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Try this moist, spiced carrot cake loaf cake! Packed with grated carrots and warm spices, this easy carrot loaf cake recipe is perfect for breakfast or a snack. Top it with vegan cream cheese drizzle for a special dessert.

This carrot pound cake recipe will serve around 10 people.

Table of Contents

(click the links below to skip to the section you’re looking for)

• Carrot Loaf Cake
• Vegan Cream Cheese Icing
• Decoration
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Ingredient Substitutions
• Video
• Nutritional Information
• Comments or Questions
• Similar Recipes

I made this carrot cake loaf recipe 5 times before it was ready to share with you. I used different types of loaf pans, different ratios of ingredients, different baking times, and different temps. I can confidently say this is the best carrot loaf cake recipe that uses no eggs and no dairy.

My mom always taught me to add more shredded carrots than you’d think could fit in the batter. The additional carrots added moisture so to keep the cake light and fluffy, I had to tweak the other factors a lot. I think this carrot cake is delicious alone even without the glaze.

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Ingredients needed for Vegan Carrot Cupcakes

(jump to the substitutions section to see ingredient details and suggestions for substitutions)

• 2 ½ cups (250g) grated carrots (weigh or measure before the liquid is squeezed out)
• ¼ teaspoon (1g) salt
• 2 ½ cups (325g) unbleached white flour
• 1 ¼ cup (263g) vegan or organic sugar
• ¾ teaspoon (4g) baking soda
• 2 teaspoons (10g) baking powder
• 1 ½ teaspoons (4-5g) cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon (1g) nutmeg
• 2 teaspoons (8g) vanilla extract or powder
• up to 1 cup (240mL/240g) water
• 1 tablespoon (15g) apple cider vinegar
• ½ cup (100g) sunflower or safflower oil

How to Make an Easy Vegan Carrot Cake Loaf

prep time: 30 minutes | bake time: 1 hour + 10 minutes

Wash or peel the carrots. I have been peeling mine because there was recently an e.coli breakout in carrots so I’m just being extra cautious. But normally, I just wash them with a hard brush that is supposed to be for potatoes I think.

Grate carrots.

Sprinkle the shredded carrots with ¼ teaspoon (1g) of salt. Mix the salt in so all the carrots are coated with it. I just use my hands for this. Set this aside for 10 minutes.

Heat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Sift the dry ingredients into a medium-sized mixing bowl. The dry ingredients are 2 ½ cups (325g) flour, 1 ¼ cup (263g) sugar, ¾ teaspoon (4g) baking soda, 2 teaspoons (10g) baking powder, 1 ½ teaspoons (4-5g) cinnamon, and ½ teaspoon (1g) nutmeg. If you use vanilla powder instead of vanilla extract, add that now too.

Whisk the dry ingredients together.

Coat the inside of the carrot cake loaf tin with safflower oil.

Cut a piece of parchment paper a little less than the length of the loaf pan.

Line the loaf tin with the piece of parchment paper. Smooth it against the bottom and sides. If it’s too wide and won’t lie flat, fold one of the edges over a tiny bit and try again. Some will hang over the edges. I use clips to clip these down.

Wrap the grated carrots in a tea towel and squeeze out all the liquid over a liquid measuring cup so you’re saving all the carrot juice that comes out.

Add water to the carrot juice until you have a cup (240mL/240g) of liquid.

Mix the wet ingredients together. They are the cup of liquid you just prepared, 1 tablespoon (15g) apple cider vinegar, ½ cup (100g) sunflower or safflower oil, and 2 teaspoons (8g) vanilla extract.

Check your oven to make sure it’s heated to 350ºF (175ºC) before continuing. If it’s not there yet, wait until it is before starting the next step.

Add the squeezed carrots and the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients.

Mix the wet ingredients and the carrots into the dry ingredients, until you can no longer see any dry ingredients. I use a silicone spatula to mix because I can scrape the sides and bottom while mixing to make sure there are no sneaky dry ingredients hiding down there.

Pour the carrot cake batter into the prepared loaf tin. Use the baking spatula to get every last bit of batter out of the bowl.

Remove the clips that were keeping the parchment paper out of your way.

Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 65-80 minutes in a preheated oven. Check for doneness by inserting a toothpick into a few spots in the center of the loaf. If it comes out clean, then it’s done. If it comes out with batter stuck to it, set the timer for 5 more minutes. Continue to repeat this every 5 minutes until your carrot cake passes the toothpick test. I have baked mine for 65 minutes once and for 70 minutes once, and both came out great.

