the sturdiest icings.
As for the oil, I use any brand vegetable oil sometimes coconut though.
Hi Gretchen, any chance of getting the remainder of the ingredients into grams as well as most is but the few that aren’t are tripping me as I’m in Australia lol. Also, have u done this in cupcakes?
HI Gretchen!
Thank you so much for sharing your brands and for the helpful tips. I bake here and there so those tips were very helpful to ensure I get the best outcome. Thank you again!!
Hi! This recipe looks fantastic! I’m wondering if you’d know if the carrot cake would be ok to freeze? I have to travel and I don’t trust other people’s ovens 😂 so I’d love to have it prepped thankyou!
I never leave reviews, but this cake was so amazing that I feel obligated to share. I’ve eaten a lot of bakery and homemade carrot cakes over the years and this was the absolute best I’ve ever had. My omni family agreed and we made it twice in two months. I added raisins the second time and it was even better. I was skeptical about the frosting having so little sugar, but it set up great in the fridge. This will be going into my regular rotation!
YAY! thank you so much for the comment! It lets others know that this recipe is worth it!
Fantastic recipe! We have two new friends who are vegan, and I made this carrot cake for dessert for a group dinner. EVERYONE loved this cake and asked how I made it without eggs. I told them it was thanks to Gretchen’s Vegan Bakery. Turned out that carrot cake is the favorite cake of two of the guests! I made a vegan buttercream and added a cream cheese flavoring (little over 1/4 tsp.). The cake could not be refrigerated so I did not want to use cream cheese frosting. Thank you, Gretchen!
Yes! Awesome! Thank you for the credit! I also use No Cream Cheese~ Cream Cheese Icing nowadays! It’s AMAZING!! SO much better than using vegan cream cheese!
Hi Gretchen,
Can this be converted to a cupcake? If so, how many would you recommend this recipe to yield, and the cook time?
Thank you!
Yes! CLICK HERE for cupcakes
Hey Gretchen,
I’ve made this cake several times in the past in bunt cake form but it’s been awhile but planning to make again. You mentioned that you sometimes make this cake and put it in a loaf pan but I’m guessing this recipe yields 2 loaves? Or did you halve the recipe for just one loaf pan? Thanks : )
Hey so I’ve updated this old post slightly to answer this question which is 1 larger loaf pan
It’s not quite enough for 2 standard loaves unless you do 1 ½ x recipe
The total batter is about 6 cups
Omg….yes, I did read that but I was also reading through some of your other recipes and thought it was another recipe where I read that….(facepalm)….lol. Thank you for responding.
LOL It’s very possible! I have been trying to streamline my recipes to make them easier to read *fast* and eliminate as much fluff while keeping the most important info! Thanks & don’t hesitate to always point things out because it prompts me to revise the recipe at that very moment!