These easy Vegan Carrot Cake Cupcakes are incredibly moist and flavorful with cinnamon, nutmeg, crunchy pecans, and delicious coconut cream frosting. The perfect vegan breakfast muffin for any time of the year.
I love the carrot cake flavor on everything. Sometimes I make a full Vegan Carrot Cake, but when I want something simple, I do either my Carrot Cake Energy Balls, Carrot Cake Overnight Oats, or Vegan Carrot Cake Banana Bread.
I wanted an even easier recipe today so I came up with these carrot cake cupcakes. They bring all the flavors of a classic carrot bread in a recipe that is quick and easy to make.
Since the classic carrot cake cupcake recipe contains eggs, butter, and milk, it’s not vegan-friendly. Also, most cupcake frosting recipes also contain cream cheese. So let me show you how to make delicious plant-based carrot cake cupcakes.
Ingredients and Substitutions
It’s super easy to make these moist vegan carrot cake cupcakes. All you need are a few pantry ingredients. Let me explain how to select them and the eventual substitution you can make for each.
- All-Purpose Flour – you can also use spelt flour or white whole wheat flour. I haven’t tried gluten-free flour.
- Unrefined Cane Sugar – white sugar or sugar-free erythritol work as well for a sugar-free vegan carrot cake muffin.
- Brown Sugar – or coconut sugar or golden erythritol.
- Baking Powder and Baking Soda – to give the cupcakes a soft and airy texture.
- Carrots – make sure you grate them finely. It delivers even more texture, moisture, and flavor to these vegan carrot cupcakes.
- Vanilla Extract – for flavor.
- Cinnamon and Nutmeg – for classic carrot cake flavors.
- Lemon Juice or apple cider vinegar. You can either use bottled lemon juice or freshly squeezed lemons.
- Almond Milk or any plant-based milk you like, including soy milk, oat milk.
- Olive Oil – or vegetable oils like canola oil or nut oil like almond oil and coconut oil.
- Chopped Pecans or walnuts or sultanas raisins.
How To Make Vegan Carrot Cake Cupcakes
- First, stir the lemon juice and almond milk together in a small bowl. Set aside to give some time to the acid to curd the milk lightly.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, brown sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
- Make a well in the center and pour in the wet ingredients: oil and almond milk mixture.
- Now, add grated carrots, chopped walnuts, or chopped pecans and stir well to combine.
- Feel free to add 1/2 cup of shredded coconut to the batter if you are a coconut lover!
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Line a 12-hole muffin pan with a paper liner. Fill each muffin tin evenly with the carrot cake batter.
- Bake the cupcakes in the center rack of the oven for 20-25 minutes at 350°F (180°C) until the top is golden brown and a pick inserted in the center of the cupcakes comes out clean.
- Let the cupcakes completely cool down on a rack until they reach room temperature. It takes about 1 hour.
Frosting
You can serve this recipe as vegan carrot muffins with no frosting, or to make vegan carrot cupcakes, add one of my two vegan frosting recipes:
- Vegan vanilla frosting – this one is made with vegan butter and vanilla. It’s a thick, creamy, and fluffy frosting similar to regular cream cheese frosting without the dairy. It’s easy to pipe to create beautifully presented cupcakes.
- Vegan coconut frosting – this is an easy frosting, lighter in texture. You don’t need a piping bag to spread this on top of your cupcakes. It’s an easy 2-ingredient vegan frosting recipe, but it requires a little bit of organization because you must place the can of coconut cream in the fridge the day before!
Flavor Add-Ons
You can customize this cupcake recipe by adding some extra ingredients in the batter, like 1/2 cup of:
- Unsweetened shredded coconut
- Finely chopped canned pineapple slices – make sure you pat dry the slices before adding, or they release too much moisture in the batter.
- Sultanas
Decorating The Cupcakes
First, make sure the carrot cupcakes have completely cooled down. If you add frosting to hot cupcakes, it melts, spreads, and gets absorbed by the cupcake.