While it bakes, make optional decorations for your carrot cake.

Remove the loaf pan from the oven and set it on a cooling rack to cool. If you’re planning to add icing, make the icing while you wait for the cake to cool.

Glide the baking spatula down the sides of the entire perimeter of the pan after it has been cooling in the pan for an hour.

Lift the cake out of the cake pan using the parchment paper handles. Set it back on the cooling rack to cool for another hour or more.

Slice the loaf cake or skip to the decorating section if you plan to add icing drizzle.

Vegan Cream Cheese Icing Ingredients

(jump to the substitutions section to see ingredient details and suggestions for substitutions)

• 4 ounces (113g) vegan cream cheese
• ½ tablespoon (6g) vanilla extract
• ¾ cup (90g) organic powdered sugar

How to Make Vegan Cream Cheese Drizzle

prep time: 10 minutes | frosting time: 5 minutes | total time: 15 minutes

Mix 4 ounces (116g) vegan cream cheese, and ½ tablespoon (6g) vanilla extract until smooth.

Sift in ¾ cup (90g) organic powdered sugar, half at a time, mixing in between.

Mix again.

Transfer the icing to a piping bag fitted with a small round tip. If you don’t have either of these, transfer the icing into a ziplock bag.

How to Make Candied Carrot Twists

prep time: 15 minutes | simmer time: 15 minutes | bake time: 20 minutes

Did you know you can make candied carrots? Why would you want to? Okay, that’s a fair point. And normally, I’d agree with you. But I think this is the perfect application for such a delicacy. I learned how to make these from Niki of ArtsyFoodie. They are NOT easy, so I would only recommend this undertaking for an experienced kitchen dweller.

Add a cup (210g) of vegan or organic sugar and a cup (240mL/240g) of filtered water to a small saucepan. Add some optional food coloring. I wanted my carrots to have a pink hue, so I added all-natural pink coloring. Sadly, I don’t think it changed the color at all. I might not have used enough.

Put the pot of sugar and water on the stove and turn the heat to medium-high. While you wait for it to come to a boil, prepare the carrots.

Peel a large carrot. Compost the peels.

Slice the carrot lengthwise using the peeler. You want long thin slices. When you get to the point where you can’t peel anymore slices without the carrot flopping over, feed the rest to your doggos.

Add the carrot ribbons to the pot as soon as the sugar water starts to boil, and reduce the heat to a light simmer.

Simmer for 15 minutes, checking on it frequently to make sure the sugar isn’t doing anything weird.

Heat the oven to 225°F (105°C).

Cover a baking sheet with vegan parchment paper.

Remove the carrot ribbons one by one from the simple syrup. Lie them side-by-side (not overlapping) on the parchment-lined baking sheet. Start removing them after they have been simmering for 15 minutes.

Bake the carrot ribbons for 30 minutes at 225°F (105°C).

Wrap the baked carrot ribbons around a reusable straw that has been covered in oil. Once you’ve wrapped the ribbon all the way, slide it off into a bowl of vegan sugar. Coat in sugar and set aside.

Repeat with as many of the carrot ribbons as you can before they start to harden.

Allow the carrot twisties to harden for a half hour before garnishing your cake with them.

How to Decorate the Vegan Carrot Loaf Cake

Drizzle the icing onto your completely cooled carrot cake loaf.

Top with candied carrot spirals. If you don’t have time to make them, you can chop candied ginger or walnuts to decorate with.

Questions and Answers

Is this really a carrot loaf recipe without the raisins and walnuts?

To make a traditional carrot cake like grandma used to make, add ¾ cup (90g) raisins and ¾ cup chopped walnuts to the batter. Do this as the very last step before transferring the batter to the loaf pan.

How do I store this carrot cake loaf? Can I freeze it?

I usually store my cakes in the fridge until about 10 minutes before I’m ready to serve or eat them. They can also be frozen, but they should wrapped tightly in cling wrap to keep them from drying out or taking on any weird freezer smells. After wrapping in [cling wrap(/store/clingwrap), place them in ziplock freezer bags.

