This Vegan Carrot Bread is moist and fluffy, subtly spiced and covered in a rich cream cheese frosting. It comes together in one bowl and the recipe is easily customisable. It's gluten-free and refined sugar free too! Perfect for dessert or an indulgent breakfast or brunch.
This is definitely a sweet bread recipe - it's similar to a Carrot Cake. To make it less sweet, you can halve the amount of maple syrup and omit the frosting, or omit the maple syrup all together if you want to make a more savoury bread.
Use a box grater to grate the carrots.
How to make this recipe
Scroll down to the bottom of the post for the full recipe.
- Mix together all the ingredients in a glass mixing bowl.
Tip: Use a food processor to grind up the walnuts until they form a fine powder.
- Transfer the batter into a one-pound loaf tin.
Tip: Make sure to line the loaf tin with greased baking paper - this will make removing the bread from the tin so much easier!
- Bake in the oven for 45 minutes.
- Transfer to a cooling rack to cool down before applying the frosting.
- Use a knife (or palette knife for frosting) to spread the frosting over the top of the loaf.
Frosting alternatives
If you’d prefer not to use this cashew-based vegan cream cheese frosting, you can use a coconut cream-based cream cheese frosting instead, or a normal cashew buttercream.
How to decorate
I decided to decorate this carrot bread with chopped walnuts, but you can use whatever you like: chopped pecan nuts, chopped pistachios or coconut flakes all work well!
Substitutions you can make
- You can use any type of oil: coconut oil, olive oil or vegetable oil.
- You can use any type of plant-based milk: almond milk, rice milk, soy milk, cashew milk, oat milk etc.
- You can use any type of liquid sweetener: maple syrup, agave syrup, brown rice syrup etc.
- You can replace the ground walnuts with ground almonds (almond meal).
- For a nut-free version: replace the ground walnuts with ground sunflower seeds or use 30g (¼ cup) coconut flour instead of 150g (1 ¼ cup) ground walnuts and omit the frosting.
- You can replace the raisins with any other dried fruit such as dried cranberries or chopped dates, or dried mango, dried pineapple or dried papaya for a tropical vibe.
- You can add a couple of tablespoons of desiccated coconut to the batter.
- You can use plain flour, wholemeal (whole wheat) flour or spelt flour instead of the gluten-free flour if you’re not gluten-free.
- To make it less sweet, you can halve the amount of maple syrup and omit the frosting.
- To make a more savoury bread, omit the maple syrup and the frosting.
How long does this keep for?
This Carrot Bread definitely tastes best when fresh, but keeps covered in the fridge for up to a few days.
More vegan sweet bread recipes
- Gluten-Free Vegan Pumpkin Bread
- Gluten-Free Vegan Blueberry Banana Bread
- Gluten-Free Vegan Chocolate Pumpkin Bread
- Gluten-Free Vegan Chocolate Banana Bread
- Gluten-Free Vegan Zucchini Bread
- Gluten-Free Vegan Chocolate Zucchini Bread
- Gluten-Free Vegan Apple Bread
- Gluten-Free Vegan Orange Bread
- Gluten-Free Vegan Lemon Bread
- Gluten-Free Vegan Chocolate Bread
If you try out this recipe or anything else from my blog, I’d really love to hear any feedback! Please give it a rating, leave a comment, or tag a photo @rhiansrecipes #rhiansrecipes on Instagram! Thank you.
Watch how to make this recipe
Vegan Carrot Bread (Gluten-Free)
Ingredients
For the bread:
- 60 g (¼ cup) coconut oil (or sub olive or vegetable oil)
- 200 ml (â…˜ cup) unsweetened almond milk (or any other plant-based milk)
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice *
- 8 tablespoons maple syrup (or sub any other sweetener)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon mixed spice (or sub a mixture of nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves)
- Pinch salt
- 100 g (3.5 oz) carrot , peeled and grated (one medium-sized carrot)
- 50 g (â…“ cup) raisins or sultanas (or sub finely chopped dried mango or papaya)
- 150 g (1 ¼ cup) ground walnuts **
- 150 g (1 ¼ cup) gluten-free flour blend (or sub plain flour if not gluten-free)
- 2 heaped teaspoons baking powder (ensure gluten-free if necessary)
- ¼ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
For the frosting:
- 100 g (â…” cup) raw cashew nuts soaked in cold water overnight or in hot water for 15 minutes
- 6 tablespoons maple syrup (or sub any other sweetener)
- 3 tablespoons lemon juice
To decorate (optional):
- Walnuts , roughly chopped
Instructions
For the bread:
- Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 degrees Fahrenheit).