If you are using vanilla frosting, use a piping bag and pipe on top of the cupcake. If you use the coconut cream frosting, spread with a spoon. Top each cupcake with a sprinkle of chopped nuts and cinnamon.
Storage Instructions
You can store these vegan carrot cake cupcakes in the fridge for up to 4 days in a sealed box. Another option is to freeze the cupcakes and thaw them the day before serving.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, yes, and yes! This is an amazing vegan carrot cake batter to turn into an 8-inch vegan carrot cake recipe.
Of course, if you want to make a two-layer cake, double up the recipe or make this recipe two times.
I recommend baking each batch separately, so you will need 2 round pans.
Simply use one of my vegan frosting recipes to frost the cake.
Yes, you can replace the oil in this recipe with unsweetened applesauce. This option makes the cupcake very moist and a bit sweeter.
You can’t use almond flour or coconut flour in this cupcake recipe. These low-carb keto flours are very high in fiber and won’t work in an egg-free muffin recipe.
However, you can use spelt flour, white whole-wheat flour, or all-purpose gluten-free flour containing gum – I used Bob Red Mill’s gluten-free flour.
The recipe with gluten-free flour doesn’t rise as much, but the taste is still delicious.
More Vegan Carrot Recipes
If you love carrot cake recipes, try some of these other recipes with carrots:
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Vegan Carrot Cake Cupcakes
Ingredients
- 1 cup Almond Milk - or any plant-based milk
- 1 teaspoon Lemon Juice
- 1 ½ cup All-Purpose Flour
- ½ cup Cane Sugar
- ½ cup Light Brown Sugar - or coconut sugar
- ½ teaspoon Baking Soda
- ½ teaspoon Baking Powder
- ½ teaspoon Salt
- 1 teaspoon Cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon Nutmeg
- ½ cup Light Olive Oil - or any vegetable oil
- 2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
- 1 ½ cups Grated Carrots
- ½ cup Chopped Pecans - or walnuts
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Line a 12-hole muffin tray with a paper liner. Set aside.
- In a small mixing bowl, whisk lemon juice and almond milk. Set aside.
- In another large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, brown sugar, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
- Make a well in the center of the flour and add olive oil, vanilla extract and almond milk mixture.
- Combine, scraping down the sides to bring all the ingredients together, and it forms a smooth batter.
- Stir in grated carrots and chopped nuts until well distributed into the batter.
- Divide the batter evenly into the 12 muffin holes.
- Bake on the center rack of your oven for 20-25 minutes or until they are golden brown and a pick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Cool down on a rack completely before adding any frosting.
- You can use one batch of my vegan frosting recipe for an easy cupcake frosting to pipe on top. Or, for a light spreadable frosting, use my coconut cream frosting recipe.
These turned out amazing! Will definitely make them again. We used a mini muffin tin and halved the baking time. We went apple picking last weekend and now I have a huge… I wonder if I could adapt these by replacing the carrot with apple to make apple muffins?
Thank you so much ! Yes I am sure you can swap carrots for grated apples with no problems
I made this today and they are super yummy!! I was wondering what I did wrong.. the muffins came out too crumbly. Why is that?
That’s weird, do you mean fragile and they fall apart or dry ?
I have a question regarding the buttermilk… I see in your Carrot cake recipe you prepare a buttermilk for the batter, but not for the cupcakes. Why is there a difference in the recipe? Everything else seems the same?
Ps. Thank you for these recipes! So excited to try it.
Vegan ‘buttermilk’ refer to the combination of any non-dairy milk and an acid – can be lemon juice, apple cider vinegar etc. In this recipe, in step 2, you combine non-dairy milk and lemon juice and set it aside, that’s your buttermilk. In the cake I used apple cider vinegar but same results are achieved. I hope it helps ! Enjoy the cupcakes and happy Easter. Carine
What can I use instead of sugar would maple syrup work thankfully kindly
You must use a crystal sweetener or it would change the texture. Therefore maple syrup is not an option but you can use any crystal sweetener: coconut sugar, xylitol or erythritol for sugar free options.
These are delicious!
Where do we put in the 2 tsp vanilla ?
With the olive oil, enjoy!
excellent.