Ingredient Substitutions

• Carrots: Since this is a carrot cake, carrots are necessary. However, I bet this would taste just as good if you used grated parsnip in place of the carrots. To get 2 ½ cups (250g) of grated carrots, I would estimate that you’ll need 5 small, 4 medium, or 3 large carrots.
• Salt: I use pink sea salt because it has trace minerals in it that are hard to get from other foods. You can use any kind of salt you have. The salt serves 2 purposes in this recipe. One is to draw the moisture out of the carrots so that when you squeeze them, more liquid comes out. This keeps the carrot cake from getting too moist and stodgy. The other purpose is to enhance the flavor of the other ingredients.
• Flour: I use organic unbleached all-purpose flour. If you prefer to use whole grain flours, you can replace the flour in this recipe with wheat flour, spelt flour, or whole wheat pastry flour. It will taste healthier if you make this substitution. If you avoid gluten, or if you have friends or family who are gluten free, replace the all-purpose flour with a gluten-free flour blend.
• Vegan Sugar: I use organic sugar from Costco because it’s super cheap. You can use any variety of vegan sugar. These include organic sugar, raw sugar, sucanat, coconut sugar, or demerara. If you’re not sure if your sugar is vegan, you can contact the company and ask. Or just avoid conventional white sugar or granulated sugar, and you should be ok.
• Baking Soda: If you are out of baking soda, replace the ¾ teaspoon (4g) baking soda in this recipe with an additional 2 teaspoons (10g) of baking powder. This will make a total of 4 teaspoons or 20g of baking powder.
• Baking Powder: If you’re out of baking powder, replace the 2 teaspoons (10g) of baking powder with an additional ½ teaspoon (4g) of baking soda. This would make a total of 1 teaspoon or 8 grams of baking soda. If you make this swap, double the apple cider vinegar from 1 tablespoon to 2 tablespoons (30g).
• Spices: The spices can be mixed and changed up. You can also add other spices in addition to cinnamon and nutmeg, like allspice or ginger. Or you can replace the cinnamon and nutmeg with pumpkin pie spice.
• Vanilla Extract: Vanilla flavoring, vanilla extract, and vanilla powder can be used interchangeably. Just make sure you add powdered vanilla with the dry ingredients and vanilla extract or flavor with the wet ingredients. It’s important to keep the wet ingredients and dry ingredients separate until the very last minute. As soon as they touch, the rising agents will activate, and you want that rising action to happen in the oven.
• Water: Most cake recipes call for milk because milk makes them more moist. However, we don’t want this cake to have any additional moisture. I would not substitute the water in this recipe for nondairy milk, unless you want a stodgy cake.
• Apple Cider Vinegar: For the apple cider vinegar in this recipe, you can replace it with white distilled vinegar or lemon or lime juice. You just need some sort of acid to interact with the alkaline baking soda to make the cake rise.
• Oil: I recommend using safflower, sunflower, avocado, or coconut oil for baking cakes. However, you can use any other vegan oil such as vegetable oil, canola oil, grapeseed oil, etc. People even make cakes with olive oil, but I don’t recommend it.
• Vegan Cream Cheese: I used kite hill cream cheese for my icing, but you can use any vegan cream cheese. If you want this recipe to be nut-free, use Violife, Tofutti, or Trader Joe’s vegan cream cheese. I think the one at Trader Joe’s is probably the least expensive. If you want this recipe to be soy-free, buy Violife cream cheese. If you don’t have cream cheese, try a small batch of the frosting I use for my hummingbird cake. It doesn’t require any cream cheese but tastes very similar to cream cheese frosting.
• Powdered Sugar: Don’t use just any icing sugar. Find organic or vegan powdered sugar if you’re making these for someone on a strict vegan diet. If you’re not sure if your powdered sugar is vegan, check out my post on vegan powdered sugar.
• Optional Vegan Food Coloring: Review my list of vegan food coloring for options.

Video

Nutrition Facts

This nutritional information is for one slice of carrot cake without icing or garnish. I’m assuming that a slice is one-tenth of the cake.

• Servings: 10
• Calories: 325
• Fiber: 1g
• Saturated fat: < 1g
• Total fat: 11g
• Cholesterol: 0mg
• Sodium: 249mg
• Sugars: 28g
• Total Carbohydrates: 53g
• Protein: 4g
• Calcium: 52mg
• Potassium: 124mg
• Iron: < 1mg
• Vitamin A: 173µg

Comments or Questions?

If you make this moist carrot cake loaf recipe, I would love it if you’d snap a pic, post to instagram, and tag me @vegandollhouse. It seriously makes my day/week/month!

Please message me (instagram or email) if you have any questions or feedback about the recipe.

Similar Recipes

If you like this healthy carrot cake loaf recipe, you might also like my other carrot cake themed desserts. Carrot cake cookies are a quick and easy way to get all the flavors of carrot cake with a short bake time. If you prefer something more festive and you have more time, my dairy-free eggless carrot cake can be decorated to look like a fox.

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