- Place the coconut oil in a large bowl and melt over a saucepan of boiling water or in the microwave (skip this step if using any other oil).
- Once melted, add the milk to the same bowl along with the lemon juice, maple syrup, vanilla, ginger, mixed spice, salt, grated carrot, raisins and ground walnuts.
- Sift in the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda.
- Mix well, adding a tiny splash more milk if it's looking too dry.
- Transfer mixture into a loaf tin lined with greased baking paper (I used a one-pound loaf tin).
- Bake in the oven for 45 minutes until risen and golden brown and an inserted skewer comes out clean.
- Once out the oven, transfer the loaf from the baking tin onto a wired rack to leave it to cool completely before applying the frosting.
For the frosting:
- Drain the soaked cashews and add to a food processor or blender with the maple syrup and lemon juice.
- Whizz until completely smooth, adding some plant-based milk or water to thin out if necessary.
To frost and decorate:
- Use a knife (or palette knife) to spread frosting over the top of the loaf.
- Decorate with chopped walnuts, if desired.
- Tastes best when fresh, but keeps covered in the fridge for up to a few days.
Video
Notes
- This is definitely a sweet recipe - it's similar to a Carrot Cake. To make it less sweet, you can halve the amount of maple syrup and omit the frosting, or omit the maple syrup all together if you want to make a more savoury bread.
- If you’d prefer not to use this cashew-based vegan cream cheese frosting, you can use a coconut cream-based cream cheese frosting instead, or a normal cashew buttercream.
Disclosure: This posts contains affiliate links to Amazon. If you purchase any of these products, a small percentage will come to me with no extra cost to you! This income will go towards the running of this blog – thank you.
Madeline
I usually have excellent success with your recipes but my bread was dense and undercooked, despite baking for 8 minutes longer than required. I used Bob’s Red Mill 1:1 Baking flour, as I do in all of your recipes, and used olive oil and macadamia nut milk, again, as I do in all of your recipes, so I am not sure what happened. The batter was far too liquidy from the get go so perhaps the ratios are off? I had to add extra flour to get the correct consistency. Perhaps less milk?
Rhian Williams
Thank you so much for your feedback. I'm sorry to hear that. Did you add the correct amount of grated carrots? Adding too much grated carrots would have caused the batter to be more liquid than it should have been. Or perhaps the carrots you used naturally contained more liquid than the ones I used. If making again, I'd recommend using less milk to make it more like a normal cake batter consistency. Also baking time can really vary between ovens when baking in a loaf tin, so you may need to bake for longer, until an inserted skewer comes out clean. I hope that helps!
Yasmine
Baked this today and is absolutely delicious! I omitted the frosting, added 1/4 tsp cinnamon and only used 4 tbsp maple syrup but it was still quite sweet. Only took me 20 minutes to put together. Thank you for this recipe! 🙂
Rhian Williams
Thank you so much, so happy to hear that!
Laurie Hoffman
Could chickpea flour be used for the gluten-free flour?
Rhian Williams
No sorry! Oat flour would work though!
Connie
Made this carrot bread. I used 1/3 regular sugar with a couple of table spoons of agave sweetener. No nuts only the raisins. It turned out perfect. Flavor was good and moist. thanks for sharing about the lemon juice; good to know.
Rhian Williams
Thank you so much, so happy to hear that!
suzi
Put my stars up before I taste them but they look and smell amazing!! Did your recipe x4 tonight and made 8 hefty mini loaves. Letting cool over night before I frost them, I used almond flour in place of walnut, as I was a bit nervous with quadrupling the recipe the first time!!! Is walnut "flour" heavier/more dense than almond? Didnt have raisins so used unsweetened dried pineapple bits and some candied ginger. Followed the rest and can't wait to see how I did!! Do you typically squeeze the moisture out of your shredded carrots when you make this one? I automatically do with carrots or zucchini bread/muffins. Thanks for sharing with us!!
Rhian Williams
Thank you so much, so happy to hear that! I squeeze the moisture out of shredded zucchini, but not carrots. Would be interested to hear how they turn out differently with the moisture squeezed out of the carrots though! Walnut flour is slightly heavier/denser than almond, but also contains more oil which creates a lighter/fluffier texture, so overall doesn't really affect the texture!