Easy Gluten-free Carrot Cake
I always thought carrot cake was only enjoyed in the spring, but I’ve found that people like making this gluten-free carrot cake year-round! This easy gluten-free carrot sheet cake is one you’ve got to try!
Just because you can’t have gluten, doesn’t mean you have to miss out on your favorite holiday and seasonal desserts! Has Spring had you craving carrot cake? If so, you’ll love this gluten-free classic carrot cake. It got thumbs up all around from a dozen gluten-eaters this weekend!
The best part is that it couldn’t be easier to make or serve, as it’s made as a sheet cake.
No fussing to line up multiple layers of cake and icing and hoping it doesn’t all slide off! Sheet cakes are so much easier!
I surveyed many friends before making my gluten-free carrot cake to see what people’s preferences were on extra ingredients.
There were only a few people that wanted nuts; most were adamant to not include nuts.
Some liked raisins inside, some didn’t.
A few liked coconut.
Almost everyone said to definitely NOT include pineapple. Strong feelings on that one!!
Ultimately, I decided to go for making a simple, classic, moist gluten-free carrot cake, full of spice flavor and topped with a tangy cream cheese frosting.
This gluten-free carrot cake has become a go-to gluten-free Easter dessert for so many families!
Let’s talk about the ingredients for this yummy carrot sheet cake.
Notes on ingredients and substitutions for this gluten-free carrot cake:
- Gluten-free Flour Blend: I have tested this with, and recommend, gfJules gluten-free flour (buy on Amazon here) or King Arthur Measure for Measure Flour Blend. My friend Megan tested this cake with Bob’s Red Mill 1 to 1 baking flour and said it worked great. Other high quality gluten-free flour blends should work well in this too! Try your favorite!
- Xanthan gum: Omit this if your flour blend contains guar gum or xanthan gum already.
- Applesauce: applesauce is used here to cut the amount of oil needed, increase the flavor, and keep the cake moist. If you only have sweetened applesauce, you can use that and cut the sugar in the recipe a bit. Or you can replace the applesauce with additional oil.
- Unsalted butter: You can use salted butter, and then just adjust the salt in the recipe to only 1/4 tsp instead of 1/2. To make this cake dairy-free, then use oil instead of butter. I prefer using an oil with no taste, like a corn or canola oil.
If you like coconut, nuts, raisins, or pineapple, feel free to stir in any of those into the cake batter!
Why did I call this gluten-free carrot cake easy? The hardest part is getting the carrots washed, peeled, and shredded. The rest is simple mixing together!
Wash and peel your carrots before finely shredding them. A food processor or food chopper is best for finely shredding them.
You can save time by buying baby carrots too! Then you can just drop them right into the food chopper.
The food chopper I use is this one that does about a cup of them at a time. I prefer it over my huge food processor as this one is so easy to clean – just plop the three parts right in the dishwasher!
Ingredients for cream cheese frosting:
This cream cheese frosting has the perfect mix of sweet and tangy. It’s made with cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar, heavy cream, and pure vanilla extract. Only the best ingredients and it makes a frosting so good, you’ll be licking your spatula!
You can also stir chopped nuts into the cream cheese frosting if you want. Chopped pecans would be yummy!
I’m not going to lie – I enjoy frosting as equally as I enjoy cake. You can’t have one without the other, in my opinion!
Can this gluten-free carrot cake be made dairy-free?
Yes! The carrot cake itself is already almost completely free of dairy – the melted butter already includes a substitution to just add additional oil.
The frosting recipe can be made dairy-free too. Use dairy-free cream cheese (I recommend Kite Hill), a butter alternative like Earth Balance or Melt Buttery Sticks, and your favorite dairy-free milk alternative for the cream. Or if you have it on hand, use a dairy-free creamer.
Looking for more gluten-free recipes with carrots?
Love soup? I added chopped carrots to my gluten-free cheeseburger soup. My friend Erin adds big carrot chunks to her Italian minestrone soup. And I add them to my hearty gluten-free ham cheddar chowder recipe too! So many options for carrots – just thought I’d share a few!
How about these paleo carrot cake muffins from my friend Chrystal? Of course I use shredded carrots in this simple coleslaw recipe. These carrot fritters caught my eye, as they’re unlike anything I’ve had before!
These roasted rainbow carrots from my friend Megan will brighten up any dinner! I think serving them alongside any hearty meat dish would be a hit.
Now go make this cake and serve up a big slice for yourself!!
Another favorite Easter or spring dessert is this gluten-free cheesecake! Or if you want something chocolate, go for my gluten-free chocolate cream pie!
