This simple recipe for Healthy Gluten-Free Carrot Cake delivers the familiar carrot cake flavor we all love but is lighter and packed with nourishing ingredients.

A slice of carrot cake on a plate with a fork with a carrot cake seen in the background.

Healthy Carrot Cake Recipe

I love carrot cake but I don’t always love an ingredients list that’s heavy on sugar and oil. So I created a lighter, gluten-free version of a traditional carrot cake that’s perfect around this time of year!

Just two gluten-free flours, applesauce, and a little coconut sugar combine to make an utterly delicious, soft, carrot-and-spice infused cake. It’s topped with a honey-sweetened cap of cream cheese frosting that you can adapt to make as sweet (or not) as you like. You can double the recipe to make a layer cake or serve it simply as I did. You could also try it as cupcakes!

This is a cake that is hard to resist yet won’t leave you feeling like you just consumed a sugar bomb. It’s perfect to usher in these first days of spring.

A fork cuts into a piece of gluten-free carrot cake.

Why You’ll Love This Recipe for Gluten-Free Carrot Cake

Here are a few reasons why I love this cake, and I hope you will too!

Not too sweet. As with many of my cake recipes, I try to make them on the less-sweet side. Many carrot cake recipes call for loads of sugar, which is just too much! We need just 1/2 cup of coconut sugar or brown sugar for the whole cake here, and I find it to be plenty sweet. The frosting is sweetened with honey – because honey is naturally so sweet-tasting you don’t need much.
On the lighter side. Many traditional carrot cake recipes call for an entire cup of oil which is, again, too much! A combination of coconut oil and applesauce makes this cake feel decadent without going overboard on the added fat.
Naturally gluten-free. Two naturally gluten-free flours – sorghum and tapioca – combine to make a lovely, tender crumb that’s not at all crumbly or dry.

What You’ll Need to Make Healthy Gluten-Free Carrot Cake

Be sure to check the recipe card below for the full ingredient amounts and instructions.

Carrots: Peeled and grated carrots, please!
Applesauce: I used homemade applesauce but store-bought is fine. Make sure it’s unsweetened.
Coconut Oil: You can sub olive oil or melted butter.
Eggs
Pure Vanilla Extract
Sorghum Flour: Similar to oat flour, this whole grain naturally gluten-free flour is great in baking.
Tapioca Flour: For lightness and binding.
Coconut Sugar: You can sub brown sugar or do a mix.
Ground Cinnamon: Swap ground ginger if you like.
Baking Powder and Soda
Sea Salt
Cream Cheese: For the frosting.
Honey: To naturally sweeten the frosting.

How to Make Healthy Carrot Cake

Prepare the pan. Grease an 8-inch cake round or an 8×8-inch square pan with oil and line with parchment paper.
Combine the wet ingredients. In a large bowl, stir together the carrots, applesauce, eggs, oil, and vanilla.
Whisk the flours. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flours, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder and soda, and salt.
Mix the two together. Fold the flour mixture into the carrot mixture, stirring to combine. Pour the batter in the prepared pan, and preheat the oven to 350℉. Let the batter rest while the oven heats.
Bake. Place the pan in the oven and bake for 30-40 minutes, until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean, the top is firm, and the edges are starting to come away from the edge of the pan. Remove from oven, place on a wire rack, and cool for 20 minutes in the pan. Turn out onto the rack to cool completely.
Make the frosting. In a large bowl using an electric mixer, whip the cream cheese, butter, and honey together until well combined. Taste and add more honey if you want it to be sweeter. Spread the top of the cooled cake with the frosting.

A slice of gluten-free carrot cake on a plate.

Tips for Success

A few tips to help you make this carrot cake:

Rest the batter. Resting the batter while the oven preheats allows the gluten-free flours to fully absorb the liquid in the batter and avoid any of the dreaded “grittiness” that can occur in gluten-free baked goods.
Use room temperature ingredients. In this particular cake recipe, this mainly applies to the eggs and applesauce. These ingredients will better incorporate into the batter if they are not super cold.
Add other spices. You can add 1/4 teaspoon each of ground nutmeg and ginger along with the cinnamon to give the cake a bit more flavor.
Stir in nuts and raisins. I have left these out of the ingredients list but a more traditional carrot cake contains golden raisins and often nuts like walnuts or almonds. Feel free to throw these in if you wish.

A slice of gluten-free carrot cake on a plate with an empty cup.

Substitution Suggestions

It’s not hard to make substitutions in this recipe! Here’s how to do it:

For the sorghum flour – Try teff flour or gluten-free oat flour.
Instead of tapioca flour – You could substitute arrowroot or almond flour.
To make refined sugar-free – Use coconut sugar instead of brown sugar.
To make dairy-free – Substitute your favorite non-dairy butter and non-dairy cream cheese in the frosting.

Storage Options

Store the cake, tightly covered, in the fridge for up to 3 days. Serve cold or at room temperature.

Can I Make This in Advance?

You can bake the cake ahead of time and wrap it in plastic, then freeze for up to 3 months. Defrost the cake in the fridge completely before frosting. You could also bake the cake up to 2 days in advance of serving, but don’t keep it too long or it will, as do many gluten-free goodies, start to dry out.