Carrot Cake :: Gluten, Egg, Nut, & Dye Free!

That moment you became a momma…

Do you remember it?

For me it started even before she was born. After the first few weeks of letting it sink in that I was pregnant with her, my heart truly became a momma.

Six years ago this week Chloe was born and my life forever changed. She has made me a better person. She makes me think. She reminds me of true unconditional love. I think I mess up something just about every day, and she wakes up every morning with a hug only she can give and says “I love you momma”.

She is the reason for this spark of passion that grew in my momma bear heart to see the kids of this generation grow up without the junk food that mine did. This little love shares my foodie passion and she asked for a carrot cake this year for her birthday! She saw some brightly colored carrot cakes at the grocery store one day, pointed at one and said “I want THAT for my birthday cake!”

My heart actually leaped for joy because carrot cake and cream cheese frosting just happen to be my favorite cake combos. I was pretty excited for her party!

I wasn’t, however, excited about using orange food dye to make carrots on her cake. And with our busy schedules lately I just didn’t think I would have the time to make orange food dye *and* have the creative steady hand to pipe them on the cake. I decided on some simple cake toppers, and boy where these a hit! She planted her very own “carrot patch garden” on her cake!

We also threw some carrot shreds on the dehydrator for the sides.

One of Chloe’s cousins has a severe egg allergy, so our parties have to be completely egg free – and while the first couple years of figuring this out had me totally nervous, I have learned that baking egg free really isn’t that tough! I used 4 “flax eggs” in this cake recipe, and the flax seeds went well with this kind of cake. If you prefer to use another egg replacement like gelatin eggs or egg replacer go for it! And if you can tolerate eggs 3-4 large eggs should do the trick!

So how did it turn out? SO moist without being dense – and the flavor was way better than I was thinking it would be! Very warm and lightly sweet, and while I really enjoy those warm spices, they were so overpowering that it threw kids’ palates off. I think you can definitely get away with less “sweet” in the cake and the frosting if your kids aren’t used to sweets – I know my girls would have still loved it since they aren’t used to sweet things.

Make sure you check out the cream cheese ice cream we had with our cake! It is so good!

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Print Recipe

Carrot Cake

No dye necessary - all the color is from fresh produce.

Prep Time15 mins

Cook Time30 mins

Total Time45 mins

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: cream cheese frosting, gluten-free carrot cake, gluten-free carrot cake recipe

Servings: 10 servings

Author: Renee - www.raisinggenerationnourished.com

Ingredients

CARROT CAKE ::

• 1 cup brown rice flour
• 1 cup tapioca flour
• 1/2 cup white rice flour
• 2 tsp aluminum free baking powder
• 1 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1 TB ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp ground cloves
• 1 lb carrots shredded (I used the shred disk on my food processor, but a hand shredder works too!)
• 4 flax eggs Or other egg replacement. To make 4 flax eggs whisk 1/4 cup flaxseed mealwith 3/4 cup water and put in the fridge for about 10 minutes or so - I make the flax eggs before I start anything so that by the time I am done putting the dry ingredients together etc, they are ready to use! If you can tolerate eggs 3-4 eggs should work instead!
• 1 cup organic cane sugar
• 1/2 cup pure maple syrup
• 1/2 cup avocado oil Olive oil would work if that is what you have. Coconut oil might give too much coconut flavor to the cake just fyi.
• 2 TB apple cider vinegar don't leave this out! It reacts with the baking powder and soda to help with the rise since there are no eggs! You won't taste it - I promise!

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING ::

• 1 cup softened butter
• 1 cup softened cream cheese
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 ½ cups organic cane POWDERED sugar I did end up making another half batch of the frosting so that I could make the decorations on top - you can get away with the one batch if you don't like a lot of frosting on your cake.

Instructions

• In a large mixing bowl, whisk the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices together.
• In a separate bowl (or in your food processor like I did!) blend together the flax eggs, sugar, maple syrup, avocado oil, and apple cider vinegar for about 30 seconds to a minute until frothy.
• Add the wet ingredients and carrot shreds to the bowl of dry ingredients and fold together to combine.
• Bake in 9 inch cake pans at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes, transfer to a cooling rack for about 10 minutes, and then remove from the pans to completely cool before frosting.
• To make the cream cheese frosting, put all of the frosting ingredients in a medium mixing bowl, and beat with hand beaters until smooth.

More real food treats you might like ::
Strawberry Birthday Cake

Chocolate Birthday Cake

Cream Cheese Ice Cream

The Perfect 1st Birthday Cupcake