You want this delish, moist, fresh orange-flavored Eggless Wholewheat Carrot Cake in your life! Topped with a luscious cream cheese frosting, it's heavenly!
So wonderfully perfect to serve as a dessert or with your evening cuppa! A slice in the tiffin box will definitely earn you some "brownie" points!
I grew up eating my mom's carrot cakes...hurriedly made with wholewheat flour, sugar or jaggery ( whatever caught her fancy), top of the milk cream ( instead of butter), a dash of yogurt or milk, some carrots, loads of dry fruit. She's never measured any ingredient because "what's the need "she says! And here I thought baking was a science!
Believe me, despite the seemingly random measures, for years, her cake has been coming out tops! Every. Single. Time.
Moms have magic in their hands, don't they?
I've been trying to replicate the said cake for a while now, but every time it flopped. This time though, the stars were aligned, the measurements worked and I got the cake I was looking for... Its everything I wanted it to be - moist, low sugar, laden with nuts, bits of crunchy carrots peeking through, lightly spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg, heavily flavored with fresh orange zest and juice. But most of all, it reminded me of my mother's cake with its hominess, simplicity and the love.
I, of course, took it a step further and slathered the top with a lush cream cheese frosting. I'm not a frosting person at all, but if I must, it always either this or chocolate ganache! It's a not too sweet topping to this utterly moist cake, truly dreamy combination. Should you choose to keep the cake healthy and frosting-free, I'll totally understand since it's a fabulous recipe by itself!
By the way, the mothership totally approves and has handed over the making of this delightful Eggless Wholewheat Carrot Cake to moi! And since all good things must be shared, here's the recipe for you.
NOTES:
This cake's batter is a thick one. Not the same consistency as the regular cake batter. The carrots release enough moisture to ensure that the cake comes out wonderfully soft and never dry.
You can make it completely vegan by using non-dairy yogurt or by simply adding more coconut milk to replace the yogurt.
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Eggless Wholewheat Carrot Cake
Ingredients
- 1.5 cup Wholewheat flour
- 1.5 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 1 tsp Cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp Nutmeg
- Zest of 1 orange
- 1/2 cup Yogurt
- 1/2 cup Light coconut milk You can use any milk you like.
- 1/3 cup Coconut oil You can use any vegetable oil you like.
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- Juice of 1 orange
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 2 Carrots, grated
- 1/4 cup Walnuts, chopped
- 1/4 cup Raisins
- 1/4 cup Cranberries I like to roughly chop them too.
Cream Cheese Frosting
- 3/4 cup Cream cheese, softened
- 3-4 tbsp icing sugar
- 3-4 tbsp Chilled cream I used Amul.
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 180C. Grease a 6" pan very well.
- In a large bowl, combine all the dry ingredients - wholewheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and orange zest.
- In a medium size bowl, whisk together the yogurt, sugar, oil, milk, vanilla extract and orange juice.
- Gently stir in the wet ingredients into the bowl of dry ingredients. Your mixture should be thick, not a soft dropping consistency. If seems too dry, add a tablespoon or two of milk.
- Fold in the grated carrots, walnuts, raisins and cranberries. Scrape out into your prepared pan and bake for 45 mins or until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, with a few moist crumbs attached.
- If the cake starts browning on top and isn't cooked through, loosely cover with a piece of foil to prevent the top from burning.
- Let the baked cake cool in the pan for 10-15 minutes before turning out on a cooling rack.
- Once completely cooled, top it with the cream cheese frosting, Sprinkle some walnut halves and some more orange zest. Enjoy!
Cream Cheese Frosting
- Beat the cream cheese until smooth. Whisk in the chilled cream. Once smooth , beat the icing sugar into this mixture, until thick, creamy and you have a spreadable consistency. Taste and adjust for sweetness. You can add more sugar at this point if you like. I like to refrigerate this icing for 15-20 minutes at least in summers.
Ruchika Sharma says
There are no carrots in this carrot cake!
Natasha Minocha says
Hi Ruchika, we changed the recipe format and by mistake, the carrots and dry fruits went under the cream cheese frosting section. I've fixed that now. Thanks for pointing it out.
Ruchika Sharma says
Thanks! Because I wanted to make the cake without the frosting. And got very confused. Glad it's fixed now
Natasha Minocha says
Gald you pointed it out. All the best with cake. Do let me know how this worked out for you. Cheers
Ruchira Vijayvergia says
Hi. Can you tell me the cup measurement for the carrots pls?
Two carrots is bit confusing as sizes may be different. Plan to make it in the eve.
Much thanks.
Natasha Minocha says
Hi Ruchira, one cup of grated carrots should be good for this recipe. Happy baking:)
Ankita says
Hello ,
I tried the recipe without the orange juice and orange zest .. the flavors came out really nice but the cake didn’t rise well. Go you help me with what might have gone wrong.. may be the whisking of wet ingredients?
Natasha Minocha says
Hi Ankita, it could be many factors - maybe the oven was not hot enough, or if your baking powder/soda was old. Overmixing can also cause this.
Thank you for trying this recipe out though. Hopefully next time your cake will rise properly! 🙂
Kelley says
It turned out pretty delicious (carrot cake is ALWAYS too sweet for me, but this is perfect!), but I noticed it baked all the way through by 35 mins (in fact, I think that slightly overbaked it) but the carrots were crunchy. I made some substitutions, though, so I'm wondering if that's the problem. Ghee for coconut oil and whole wheat chapati flour for the whole wheat all purpose. Maybe it absorbed too much of the moisture?
Natasha Minocha says
Hi Kelley, so glad you enjoyed the cake!
As ovens differ in their temperature settings, yours could've gotten done faster in 35 minutes...which is great! Maybe next time, 30 minutes would be sufficient? Ghee would be great here and I use regular wholewheat for my cakes. Not sure if the chapati one is different. Happy baking!:)
Alisha Dsouza says
Hie, wanted to check if i could substitute 1 cup of wheat flour with semolina? to get a grainy texture, more like your orange cake recipe
would that work?
Natasha Minocha says
Hi Alisha, I think it may work, but I haven't tried it myself. 🙂