Gluten-Free Carrot Cake

The joy that a gluten-free carrot cake can bring is unbeatable. It feels so happy and homely. Our family are big fans of this cake and it's usually the one they request from me most frequently.

There is usually a tendency to include a lot of add-ins carrot cakes from nuts and dried fruit to coconut. For this cake though we go back to basics. This Gluten-Free Simple Carrot Cake is a more traditional affair and the one I love to return to again and again because of its simplicity.

In no way though is it inferior in flavour. Far from it. This cake positively brims with personality, thanks to the gentle spices, a spike of black pepper and the carefully chosen gluten-free flours that don't need xanthan gum to work. And it is all brought together with an easy dreamy cream cheese buttercream that you could happily eat with a spoon.

Key Ingredients

Carrots.The higher quality carrots you use in this recipe the better your cake will taste. There really is a difference between the strong, slightly sweet and earthy carrots you can buy from the farmers’ market and the bland water carrots available from the supermarket. Obviously I recommend the former.

Brown Rice Flour. This flour gives a beautiful whole grain earthiness. You can use white rice flour if you like.

Sorghum Flour. The flavour of this flour is so good. It is slightly nutty, slightly sweet and perfectly robust.

For this recipe we only need two gluten-free fours. No starchy flour is needed here because this recipe uses 5 eggs to compensate and the carrots give us a lot of moisture so we don’t need to worry about any dryness or crumbliness. You can substitute both the flours for my homemade gluten-free flour blend.

Muscovado Sugar. We use muscovado sugar here for its deep rich caramel flavour. There is also a little more moisture involved than regular caster sugar so it helps to make the cake beautifully moist.

Orange Zest. The bright citrus note lifts the cake and really enhances the carroty flavour.

Olive Oil. In the past I have used melted butter to make my carrot cakes but here we use a light olive oil for two reasons. It is an easier ingredient to grab off the shelf but it is also lighter than butter so the cake is a little more fluffy. Make sure you use light olive oil which has a neutral taste. Absolutely not extra virgin olive oil which would be far too powerful in this instance.

Eggs. This recipe uses medium size, about 60g each with shell (50g each without shell). These are often classified as large eggs in the US. I recommend weighing your eggs to ensure the correct amount.

Vanilla Extract. I'd normally use a generic supermarket brand extract for the sponge cake as there's a lot of flavours going on so the vanilla just sits in the background. However, I would pick a better brand for the buttercream as the vanilla flavour is key.

Black Pepper. The heat and spice of the black pepper is extremely subtle but it adds a special background note to the spice blend. For this carrot cake it’s all about layers of flavour.

Spices. Cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves are a perfect choice here.

Baking powder. A leavening agent which causes the cake to rise and become light and fluffy. Do check your baking powder is gluten-free before use.

Bicarbonate of soda. Also known as baking soda, this is a white crystalline powder that is commonly used as a leavening agent in baking.

Cream cheese. I really recommend full fat for a better flavour and greater stability for the buttercream. If you are in the UK keep your cream cheese in the fridge until you need to use it.

Icing sugar (powdered sugar). I prefer to use icing sugar rather than caster sugar in buttercreams as it dissolves more easily which means an easy to achieve smooth texture which can whip up like a dream.

Butter. Unsalted butter is the best choice for our buttercream as we want to add a specific amount of salt into the buttercream to get just the right flavour. Make sure it is at room temperature so it can mix easily into the icing sugar.

Salt. We use it in both the sponge and the buttercream to lift our flavours and mellow the sweetness. Use kosher salt if you can (you can buy from Amazon).

More Gluten-Free Carrot Cake Recipes You’ll Love

These Carrot Cake Cupcakes are a variation of this recipe in cupcake form. They are very quick and easy to make and have a perfectly moist, light and fluffy texture. Of course decorated with this cream cheese buttercream.

Golden Beetroot Carrot Cake. This delicious carrot cake also uses shreds of fresh golden beetroot for incredibly earthy flavour. It is also packed with sultanas, chopped pecans and shredded apple.

How To Make Your Gluten-Free Carrot Cake

For full recipe instructions go to the recipe card at the end of this post.

This cake is beautifully straightforward to put together. There are no special techniques and only two bowls are needed. One for weighing and one for mixing. Here are the basic details.

Shred the carrots as finely as you can, either by using a handheld box grater or the thinnest julienne attachment in your food processor.

