Publised on 27/01/2023. Last Updated on 08/07/2024 by Richard
The perfect vegan carrot cake with vegan cream cheese frosting. Makes an ideal vegan birthday cake or simple snack cake!
Well HOWDY vegan carrot cake! That's right... I've finally done a blummin vegan carrot cake and I'm here to tell you it's MOIST and I'm NOT AFRAID TO SAY THAT WORD because I'm not one of those people who make the word moist their entire character!
Got that cleared up? Great, now we can talk about this damn fine vegan carrot cake because JEEPERS you've gotta know about it. It's SO light and SO flavoursome, packed with toasted walnuts and orange zest. It's taken me a while, sure, but this recipe more than makes up for the delay! I want this for my Birthday Cake, my Easter Cake and my Thanksgiving dessert. It's the cake for all seasons!
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🧈 Vegan Carrot Cake Ingredients
Just like my vegan victoria sponge, I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel here - and look, this is never gonna rank on google because there are SIX BILLION vegan carrot cakes out there. But you're just gonna have to trust me that this is THE ONE! It's 100% THAT binch. And here's everything you need to make it:
- Walnut pieces
- Plain white flour
- Psyllium husk powder (or ground flax seeds)
- Baking powder
- Bicarbonate of soda (aka baking soda)
- Fine sea salt
- Ground cinnamon
- Granulated sugar
- Light brown sugar (aka light brown muscovado)
- Zest of half an orange
- Soy milk (unflavoured and unsweetened)
- Lemon juice (or white vinegar)
- Vegetable oil (or sunflower oil)
- Carrots (peeled and grated)
You'll also need to make a batch of vegan cream cheese frosting. Don't worry though, I've got you! I've also written that recipe for you! It's down below at the bottom of the page WITH THE FULL CAKE RECIPE YEY!
🥣 Method
Remember, THIS IS NOT THE VEGAN CARROT CAKE RECIPE, you can find the FULL recipe at the bottom of the page. But here's a lovely little breakdown of the four main steps you'll need to follow in order to make this cake baybeh!
1. First you'll need to sieve together the dry ingredients, then add the wet ingredients, but before you do here's my tip. Adding zest to a bake works best if you rub it into the sugar, so do this first! Rub the orange zest into the granulated sugar and light brown sugar.
2. Now you have a basic batter, it's time to add your grated carrot and some toasted walnut pieces! Remember, once your flour is added, stir carefully. You don't want to activate the gluten and end up with a rubbery cake!
3. Divide the batter between two or three cake tins (I did three because I love a tall cake!) and bake in the oven. This is quite a low temp bake (only 170c) for around 35 mins. But this is what helps to keep the vegan carrot cake nice and moist.
4. Once your cakes are cooled and removed from their tin, it's time to stack it up! Vegan cream cheese frosting is essential for all carrot cakes, so whip up a batch and add to your cooled cake layers!
🧞♂️ Hint
Two hints! Firstly about the vegan cream cheese frosting for your vegan carrot cake. It's insanely easy to ruin a vegan cream cheese frosting so look, here's how to make sure that doesn't happen. You MUST make sure all your ingredients are room temperature, so take your vegan butter and your vegan cream cheese out of the fridge well in advance. Also, add your vegan cream cheese and icing sugar in increments. Never all at once!
Finally, your cake texture will be SO much better if you blend together your wet ingredients. Just a simple immersion blender will do it! Next stop: perfect vegan carrot cake!
🔀 Swaps and Sub
Here's how to make your vegan carrot cake suitable for all! Yey! Cakeee!
- Gluten Free - Are you gluten free? Just swap the flour for a gluten free blend. this vegan carrot cake recipe works great with Freee or Bob's Red Mill 1:1 blends, but be sure to use a brand you trust!
- Soy Free - I use soy milk in this recipe. If you're soy free though, be sure to swap out for oat milk! In fact, any plant milk except almond!
🥞 Variations of Vegan Carrot Cake
Here are some ideas for switching up this recipe and taking things up an extra step!
- We've got some cinnamon in this recipe, but it can be fun to switch things up. I like to toast coriander seeds in a dry frying pan and grind in a spice blender.
- Swap the carrots for zucchini (aka courgettes) for a delicious zucchini cake!
- Swap up the nuts! Instead of using toasted walnuts in your vegan carrot cake, swap for pecans, macadamia or even coconut!
🔪 Equipment
Ooooh you're nearly there! Here's everything you'll need to pull out of the cupboards before you get started!
- Oven
- 3 22cm Spring-form Cake Tins
- 1 Baking tray
- 2 Medium bowls
- Blender or Immersion Blender
- Grater
- Stand Mixer or Hand Mixer
- Piping Bag
🤷♀️ Vegan Carrot Cake FAQs
A: Vegan carrot cake is only slightly different from non-vegan recipes, since they usually do not contain butter, just eggs. Here, soy milk and psyllium husk powder is used to replace the eggs!
