There are two kinds of people in this world: people who like carrot cake and people who’ve never tried carrot cake.
Look, we get it. Carrots… in cake? It seems weird, but it’s absolutely amazing. Plus:
a) you don’t really taste the carrots
b) they give it so. much. moisture.
And, putting a vegetable in your cake means it’s perfectly acceptable to eat this cake for breakfast. And who doesn’t want cake for breakfast?
You’ll need:
Carrots, of course (shred them yourself for the best outcome!)
Flour (measured correctly)
Brown sugar
Sugar
Nondairy milk + ac vinegar
Vegan sour cream (we love THIS kind!)
Canola oil
Flour
Baking soda, Baking powder, Cinnamon, Nutmeg, & Salt
Vegan cream cheese (THIS is our favorite!)
Vegan butter (THIS is our favorite brand)
Powdered sugar
Vegan Carrot Cake
Ingredients
For the carrot cake:
- 3/4 cup nondairy milk + 1 tbsp ac vinegar
- 2 cups all purpose flour measured correctly*
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 cup sugar
- 3/4 cup vegan sour cream
- 3/4 cup canola oil
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 3 cups freshly shredded carrots**
For the buttercream:
- 1/2 cup vegan cream cheese slightly softened***
- 1/2 cup vegan butter slightly softened***
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- a splash of nondairy milk
For decorating:
- Crushed walnuts optional
Instructions
Make the cake:
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line and grease two 8″ pans.
- In a measuring cup or small bowl, whisk the milk and vinegar. Set aside for 10-15 minutes.
- In a medium mixing bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda and powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
- In a large mixing bowl, add the brown sugar, sugar, sour cream, oil, vanilla, and milk mixture and mix. Add in the dry mixture and blend until combined.
- Fold in the carrots.
- Pour even amounts of batter into each of your pans. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.
Make the frosting:
- In a large mixing bowl, add the buttery sicks and cream cheese. Beat until fluffy.
- Slowly add the powdered sugar and beat.
- Beat in the vanilla.
- Add nondairy milk as necessary to reach desired consistency.
Assemble the cake:
- Once the cake layers are chilled, pipe or spread buttercream on top of the first layer, then top with another cake layer. Top with a final layer of buttercream. Decorate with walnuts, if desired!
OMG!!! This looks heavenly!!! New vegan here who is very thankful for this…Merry Christmas!
This looks so good. I need to make this.
Will this recipe work in different sizes pans?
Is it possible using all purpose gluten free flour? Looks amazing I want to try it. Also instead of 1 cup regular sugar I’ll try using coconut sugar instead.
Made with AP gluten-free flour and halved all sugar. It was amazing! Thank you!
Sooo good! My first vegan dessert and it was a massive hit
Best carrot cake, vegan or not
I see the recipe calls for 2 tsp vanilla. Is that split 1&1tsp between the cake and frosting? Or is it 2tsp for the cake and then additional amount for the frosting. Thanks for the clarification!
hi! we just updated the recipe with more clear instructions — hope this helps! 🙂
What nondairy milk is best for this recipe? And is it all purpose Flour? Thanks!
We like to use thicker milks for desserts so we typically use soy milk, but any should work! And yes, all purpose flour. Enjoy!
Can I replace the sour cream with something else?
Can you replace the sour cream for something else
Hi! You can use plain vegan yogurt instead 🙂
Plain vegan yogurt!
That looks amazing! I would love to try this but my husband cannot do soy. Do you know of a soy-free vegan sour cream?
You could sub for soy free, plain vegan yogurt! 🙂
This was HEAVENLY. It turned out AMAZING. I made it for Easter Dessert. All the meat and dairy eaters in my household loved it. My husband, who isn’t really into desserts, ate an ENTIRE slice. Thats huge praise. Trust me. It was so easy to make. I always thought making carrot cake would be so difficult. Thank you for the recipe!
This was incredible! We did modify the amount of cinnamon, adding another teaspoon to our preference, and decreasing nutmeg to 1/8th teaspoon. We used three 8”pans instead of two and that seemed perfect. We had other frosting on hand, so next time we’ll try this recipe… it looked great though. (We always add coconut and pecans to the frosting and that might be something others would also enjoy.) Thanks sooo much for a fabulous recipe that worked at high altitude and produced the best carrot cake EVER!
Hi! I was only able to find whipped cream cheese. Do you know how much of that I should use in the frosting??
Sorry, we’ve never tried that! We would recommend a 1-1 swap, though.
What brand of vegan cream cheese do you use? I’ve had an incredibly difficult time finding one that isn’t spreadable for bagels and the like, but rather the block to cook with (if such exists)? Any guidance would be appreciated. Thank you!
Hi there! We use a spreadable vegan cream cheese, such as Tofutti. Unfortunately we haven’t found a block version either!
I’m on a mission to find the best vegan carrot cake so I tried 4 recipes side by side today and these were by far the best. Literally no contest between the other ones. This will definitely be my go to now.
Thank you so much for the kind review, Scarlet! We are SO happy you loved it!
This was outstanding! Looked great and tasted even better! Thanks for this wonderful recipe! I sent pics to your instagram site.
How many 8 inch layers does this make?
As with all of your recipes, this was a killer hit. Not overly complicated with unusual ingredients and perfectly moist. Thank you for doing what you do! The only thing I should mention is that I had to bake mine for 40mins using an 8″ round pan, so just keep an eye on it.
Delicous! Vegans and non vegans loved. I cooked it for an additional 5 minutes because it was not done.
Skip the milk and put a can of crushed pineapple, sooo moist!
On Pinterest you show a picture of a 3 layer carrot cake, but on your website your pictures show a 2 layer bake. How did you get the 3 layers? And did you increase the amount of frosting?
This was SO yummy, thank you. It will definitely be our go-to carrot cake. I did cook mine for a little longer than suggested, but I think all ovens are just different.