Gluten Free Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

If you love carrot cake, this delicious gluten free carrot cake is for you. Layers of moist carrot cake, with a cream cheese frosting nestled between each layer of cake, it is hard to resist!

Gluten free birthday cake

It was quite the birthday weekend for Mr. Fearless Dining. Our friend party was a fun night of celebration. We introduced new friends with old friends, and it was a great night. The next day was the big family party where we enjoyed this amazingly moist gluten free carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.

(Just in case you were wondering what the other birthday cake was, I made this delicious gluten free chocolate raspberry layer cake for the friend party!) This is by far the best carrot cake recipe I have made!

(Yeah, this cake was over the top and it fed 16 people, plus there were leftovers! Three giant chocolate layers of moist chocolate cake!)

I am digressing from this gluten free carrot cake recipe. Not only does this make a tasty gluten free carrot cake, but you can also use the batter to make gluten free carrot muffins, carrot cake cupcakes, or even a carrot cake loaf. You can even get creative and add some chopped nuts :-). If you really want something good, these Gluten Free Carrot Cake Iced Cookies are fun to make!

Have I convinced you to make this cake yet? One thing that is a little misleading is the size of the cake. Believe it or not, this gluten free layer cake is small. I used these tiny layer cake pans to make this cake. This cake can feed 6-8 people, depending on how much they love cake.

I will also say I didn’t put the cream cheese frosting on the sides of this cake. Mr. Fearless Dining is trying to watch his calories, so I wanted to honor his wish for his birthday. The cake sat most of the day in the refrigerator, and it did not dry out at all. This gluten free birthday cake stayed moist and delicious.

*Note, you can easily make this gluten free carrot cake dairy free too if you use a dairy free butter substitute and dairy free cream cheese, like the one by Daiya for the frosting. The carrot cake itself is dairy free since I use coconut oil instead of butter.

Almond Flour

One reason this cake stayed moist is that it has almond flour in the recipe. Almond flour holds in moisture in gluten free baking. If you are allergic to nuts, you can skip adding almond flour and just substitute in a little more gluten free flour blend.

Happy Birthday Mr. Fearless Dining!

How to make a gluten free carrot cake:

Add the wet and dry carrot cake ingredients in a bowl. Mix together.

Cake Batter Tip:

Don’t overmix the cake batter. The cake will be lighter if you just mix it enough to blend the ingredients!

Tip the baked cake layers onto a cooling rack so they can cool off.

Cake Frosting Tip:

Make sure the baked layers are completely cooled before you add frosting and assemble the layer cake. If the cake is at all warm, it will melt the cream cheese frosting, making your layers slide around and possibly tip over!

Whip up your cream cheese frosting. I topped this gluten free birthday cake with coconut too, but feel free to skip the coconut if you don’t want it.

(*Please note this post has affiliate links. Ordering through my site will not change the price you pay. A tiny commission will come to Fearless Dining to help offset the cost of running this blog. I truly appreciate the support.)

Things You Need To Make This Recipe:

1. My very favorite gluten free flour blend. (*If your blend doesn’t have xanthan gum, add 1 teaspoon!)
2. Almond flour, mentioned above.
3. If you don’t want to make a multi-tiered layer cake, you can make this in a regular rectangular cake pan, or even a bundt cake pan.

5 from 3 votes

Print

Gluten free carrot cake with a cream cheese frosting

Prep Time

20 mins

Cook Time

30 mins

Total Time

50 mins

 

An easy gluten free carrot cake recipe with a dairy free option.

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Servings: 8 people

Calories: 427 kcal

Author: Sandi Gaertner

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups gluten free flour blend
• 1 1/2 cups shredded carrot
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup almond flour
• 3 eggs
• 6 ounces coconut oil melted
• 6 ounces almond milk
• 1/3 cup raisins
• 1/3 cup walnuts
• 8 ounces cream cheese Frosting
• 1 teaspoon vanilla Frosting
• 2 cups powdered sugar Frosting
• 1/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut Frosting

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray the cake pan with coconut oil to prevent sticking.

2. Shred washed and peeled carrots.

3. Add all dry ingredients to a large bowl and whisk to blend.

4. Add wet ingredients and shredded carrots to a medium bowl and mix well. Add raisins and nuts, mix.

5. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix. Don't overmix the batter.

6. Bake the cake in the oven.

7. When the cake layers are finished. Let them cool on a cooling rack.

8. Add the frosting ingredients to a mixer (except the coconut) and mix until thick and creamy.

9. When the cake is cooled. Add a layer to a plate and add a little frosting on top of that layer. Top with the next layer and repeat until you get to the last layer. Add frosting to the top and then sprinkle with unsweetened coconut. (Feel free to frost the sides if you would like!)

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