Vegan cake Vegan Carrot Cake with Macadamia Frosting is the only carrot cake recipe you need! It’s moist, warmly spiced, and topped with a luscious vegan cream cheese frosting. This vegan carrot cake recipe is a riff on my mom’s traditional recipe. That cake is Jack’s all-time favorite dessert, so she makes it whenever she comes to visit.
Then, I make it again for Jack’s birthday. This year, instead of making her recipe as written, I adapted it to make a vegan carrot cake instead! My mom’s recipe calls for applesauce, which makes her cake super moist and light. Using applesauce, you can actually veganize carrot cake relatively easily. Along with the shredded carrots, it adds enough moisture to eliminate the need for flax eggs or other unconventional ingredients. As a result, the cake batter comes together with pantry ingredients like all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices, sugar, and melted coconut oil. The cake is moist, tender, and filled with warm, spiced flavor from cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla extract.