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
Ingredients
Cake:
- 2 1/2 cups (350 g) all-purpose gluten-free flour, (see recipe notes)
- 3/4 tsp. xanthan gum, (see recipe notes)
- 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 (250 g) granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup (164 g) light brown sugar
- 4 (200 g out of shell) large eggs
- 1/3 cup (80 g) unsweetened applesauce
- 2/3 cup (150 g) canola oil, or vegetable oil or melted coconut oil
- 1/2 cup (112 g) unsalted butter, melted (or canola or vegetable oil)
- 3 cups (16 ounces) finely shredded carrots, from 1 pound carrots
Frosting:
- 8 ounces block-style cream cheese, softened to room temperature
- 5 Tbsp. (70 g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 2 1/2 cups (288 g) powdered sugar, plus more as needed
- 2 Tbsp. (1 fluid ounce) heavy cream or half and half
- 2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°. Spray 9×13 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 9×13 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.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Like this? Leave a comment below!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!
Hi,
I just wanted to check, is the oven temperature in the recipe for a standard oven or for fan-forced. I converted to Celsius and reduced 20 degrees because I have a fan forced oven but it took about an hour to cook through and ended up rising in the middle a lot more than the edges. I followed the recipe to a T except I used homemade apple sauce that turned out to be apple purée consistency after sitting in the fridge overnight and substituted all the oil for extra apple sauce/purée. My dish was exactly as you described, glass Pyrex and exactly the right size. I’m just wondering whether it’s the oven temperature causing it to cook longer & rise in the middle, or whether it might’ve been the apple sauce/purée.
Thanks for sharing your amazing recipe!
Belinda
I made this as a sheet cake for Easter as my son is gluten free and it came out amazing. His girl friend is asking if I can make this recipe as cupcakes for her birthday. Is there anything different I should do and what is your recommendation on baking time?
this is a really good recipe. It is a little heavy but that is normal for gluten free recipies. 10 stars from me.
This came out absolutely wonderful and I was very pleased! The whole family loved it. Thanks for sharing such a fantastic gluten free recipe!
Does this have to be refrigerated? Will be ok to make it 2 days before serving?
Thank you, will look forward to your answer.
The cake itself is fine left out for 2 days, covered in the pan. But I would wait to frost it until serving day as I wouldn’t want to keep a cream cheese frosting at room temp for 2 days. If you won’t have time to make the icing on serving day, make it 2 days before, cover and refrigerate. Pull out 2 hours before you want to frost the cake, give it a several good stirs to get it creamy again (or buzz with the hand mixer a few times), then frost.
Hope you enjoy!!
This recipe looks great but was wondering how it would freeze?. Need to make this a week ahead of time and decorate it as a fairy cake. Have you frozen this cake before? Thanks in advance
@Natasha, most cakes freeze really well after baked. I worked in bakeries for four years and we always froze our cakes. That way when we went to frost them the cake did not pull up into the frosting. Cool the cakes all the way, and then wrap them tight and plastic wrap and put them in the freezer with nothing sitting on them to change their shape.
This looks delicious! Could this be made into bread loaves?
Made this tonight and a bit disappointed. Nots sure what happened. They turned out OK but much lighter in color than your pictures show and not as “cake like” in texture – more like a quick bread. The only thing I changed was reduced the amount of sugar by 1/4 cup and only used 4oz applesauce instead of 5.3. Would that have made the difference? Curious to hear anyone’s
thoughts
Yes those differences would absolutely affect the texture. I always recommend making a recipe as written the first time, then if you want to try substitutions based on your own preferences, you can do it the next time. That way you can see how it is supposed to turn out and can measure the affect of any changes you make.
just posting to say I used 3 cups canned carrots pureed after measure. cake is perfect and I found something to do with ten tons of pantry canned carrots my family wont eat. Soup, this, could probably sub in pumpkin recipes like bread, cupcakes, doughnuts. maybe a carrot cake waffle? Thanks for the recipe. this is the second time ive made it. both times I gogged at the amount of oil and checked the recipe 8 times thinking “that cant be right”. However both times its been an amazing moist cake. best recipe ive tried. thank you for saving me from dry cake. my only down note is I would like more of a cake frosting for this. the frosting is only steps from glaze. I once had a piece of carrot cake at a mall(before gluten free days) that had a thick coconut cake frosting. just flavored not chewy flakes. I dream of finding a similar frosting.
Looks great! Could I half this and bake in a loaf pan do you think?
Hi! Do you think I could put this in 2 5” or 6” pans to make a mini stacked cake?
I found your recipe a couple of years ago when my husband went gluten free. I made this for his birthday and he has requested it ever since! I use Bob’s 1:1 and it turns out great! Thank you.
I made this cake and it was delicious! It was really rich though, so if you don’t like that sort of taste then you probably shouldn’t make it. But it was bomb
I made this recipe into cupcakes and they are delicious. Really easy to follow instructions.
Oh WOW! This cake blew my mind, it was the best carrot cake I have ever made. I didn’t have applesauce so I upped the butter. We do alternative sugars, so I used a combination of coconut sugar, honey and stevia. That could have changed the flavours a bit, but we all loved it. Makes a big cake, but that’s hardly a problem in our home! Thanks a lot!
Thanks for the recipe! Excited to make it for my husbands birthday tomorrow..do you suggest I make it tomorrow or will it save well overnight if I do it today? Thanks!
Totally fine to make it today if that works better for you! If it’s very warm where you are, then refrigerate it overnight and pull out about 2 hours before you want to eat it.
Love this recipe. I used half cup of tinned shredded pineapple instead of apple puree. Didn’t use nuts or raisins but I placed thinly sliced orange peel wildly on top. Also kept it in the oven at 175 for 50mins instead of 40. Shared the batter between 2 x 7″ round cake pans. And I freeze the second one for a week later. I have also made 1 round and 10 healthy size muffins (obviously the muffins were only put in later) can’t remember for how long. This is my fav cake recipe. It never flops and is always moist and perfect.
YOU MAKE ME LOOK GOOD.
Thanks a mol. For sharing.
This is my absolute FAVORITE carrot cake recipe! I make it every fall for my mom’s birthday with our garden carrots. I love that this recipe doesnt have coconut or pineapple both of which I love, just not in my carrot cake! I bake off 2 rounds, throw icing in between and just on top. It’s to DIE FOR GOOD!!!!
Hi , I wanted to know how you recommend making it into a 6 inch, 2 layered cake ? thank you
This was sooooo delicious. Ours came out Perfect! Will be using this recipe again and checking out your other recipes!
—No one could tell it was gluten free and that’s a win in my books!