I am passionate about creating the easiest vegan baked goods like Vegan Pancakes, 2-Ingredient Donuts, or Vegan Waffles, which taste amazing and make you feel good but don’t keep you for hours on end in the kitchen. That’s why I created this vegan sheet pan carrot cake. It’s so much easier to put together than classic layer cakes. Plus, it requires less frosting, making the cake healthier! This recipe is inspired by my famous vegan carrot cake cupcakes to create a light, fluffy, ultra-moist cake texture. We always make carrot cake everything for Easter. It’s part of our family traditions. I can’t remember a year when we haven’t made my Carrot Cake Energy Balls, Carrot Cake Overnight Oats, Carrot Cake Banana Bread, or Carrot Cake Pancakes. It’s a combination of flavors that can be turned into everything. But nothing beats a classic vegan carrot cake. I’ve made this cake recipe so many times that I have managed to turn what is arguably a complicated recipe into a super easy one! You will love its taste and how easy it is to make, I can guarantee that!
Ingredients and Substitutions
All-Purpose Flour, or you can also try white spelt or white whole wheat flour for a healthier alternative. My tip is not to use oat flour or almond flour. These options won’t work well. For a gluten-free option, use an all-purpose gluten-free flour blend. Spices – There’s no tasty carrot cake without spices, and the perfect blend is a combination of ground cinnamon, ground ginger, ground nutmeg, and a pinch of salt. Baking Powder and baking soda to give the cake the best fluffy texture. Coconut Sugar is my favorite refined sugar-free sweetener for carrot cake. It has a caramel flavor that goes so well with the carrot cake spices. But feel free to use brown sugar or unrefined cane sugar. Unsweetened Applesauce is the secret ingredient to creating ultra-moist vegan carrot cake or vegan chocolate cupcakes. The applesauce doesn’t add flavors, but the moisture and fluffy texture it delivers is the best. You can swap for mashed banana if you like, but it will add a banana flavor to the cake and make the crumb a bit more packed. Fresh Carrots – I am taking a shortcut in this recipe. I know all carrot cake recipes peel and grate carrots, but I don’t. Trim the edges of the carrots, wash them well, then cut them into rough slices. Then, I process the carrots with the sugar and liquid ingredients, giving the cake the most beautiful orange color and simplifying the recipe. My tip, if you don’t have a food processor, is to grate the carrots. The recipe works very well this way. Soy Milk or any plant-based milk you love, but I found soy milk a game-changer to provide a moist crumb. Feel free to try almond milk, oat milk, or coconut milk. Avocado Oil is the healthiest oil to bake with but again, use any vegetable oil you have at home. The cake works with canola oil, melted coconut oil, or melted plant-based butter. Vanilla Extract – for flavor
How To Make Vegan Carrot Cake
This recipe is a tweaked version of my original vegan carrot cake. I thought it was too complicated, with too many steps, so I’ve worked tirelessly to come up with the simplest alternative.
Frosting
Let the cake cool down in the pan for 10 minutes, then on a cooling rack at room temperature for an hour. You can also wrap the cooled carrot cake with plastic wrap and store it in the fridge overnight to frost the next day. Feel free to use any frosting from my list below,
Vegan Coconut Cream Frosting I picked the coconut cream frosting, it’s light creamy and perfect for single-layer cakes. Vegan vanilla frosting – This frosting is a vegan buttercream frosting made with vegan butter and powdered sugar. It resembles a vegan cream cheese frosting recipe with a firm texture that goes well for layers of cakes. Cashew frosting is creamy and healthy, perfect for single layer cakes as it’s a bit too run to assemble layer cakes.
Decorating The Cake
It’s up to you but you can decorate the top of the vegan carrot cake with some:
Chopped walnuts Chopped pecans Vegan sprinkles Grated carrots Shredded coconut
More Vegan Cake Recipes
If you love this vegan carrot cake recipe you may also want to try some of these other yummy vegan cake recipes:
