One Bowl MOIST Vegan Carrot Cake Loaf Recipe
Just like this award winning vegan carrot cake, this soft and incredibly moist carrot cake LOAF is perfectly spiced, not too sweet and rich with a silky dairy free cream cheese frosting. No eggs nor dairy required!

The BEST carrot cake loaf- made vegan!
If making a layered carrot cake intimidates you, then please allow me to introduce you to the easiest carrot cake in existence. The vegan carrot cake loaf.
Like my unbelievably vegan carrot cake, this carrot cake loaf is tender and deliciously moist with a beautifully soft crumb. It’s wonderfully spiced with a decent balance of sweetness (not too sweet though!) thanks to using brown sugar.
And you don’t even need any eggs nor dairy, and it’s made in one bowl. This loaf cake is legitimately as easy as it is delicious.
We’re then topping our carrot cake loaf with a silky dairy free cream cheese frosting to make it irresistible. The tang perfectly compliments the spices and the sweetness, like in this carrot cake cheesecake, and it is a DREAMY combination.
Serve this for any spring get together, and your guests will sure to be impressed. Especially when you mention that it’s vegan!
What do we use in lieu of eggs and dairy?
If you’re new to vegan baking, then allow me to introduce you to my favorite ingredients to keep in your vegan baking arsenal.
Dairy free yogurt is used to swap out the eggs- the high fat in the yogurt will mimic the egg yolks, lending extra moisture to our carrot cake loaves. Combined with the brown sugar, your carrot cake loaf will be perfectly moist and tender. Yogurt is easily one of my favorite vegan egg substitutes.
Then we use a neutral oil, such as avocado oil, but you can also use olive oil. I personally like oil in quick bread recipes more so than vegan butter. But you can definitely swap in vegan butter to make your vegan carrot cake loaf extra rich.
Finally, any dairy free milk, such as oat milk or soy milk, work great in place of milk or whole milk.
Should I use shredded or grated carrots?
Personally, I like my carrot cake loaf to use finely shredded carrots that I use a fine grater with over chunkier grated carrots. As long as you’re measuring the carrots accurately, it won’t matter how you use shred them.
You can use long thin shredded carrots, but I find the texture is better with finely shredded.
Overview: step by step how to make vegan carrot cake loaf:
For the full written instructions and ingredient measurements, see the bottom of this post in the recipe card. You can also hit the “jump to recipe” button at the top of this post! Here, we’ll go over a brief overview of the steps, along with providing visuals for a better understanding of the recipe.
How to pipe carrots on top:
My favorite part of any baking is decorating the finished product, and this carrot cake was so fun.
I wanted to go off of the carrots on my vegan layer carrot cake, so I piped orange and green frosting in the shape of carrots, and sprinkled crushed walnuts on top. You can also use pecans or even keep it nut free!
To do this, I simply snipped a tiny hole at the end of two piping bags. Then I filled each with about 3 tbsp each of cream cheese icing that had been colored orange and green respectively.
Then I piped the carrot portion in just a long squiggle line, easing off pressure right at the end. And piped short little leaves at the top of each carrot with the green frosting.
No piping tip required here!
Can I make this as a sheet cake?
Absolutely! I recommend baking this cake as a 9×9 square cake. Then slice into 16 slices. You’ll need about 30-35 minutes in the oven, but check with a toothpick to ensure the cake is done.
Want to save this recipe for later? Add it to your favorite recipe board on Pinterest!
If you make this recipe, please be sure to leave a comment and a rating ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ below. This helps others to find the recipes! As always, I absolutely love to see your beautiful creations on Instagram and Pinterest, so be sure to tag me there as well!
PrintOne Bowl MOIST Vegan Carrot Cake Loaf Recipe
- Prep Time: 5
- Cook Time: 75
- Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
- Yield: 16 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Vegan
Description
Just like this award winning vegan carrot cake, this soft and incredibly moist carrot cake LOAF is perfectly spiced, not too sweet and rich with a silky dairy free cream cheese frosting. No eggs nor dairy required!
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups (135 g) grated carrots, about 6-8 medium carrots
- 1/2 cup (120 mL) dairy free milk, room temperature
- 2 2/3 (330 g) cups all purpose flour
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp cardamom
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 1 cup (200 g) light brown sugar
- 2/3 cup (150 g) neutral oil or vegan butter, melted and cooled to room temperature
- 1/2 cup (100 g) granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup (110 g) dairy free yogurt, room temperature
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 batch vegan cream cheese frosting
Instructions
- Prep: Preheat the oven to 350F, and line a pound loaf pan (about 8″) with parchment paper. Measure out all ingredients. Make sure the carrots are shredded.
