With this healthy carrot cake recipe, now you can keep up your clean eating lifestyle and still eat your cake, too! This is the perfect light dessert for Spring!
Alright, peeps. We've hit carrot cake gold up in here.
Clean. Healthy. Carrot. Cake. Gold.
Yep, and it's amaaaaazing.
Now, to be honest, I'm not a huge cake person.
Sure, I'll enjoy a cheesecake now and again, a birthday cake...maybe.
But I don't tend to eat much cake.
Instead, I prefer healthy pumpkin breads, chocolate chia pudding, these chocolate peanut butter cups, and little coconut bites for my sweets.
Out of all the cakes, though, carrot cake is my fave.
There's something about the earthy, naturally sweet flavors of the carrots mixed with the warm cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves that I find really delicious and almost comforting. It's like a combo of Winter flavors with Spring produce.
And, now that I think about it, it reminds me of being a kid again.
Alas, being a kid and eating cake is A LOT different than being an adult and eating cake.
Cue the collective [adult] sigh.
As a kid, you don't really care about calories or sugar or even gaining weight. You don't look at cake as something evil or harmful.
As a kid, cake is cake, ya know?
As an adult, however, there's a lot more baggage when we have cake. There's the guilt, pleasure, flavors, textures, weight loss goals, macros, and all the in-between.
Yep, I think "baggage" pretty much sums this up nicely.
That's why I love love LOVE this healthy carrot cake recipe.
Now, you can enjoy the cake as if you were a kid, maintain your healthy lifestyle, and not feel guilty that you're not making a good choice.
This carrot cake recipe includes no refined sugars, no refined flours, no processed ingredients. Just pure and whole goodness in carrot cake form.
This, my friends, is one good choice.
Recipe Substitutions
- Gluten-Free: You can easily switch the whole wheat flour with a gluten-free alternative, such as arrowroot flour, almond flour, gluten-free all-purpose flour or tapioca flour to make a gluten-free carrot cake.
- Dairy-Free: You can swap out the Greek yogurt for coconut yogurt in the cake and frosting recipes.
- Raisins: These can be left out if you don't care for them, but they do add a bit of sweetness and moistness to the cake.
Healthy Carrot Cake Recipe
Equipment
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Ingredients
For The Carrot Cake:
- 1 ½ cups whole wheat pastry flour
- 2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
- ⅛ teaspoon sea salt
- ⅛ teaspoon ground cloves
- ¼ cup coconut oil melted
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ⅔ cup pure maple syrup
- ½ cup plain greek yogurt
- ⅓ cup plain unsweetened almond milk
- 2 cups carrots about 3 medium, grated
- ½ cup raisins
For The Frosting:
- 1 ½ cups plain greek yogurt
- 2 tablespoon pure maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and coat a 9x13 baking pan with coconut oil.
- In a medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, salt, ground cloves, and set aside.
- In a separate mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, coconut oil, vanilla extract, pure maple syrup, greek yogurt, and almond milk.
- Add the wet to the dry and stir until just incorporated. If needed, you can add ¼ cup additional almond milk to loosen. The consistency should be thin enough to easily pour. See the photos or video in this post for more details.
- Fold in the carrots and raisins.
- Bake for 25-30 minutes until toothpick comes out clean. Depending on oven, this may take a little longer. ,
- Allow to cool completely to room temperature before frosting.
- To prepare the frosting, stir together the greek yogurt, pure maple syrup, and vanilla extract. Spread on top of the cooled cake.
- Let the frosting set for 1-2 hours before slicing and serving.
Bianca L Sanchez
Can you swap out Greek yogurt for dairy free yogurt?
Anne Morgan
2 substitution questions:
1. Can I sub apple sauce for the coconut oil?
2. Can I use 1/2 plus 1/3 cup plain regular yogurt instead of Greek yogurt and almond milk?
Thanks!
Jennifer
This is a forgiving recipe. I find many quick breads or cake recipes that have fruit or vegetable as a main ingredient are very flexible - banana bread, zucchini bread etc. The same holds true for carrots!
I made several substitutions because I didn't have maple syrup or almond milk on hand and I didn't have quite enough wheat flour. Raw clover honey instead of maple syrup, an extra egg instead of almond milk and I subbed out some of the wheat flour for coconut flour. Also cacao nibs instead of raisins because I despise raisins. It turned out great, extremely moist and your spice proportions were just right!
Thanks for the idea of putting Greek yogurt into carrot cake. You helped me turn something that would've gone to waste into something delicious.
PS, if you own a juicer, carrot cake turns out amazing when you juice the carrots and bake your cake with the pulp!
K
👍🏽Great suggestion to reuse the pulp!
Farhana Chowdhury
Hi can i substitute the whole wheat flour for gluten free flour? Will it turn out to still be soft and moist? Thanks
Nicole
Great recipe!! I made these for my son’s first birthday party. So tasty and no refined sugar for the littles!!
Maranda
What can you substitute for the yogurt? I am dairy free.
Carrie
Yummy! I didn't add raisins just because I prefer carrot cake without them. It was really good!
Doreen Fear
Great recipe! Made it for a family dinner and it was a big hit!
Moist, tasty cakw
Michelle
I made this yesterday and it turned out great, thank you for the recipe!
Ksenia
My bff absolutely loved it. Thank you for the recipe!
Shawnee
Can I use regular whole wheat flour for this or it will it totally mess it up? Couldn't find pastry 🙁
Nina Nichols
Amazing! I really didn't think it would turn out right, as so many 'healthy alternative' recipes are disappointing and I tend to think, eat the real thing and go for a run! But I saw the tip at the bottom about substituting protein powder for some of the flour, so I used a rough ratio of 1/3 cup protein powder, 1/3 cup buckwheat flour and the rest all purpose (in UK it's called Plain) flour. Also I didn't have any rasins so had to use cranberries but they really work.
Thank you 🙂
plasterers bristol
Yum, love carrot cake. never made it myself though, Thanks for posting sounds delcious. Simon
Caro
Not to be too critical about this but i'd love to see the not-healthy version of this cake! Looks delicious!
Mindy
Lacey,
This is the best carrot cake - healthy or not- that I have made! I did substitute a cream cheese frosting (80z. organic cream cheese with 1/4 cup maple syrup, 1 t. vanilla) instead of the yogurt frosting but will try the yogurt frosting soon. Anyway, everyone loved it and have requested that I make it again soon. Thanks so much for all your recipes - everything I've tried on your site has been a hit!