Mix the muscovado sugar with the orange zest. Add the olive oil, eggs and the vanilla extract.

Whisk the flours with the raising agents and spices. Add the flours to the batter and mix.

Finally add the shredded carrots. Divide into the two baking tins. Bake for 35 minutes.

Remove from the cake tins and leave to cool before assembling.

How to Grate Carrots For a Carrot Cake

In order for the cake to bake evenly with no lumpy carrot bits the carrots need to be grated in equal size and length.
By using the thinner grater attachment on your food processor or a julienne peeler you can achieve perfectly grated carrots.

However, don’t worry if you only have a box grater or microplane so grating the carrots by hand is your only option:

1. Use the widest setting and smoothly bring the peeled carrot down the grater in one movement.
2. Lift the carrot off and bring it down the grater again.
3. Continue until you have a nub of carrot left then discard it.
4. Rubbing the carrot up and down the grater damages the flesh of the carrot which causes it to succumb to watery clumps.

Add Ins

This recipe keeps the carrot cake beautifully plain and simple. However, you don’t have to make your carrot cake that way. There are plenty of optional add-ins you can stir into the batter just before pouring into the cake tins which you might like to include. You can add a handful of any of the below ingredients.

• Diced dried fruit – Sultanas, apricots or pineapple
• Chopped nuts – Any would be delicious but particularly pecans or walnuts
• Seeds – pumpkin seeds or sunflower seeds
• Diced crystallised ginger – check out my recipe for the best Homemade Crystallised Ginger.

If you are really looking to spruce up your carrot cake then try this Golden Beetroot Carrot Cake, it is packed with sultanas, chopped pecans and shredded apple. Not to mention the delightfully earthy notes of fresh golden beetroot.

How To Make Cream Cheese Buttercream

Beat the icing sugar and butter for 4-5 minutes until extremely light and fluffy.

Add the vanilla extract, salt and cream cheese.

If you are in the UK, you will be using cream cheese that has a different consistency to that in the USA which is why the cream cheese buttercream we make over here is a little softer. It's just as easy to use but does need different care taken over the ingredients. For all the details to ensure you make it perfectly first time then go to my Cream Cheese Buttercream recipe post.

How To Decorate Your Carrot Cake

This Gluten-Free Carrot Layer Cake has been decorated in the 'Naked' style. Which means that only a very thin layer of buttercream is used to cover the outside layers of the cake. This is a very achievable look and is perfect if you don't decorate layer cakes very often as it's very forgiving. Here are a couple of tips to help you with your Naked Carrot Cake:

• When applying the buttercream to the middle of the cake, use a piping bag to get an even middle layer of buttercream. Pipe it in concentric circles over the base layer of the cake right to the edges. You don't want any gaps in between the layers of the cake. Use a small palette knife to smooth.
• When the top layer of the cake has been added then pipe the buttercream over the top of the cake in concentric circles again. Smoothing again with a small palette knife.
• Apply buttercream to the sides of the cake using the palette knife, a small amount at a time. Fill any gaps in the middle buttercream layer and smooth any excess buttercream around the cake to cover.
• Although the naked style means you can see the sponge layers you still want all of the outer sponge to be covered in a very thin layer of buttercream, smoothing over the sponge. Remove any excess buttercream.
• You can then choose to pipe a design on the top of the carrot cake which gives it more height and more of a celebration feel.

If you want to use these candied shredded carrots to decorate the top of your carrot cake like in the images then I've got a whole recipe post about it and you'll see how easy it is. They are delicious and deliver an excellent crunchy contrast on the top of the cake.

More Gluten-Free Cakes You'll Love

This incredible Gluten-Free Chocolate Cake is rich with chocolate and will become your new go-to special occasion cake. It boasts moist and tender cake layers filled with a luxuriously silky chocolate buttercream frosting for the ultimate indulgence. 

This Gluten-Free Vanilla Cake is deliciously fluffy, light and moist. It is filled and covered with a dreamy vanilla swiss meringue buttercream frosting and is the cake you will turn to time and time again when you need a simple yet stunning vanilla layer cake for special occasions. 

This is the Gluten-Free Hummingbird Cake you have been looking for. This special occasions layer cake is bursting with bananas, fresh pineapple and pecans and lightly spiced with cinnamon. Filled and covered in a gloriously dreamy cream cheese buttercream.