- Make the batter: Add in the oil, sugar, dairy free yogurt, vanilla extract, and whisk just until mixed. Then add in the cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cardamom, sea salt, baking powder and baking soda, and whisk again. Add in the carrots, and whisk to evenly distribute.
- Finish the batter: Add in the flour and dairy free milk, and whisk JUST until the flour is combined.
- Bake: Pour the carrot cake loaf batter into the prepared pan, and place onto a baking sheet just incase of any extra spillage. Bake for 65-75 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. If you notice that your loaf is browning too much towards the end you can cover it with parchment paper.
- Cool: Once out of the oven, let cool completely before you frost or ice.
- Make the frosting: Prepare the frosting according to instructions and ice the carrot cake loaf. Slice and enjoy!
Notes
Gluten free: I recommend King Arthur Measure for Measure gluten free flour. It’s the blend I use to test my recipes gluten free, and it’s amazing!
OMG Britt… i cannot wait to make this. Here’s my questions I want to add in some combination of golden raisins, pecans and/or crushed pineapple…what do you think? Especially about the pineapple? How much? Will the extra moisture cause an issue?
Oh 1000%!! Feel free to add in golden raisins and pecans! I wonder about the pineapple for the extra moisture…you might want to try dried pineapple instead!
This was great! I made it twice this week and both times had people ask for the recipe and they also made it. In particular the crust is really lovely – not usually my favorite part of a cake, but it was in this case. It is now a go-to favorite recipe.
I used non-vegan greek yogurt as that’s what I had (I’m not vegan), so for any non-vegans who are wondering about that replacement it still worked wonderfully.
One note: could it be possible to perhaps make the order of ingredients in the recipe the order in which you add them? It was difficult to scroll up and try to find the exact amounts and not miss them when I was in the middle of baking!
I’m so happy to hear this!! Thank you so much for the review!! And yes, that’s such a good point, I’m so sorry for that confusion! Will edit now 🙂
Very moist and perfectly spiced!
Forgot to take a picture before the family dug in haha. I’m the sole vegan but it was a huge hit with everyone for Easter. Good flavor, moist, and yummy. I made the cream cheese frosting she links in the recipe and that was very good as well. It made a lot so I would half the frosting recipe for this loaf cake. Will definitely be making again!
This is BEAUTIFUL!! So happy you all loved it 🙂 And good note on the frosting, so sorry about that! But so glad it all worked!! 🙂 Thank you for the review!
Hi! What nondairy milk and vegan yogurt do you suggest for this cake? There are so many to choose from and I know protein content can affect baking.
Thanks!
Hi Rose! I like to use Forager Project cashew milk yogurt (the unsweetened kind) and either soy milk or almond milk for the milk, but you can use nut-free and soy-free options, like oat milk and coconut yogurt if you’d like!
My go to dessert-everyone thoroughly enjoys each time…. I catch myself thinking about this dessert more often than I’d like to admit! 😹 10/10 recommend!
This is wonderful ah!! So happy to hear it 🙂 Thank you so much for the review!!
Made this for my dad’s bday this weekend! He loves carrot cake. We aren’t vegan (but egg free) so used regular milk and butter, and made it GF per your recommendation… turned out fantastic! A little denser, but I’m sure that’s just the non-dairy swaps! Thank you for having such easy recipes with easy GF options to make everyone so happy 🙂
Oh my goshes YUM!! Your cream cheese frosting looks divine!! I’m sure the swap of dairy ingredients might have altered things a bit, but overall it looks perfect!! Hope you all had fun celebrating, and happy belated birthday to your dad!
Moist and delicious. I even got my 11 year old that hates carrots to taste a bite and he asked me for an entire slice. Thank You for sharing with us.
I love it! Thank you so much such an easy quick and delicious recipe ❤️🥕
I made a few changes just out of curiosity.
I used half normal flour half oat flour.
I added some orange cest and left out the other spices since I like my carrot cake to be less wintery and more spring like with orange and vanilla only.
Also topped it with almonds and put some almonds inside the batter as well.
It’s delicious!