A: Ideally choose a vegan cream cheese which isn't too savoury. Brands like Tofutti and Violife work well in both sweet and savoury recipes. If you prefer vegan butter cream, use this recipe instead.
Vegan Carrot Cake
Equipment
- oven
- 3 22cm Spring-form Cake Tins
- 1 Baking tray
- 2 Medium bowls
- Blender or Immersion Blender
- Grater
- Stand Mixer or Hand Mixer
- Piping Bag
Ingredients
For the Cakes
- 100 g walnut pieces
- 330 g plain white flour
- 1 teaspoon psyllium husk powder or 1 tablespoon ground flax seeds
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda aka baking soda
- ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 200 g granulated sugar
- 200 g light brown sugar aka light brown muscovado
- zest of half an orange
- 250 ml soy milk unflavoured and unsweetened
- 2 teaspoon lemon juice or white vinegar
- 200 ml vegetable oil or sunflower oil
- 350 g carrots peeled and grated
For the Cream Cheese Frosting
- 120 g vegan butter at room temperature
- 120 g vegan cream cheese at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 450 g icing sugar
Instructions
To Make the Cakes
- Preheat the oven to 170 °C (fan). Line three 22cm cake tins with baking parchment.
- Spread the walnut pieces on a baking tray and place in the oven to toast for 10 minutes while you prepare the rest of the cake. Set a timer to make sure they don’t burn!100 g walnut pieces
- In a medium bowl, sieve together the plain white flour, psyllium husk powder, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, fine sea salt and ground cinnamon.330 g plain white flour, 1 teaspoon psyllium husk powder, 2 teaspoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda, ½ teaspoon fine sea salt, 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- In a separate medium bowl, place the sugars and the orange zest. Using your fingertips, rub the orange zest into the sugars until fragrant. Set aside.200 g granulated sugar, 200 g light brown sugar, zest of half an orange
- In the cup of a blender (or a measuring jug if you’re using an immersion blender) place the soy milk, lemon juice and vegetable oil. Blend until smooth and thick.250 ml soy milk, 2 teaspoon lemon juice, 200 ml vegetable oil
- Add the blended wet ingredients to the sugars and whisk well until fully combined. Add this mixture to the dry ingredients and stir just until no lumps remain.
- Finally, add the carrots and stir to combine. Divide the batter between the three tins and place in the oven to bake for 35 mins or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.350 g carrots
To Make the Cream Cheese Frosting
- Place the vegan butter in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Alternatively use a medium bowl and a hand mixer for this step. Beat on high speed until light and fluffy for no less than 3 minutes. Add the vegan cream cheese in increments, beating well after each addition to make sure everything stays light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla extract120 g vegan butter, 120 g vegan cream cheese, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Add the icing sugar little by little. Do not add all in one go or the mixture will split. Transfer the icing sugar to a piping bag.450 g icing sugar
To Finish the Cake
- Stack the cake layers with a generous helping of the cream cheese frosting between each one. Top the final layer with frosting and sprinkle with a little ground cinnamon and orange zest (optional) before serving.
Celina
I would like to make cupcakes with this recipe. Any idea how many cupcakes it would make and the temp/time in the oven for it?
AnnaMaria Hagelios
The best carrot cake recipe ever! I am vegan but my friends and family are not. They can’t believe this cake is vegan. If I didn’t tell them they would never know. It is delicious and easy to make.
Vicu
First time making a carrot cake and it came out great!! Also used buttercream instead of cheese cream and it was delicious!
I love your tip of mixing the wet ingredients with a stand mixer, saved my life!!
Catherine
Super moist cake, made it several times and always a crowd pleaser. People can't believe it's vegan!!
Sally Farquhar
What do I do with the toasted walnuts? There’s no mention of adding these in the cake mix?
Grace Coombes
I’ve never had much luck with vegan cakes but I really wanted to try this one for my mums birthday. Firstly the recipe is so well written and with some very clever tricks like blending the wet ingredients. I took my time to follow the recipe carefully and once in the oven I was hopeful the cakes would bake ok. They looked and smelled so good. I was a little worried that the cakes might be a bit undercooked in the middle despite leaving them in a bit longer then suggested but they were the perfect moist texture that you want from a carrot cake. I think for the first time I was rather proud of my cake and most importantly my mum loved it. This will now be my go to cake for celebrations.
Emma Goodman
Baked this yesterday, it was a triumph. Everyone absolutely loved it (none of them plant based/vegan). I swapped out the walnuts for pecans. And reduced the sugar in the cake by 100g because I don’t like a cake too sweet, also I was throwing in a handful of plump raisins so I knew they would sweeten it. Delicious. Perfect. What a great recipe, thank you.
Shreya
Hey
I tried to make this today. It looked a little flat when I took it out of the oven and after some time, it was totally flat and dense. What went wrong?
PS- tried the chocolate cake recipe and that was perfect 😍