Recipe adapted from my fellow food bloggers Mel and Sally: unbelievable carrot cake (cake) and super moist carrot cake (icing).
One final note, you can cut this cake into the number of slices you really need. Here I cut into 15 larger slices, but you could easily do 18 slices or 24 instead.
If you try this, would you please come back and give it a 5 star rating and comment with any successful substitutions you tried (if any)? Those help others so much!
Easy Gluten-free Carrot Cake Recipe:
Easy Gluten-free Carrot Cake
Follow this recipe to make a flavorful, classic, moist gluten-free carrot cake topped with a tangy cream cheese frosting. Perfect gluten-free Easter dessert! Feel free to add your favorite mix-ins like raisins, coconut or nuts, to this classic moist gluten-free carrot cake.
Ingredients
Cake:
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose gluten-free flour*
- 3/4 tsp. xanthan gum (*see note)
- 1 1/4 tsp. baking powder
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 2 tsp. ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
- 1/8 tsp. ground cloves
- 1/4 tsp. ground allspice
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1 1/4 cups sugar
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 2/3 cup canola or vegetable oil or melted coconut oil
- 1/2 cup melted unsalted butter (or oil)
- 3 cups finely shredded carrots (from about 1 lb. carrots)
Frosting:
- 8 ounces cream cheese, softened to room temperature
- 5 Tbsp. butter, softened to room temperature
- 2 1/2 - 3 cups powdered sugar
- 2 Tbsp. heavy cream or half and half
- 2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°. Spray 9x13 pan with cooking spray. I used a glass Pyrex pan.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, xanthan gum, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, and salt. Set aside.
- In the bowl of your standing mixer, beat sugar, brown sugar and eggs on medium-high speed until thoroughly combined, about 45 seconds.
- Reduce speed to low, and slowly add the applesauce, oil, and melted butter. Mix on high for one minute, or until mixture is well mixed and light in color.
- Turn off mixer and stir in by hand the carrots and dry ingredients until no loose flour remains.
- Pour into greased 9x13 pan. Bake at 350° for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into center of cake comes out clean. (Mine took 37 minutes.)
- Let cake cool, in pan, on a wire rack.
When cake is cool, mix up cream cheese icing:
- In a mixing bowl, use a hand mixer to beat the softened cream cheese and butter for 3 minutes, or until soft, creamy and combined thoroughly.
- Add 2 cups of powdered sugar and beat until well mixed.
- Add the heavy cream or half and half, and pure vanilla extract. Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes.
- Add an additional 1/2 to 1 cup of powdered sugar until frosting reaches desired thickness and taste.
- Use a spatula or icing knife to spread frosting evenly over cooled cake. Slice into 15 large slices, or you can cut smaller slices if you prefer.
Notes
- Gluten-free Flour Blend: I have tested this with, and recommend, gfJules gluten-free flour or King Arthur Measure for Measure Flour or Gluten Free Mama’s All-purpose Almond Flour Blend. My friend Megan tested this cake with Bob’s Red Mill 1 to 1 baking flour and said it worked great. Other high quality gluten-free flour blends should work well in this too! Try your favorite!
- Xanthan gum: Omit this if your flour blend contains guar gum or xanthan gum already.
Pin this to your gluten-free desserts board on Pinterest:
Post updated with new text and photos April 2019. Originally published April 2014.
Old photo:
I hope you and your family enjoy this gf carrot cake as much as my family does!
Loved this cake! I find gluten free cakes tend to get dense the next day, but not this one – it remained light and moist – yum! (I usually use Bob’s Red Mill 1-to1 flour.) I also bought pre-shredded carrots to save time. I gave them a quick chop with a knife so the pieces weren’t so long and they worked perfectly.
Question – I’d like to make muffins with this recipe. Do any adjustments need to be made?
I can’t review the original recipe because I don’t buy pre-made flour blends (too $$ for me and every recipe site requires a different brand). For this I used 3/4 c white rice flour, 3/4 c brown rice flour, 1/4 c tapioca starch, 1/4 c sorghum flour, and 1/4 c arrowroot. Maybe the homemade blends I use have different starch levels and require different ratios, because when I got to fats and sugars I could tell I needed to reduce them. I used 3/4 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup white sugar, 1/3 cup neutral liquid oil, 1/2 cup butter. Came out great– same texture as the photos and was plenty sweet/rich for my taste. With the way it caramelized around the edges, it seemed like any more sugar and fat with this flour blend would have resulted in sides coated with burned candy. Again no offense to the original recipe as I didn’t try it that way– just leaving this in case it’s useful to anyone who also gets separate flours
Does anyone know how much batter this recipes makes?
