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
*This post may contain affiliate links for products I use often and highly recommend.
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.
Heather Proulx
Hi! I did a trial run of this cake today for my son's first birthday! It tastes sooo good! I forgot the melted coconut oil in the microwave (mom brain) but followed the rest of the recipe exactly. Surprisingly, it came out very moist, maybe too moist? I checked it with a toothpick and it came out clean so I'm wondering if it's cooked all the way or if it is just very moist and dense. Also, the top fell a little after I took it out of the oven. Is there any way to prevent that?
Thank you so much for this recipe! It's my new go to carrot cake recipe for everyone, not just baby, and I'm so excited I can eat it guilt free from time to time!
Lacey Baier
I'm guessing it was just slighlty undercooked when it fell. I actually haven't had that happen to mine ever.
Gloria Rojas
Lacey,
Congratulations for creating this recipe. I just tried it yesterday and it has been my best carrot cake EVER.
Eventough I had to replace maple syrup with brown sugar - the taste and texture is amazing.
I also loved the icing. I am looking forward to try this recipe again using the maple syrup.
Angela
How to replace maple syrup with brown sugar?
Linna
I have two stupid questions:
1. Is the pastry flour different from the regular whole wheat?
2. Do I have to keep the cake in the fridge because of the frosting?
Thank you ! First time baker 🙋🏻♀️
Helen Bucher
Please can I have the cup conversion as I am in uk
Lacey Baier
Thanks so much for letting me know how it went!
Lacey Baier
I'm so happy to hear it!!
Lakshmi
Just made this and it came out amazing! Not too sweet, but just enough to be satisfying! I skipped the frosting and it was still pretty delicious. I added some pecans to it as well and it was perfect!
Lacey Baier
I love the pecan addition!
Andi Houston
I made this tonight with a few changes- I had a small pile of carrots and zucchini to use up so I used both, and left out the almond milk because the zucchini has so much moisture, and increased the oil to 1/3 c. It turned out REALLY good. Highly recommend this recipe.
Beth Sobieszczyk
Made this for my daughters bday. You definitely need parchment rounds. I ran out of parchment so used cooking spray. It stuck big time. Luckily the icing recipe made for plenty of volume that I stuffed between the layers .tasted nice ut not like traditional carrot cake. I ended putting leftovers into containers and it tasted better all mixed up the next day. Won't make again because finicky but nice tasting.
Lou
Hello there, I was wondering if you could use oat flour instead of whole wheat pastry flour?
Lacey Baier
I don't see why that wouldn't work!
Jinan
Hi,
I made this recipe and it Is delicious. My only concern was that the shredded carrots changed color after baking to green. Do you have any idea why? Thank you
Yive
It is the baking powder/baking soda reacting with the natural colour in the carrots - nothing to be of concern, just a little odd to look at!
Lacey Baier
That's just an unfortunate product of carrots sometimes, so it's best to enjoy them quickly!
Tina Giordanella
Hi there, I want to make this as a desert for a bbq I'm having this weekend but I don't like raisins. Do you think this will work just as well with semi-sweet chocolate chips?
Nalini
Incredibly fluffy and delicious. We ate it all before I could make the frosting.
Lacey Baier
Haha! Love it!!
Kim Heber-Percy
That looks fabulous. Does it freeze well? Thanks.
Cynthia
I make this with gluten free flour and added some baking powder and it was wonderful!
Serena
Good!
Renee
Delicious!!! Very easy to make. I didn’t care for the frosting very much but it was great without it.
jenn
does this cake need to be refrigerated since it has a yogurt frosting?
Janice
Could I bake this in a 9 inch round cake pan?