Vegan & Gluten-Free Carrot Cake
This gluten-free vegan carrot cake is moist, tender, perfectly spiced, and crowd-pleasing – especially topped with a (refined sugar-free) citrus glaze or vegan cream cheese frosting!
Servings 12
Ingredients
Dry ingredients:
- 1 cup (160 g) white rice flour (see notes)
- ½ scant cup (50 g) tapioca flour (see notes)
- ¼ cup (33 g) coconut flour (see notes)
- ½ cup (45 g) ground almonds (see notes)
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp baking soda
- Spices to taste (see notes)
Wet ingredients:
- 2 ½ cups (375 g) finely grated carrots
- ½ cup (120 ml) canned coconut milk (see notes)
- ⅓ cup (110 g) maple syrup or agave syrup
- 2 Tbsp (28 g) coconut oil melted (see notes)
- 2 chia eggs (2 tbsp ground chia seeds + 6 tbsp water) (see notes)
- 1 Tbsp lemon or lime juice
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Frosting
- ⅓ cup (70 g) Erythritol or icing sugar
- 1 ½ Tbsp (21 g) dairy-free milk (use less if you use icing sugar)
- 2 ½ tsp lemon or lime juice
Instructions
- I recommend using a kitchen scale to measure the ingredients in grams for best accuracy. And don’t forget to check out the video for step-by-step visuals!
- First, whisk the ground chia and water in a small bowl and set aside for 5 minutes to gel/thicken.
- Meanwhile, finely shred the carrots (using a box grater or food processor grating disk) and grease or line an 8x4-inch loaf pan or 8-inch round pan. Also, preheat the oven to 375°F/190°C.
- Next, whisk all the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Add the wet ingredients and stir until combined.
- Fold in the carrots and pour the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing the top.
- Bake a vegan carrot cake loaf for 50-60 minutes or a round 8-inch cake for 35-40 minutes. It’s ready when it has a few cracks and a toothpick/ skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean (or with a few moist crumbs).Leave it to fully cool on a cooling rack. Meanwhile, prepare the frosting/glaze (if using).
- To make the icing, blitz the Erythritol in a spice/coffee grinder until it’s super fine, like powdered sugar. Whisk all icing ingredients together in a small bowl. If it’s too thick, add a splash more milk; if too thin, add more powdered Erythritol (or icing sugar). Spread the frosting/icing over the cake, optionally decorate with nuts/seeds or marzipan carrots, slice, and enjoy!
Notes
This recipe was originally published in February 2017 and updated in April 2025 with new photos and extra tips—no changes to the recipe itself.
- Coconut flour: I don’t really recommend swapping it, but if you want to, just remember that coconut flour soaks up a lot of moisture. You’ll need to use at least ½ cup of another flour, like almond flour, to replace it—sometimes even a bit more, depending on the texture of your batter.
- White rice flour: You can use brown rice flour instead. Sorghum flour might work as well. Also, regular flour or spelt flour should be fine.
- Tapioca flour/starch: You could use cornstarch, potato starch, or arrowroot flour.
- Ground almonds (almond flour): You can use any other ground nuts/seeds (e.g. hazelnuts, cashews, walnuts, sunflower seeds, etc.) instead of ground almonds.
- Canned coconut milk: If you don't like the taste of coconut, I would suggest using your favorite plant-based milk with the addition of 3 tablespoons oil.
- Maple syrup: Any other liquid sweetener like brown rice syrup, agave syrup, etc. is fine.
- Coconut oil: Can be replaced with canola oil.
- Chia eggs: Flax eggs should be fine too.
- Check the step-by-step photos above in the blog post.
- 2 tsp of cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp of ground ginger
- Optional spices: Nutmeg, ground cloves to taste
Nutrition Facts
Vegan & Gluten-Free Carrot Cake
Serving Size
1 slice
Amount per Serving
Calories
168
% Daily Value*
Fat
5.8
g
9
%
Saturated Fat
3.2
g
16
%
Carbohydrates
30
g
10
%
Fiber
3
g
12
%
Sugar
7.8
g
9
%
Protein
2.4
g
5
%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.