Amazing and easier than other recipes
this recipe was delicious. First round I thought the cake was too sweet so swcond round I reduced the sugar and it was not sweet enough. Back to the original recipe. I have gluten people asking for this cake after having tried some cake cup scraps I made to share. Bring us more of that carrot cake!
@Laura M Cabe, I used coconut sugar for the brown sugar, and monk fruit sugar for the white. It came out wonderfully and was very sweet. Next time I will reduce the sugar even more.
Recipe is not good. Batter has too much oil, too much sugar, and it does not cook through properly (even after 1 hour). It has a consistency of a carrot-bread, not a carrot cake. I do not recommend. Look elsewhere for a gluten free cake.
I’m sorry this cake wasn’t the type you prefer. Hope you can find one that better suits your preferences. My guess is the type of flour used played a large role in texture.
@A, wow. Maybe reign it in a little, ask a question instead of just shooting it down.
Sounds like a flour issue. I think it was your fault, not the recipe. Since we’re being honest.
I made this last night with organic perfect flour. Accidently added the sugar to dry ingredients, so beat eggs added carrots, Apple sauce and some dried cranberries and added flour mix. I really expected a mess, but it still came out amazing. My daughter loves it. I’m so happy I found a recipe that works with this flour. It’s a keeper
This was the best carrot cake I have ever eaten! It was actually better 3 days later, so you can make it ahead of time with the frosting and it will be perfect. I used Bob’s Redmill
1-1 baking mix.
@Teresa Anders, Did you keep the cake in the refrigerator? I want to make it the day before it will be served. Bake it, cool, icing it then refrigerate?
I would appreciate any help
@Rosemary, Hi 🙂 I’m intending on doing the same as you mentioned for a friend’s big 50th birthday in a couple weeks- any tips on what you did and how it worked out for you? Thanks!!
Thank you so much!!! I made this cake using the gluten-free flour -blend mix from yourhomebasedmom it came out beautifully. So moist n rich. Best carrot cake I ever made, I didn’t make the frosting because half was gone before I could!
Oh my – this cake is AH-mazing!!! You don’t even notice that there isn’t any gluten. I used kind arthur flour and it turned out perfect. Thank you so much for this recipe. This was a hit on Easter! I can’t wait to make it again.
I had high hopes. Followed the recipe, even cooked it 5 minutes longer than called for (45 minutes) but it was still undercooked in the middle. ?
@Melanie, sounds like an oven temperature issue. Maybe invest in an oven thermometer. Sorry to hear this. I know how frustrating it is to take all that time, effort, and ingredients and have it bomb.
This is a wonderful recipe, I used 1 to 1, King Arthur’s GF & Bob’s Red Mill stone grained white rice flour. I followed the recipe to the tee otherwise. It is so delicious with the cream cheese whip frosting. I made a cake and cupcakes they came out delicious. They are moist, with a great texture, not crumbly and dry like most GF bake goods. I had no issues with any aspect of the directions. This is a recipe to keep and to share. New fav carrot cake recipe.
My daughter and I made this today for Easter, using Cup4Cup Gluten Free Flour. It was soo good! I can’t wait to make it again.
Could this recipe be the base of different cake flavors?
For instance, if I wanted to make a yellow cake, I would just take off the carrots and spices and add vanilla. Do you think this could work?!
This recipe was delicious by the way !
@Nicole, I don’t think it would work because the carrots add a lot of moisture to the cake. You’d be better off finding a different recipe for a gluten free yellow cake.
Mine sunk in the middle. 🙁 I used King Arthur GF one for one. Any suggestions or ideas why it went flat?
Used this recipe to make cupcakes for my gf kiddo and they turned out fantastic! Baked them for 25min on 350!
My daughter will love this! She has celiac. We’ve been looking for more recipes for gluten-free ingredients. We’re just starting a blog on a little bit of everything.
Gf husband said it’s a keeper but I didn’t add the last 1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar only 2.
@ann. I replaced all of the powdered sugar with just 1/4 cup of maple syrup. The frosting came out light and fluffy and plenty sweet.
@Laura Sheppard, thanks for the tip
Does this freeze well? Looks delicious!
I mean, yes, this cake like all cakes freezes fine. But the frosting will stick to whatever you freeze it in and will likely look weird and have beads of water and wet spots after thawing and might slide right off the cake. But that’s the same with any iced cake you’d freeze!
Hi. I made this today for a brunch dessert tomorrow. Followed directions to.a “t”. . Incredibly moist. Wil make this again!!! Thank you.