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This keto carrot cake recipe is moist, fluffy, and made in just one bowl! Simple ingredients and easy to prepare, it is a low carb dessert that is sure to impress!
Cake is something that should be part of any diet out there.
As someone who follows a low carb diet, desserts are something I continue to enjoy on a regular basis. There is an unfair stigma that cake is a high carb dessert. When made with sugar and flour, that is the case. However, with a few simple swaps, you can replicate many popular cakes without all the carbs.
My favorites include a German chocolate cake, lemon cake, and a carrot cake.
Are carrots keto friendly?
Carrots are one of the higher carb vegetables. Per one cup serving, there are 9 grams of net carbs.
While eating carrots alone on a keto diet isn’t recommended, you can add into recipes without affecting the carb count too much. One delicious way to use it is in a carrot cake…low carb style!
Why you’ll love this keto carrot cake recipe–
- Just 3 grams net carbs. Each slice yields less than 3 grams of carbs, so no fears of kicking yourself out of ketosis.
- Made in one bowl. No multiple mixing bowls or kitchen mixers are required.
- No coconut flour. Unlike other low carb desserts, this cake doesn’t use any coconut flour. Instead, we use almond flour!
The texture of the cake is super moist and fluffy, with a tender crumb, and the frosting is creamy. The cake is sweet and with hints of spice, without being overpowering. This is the kind of cake that will have people sneaking a second slice, keto diet or not!
How do you make a low carb carrot cake?
The Ingredients
- Almond flour- It is best to use blanched almond flour, not almond meal. While the latter can be used, you’ll need to adjust the cooking time to avoid the cake sinking in the middle.
- Baking powder and baking soda- A combination of the baking powder and soda is used to give the cake some fluffiness and rise.
- Cinnamon and nutmeg- A mix of the two spices are necessary for any good carrot cake!
- Salt- Brings out the sweetness of all the other ingredients.
- Eggs- Room temperature eggs. If you’d like to make this eggless, try one of these substitutes.
- Granulated sweetener of choice- I used a brown sugar substitute, but allulose will also work.
- Vanilla extract- A must for any excellent cake!
- Oil- Any neutral flavored oil can be used. I used vegetable oil, but canola and avocado oil can also be used.
- Carrots- Finely shredded carrots.
- Shredded coconut- Unsweetened shredded coconut flakes or finely milled coconut flakes (desiccated/macaron style) can be used.
- Shredded Apple- While apples are not technically keto, a small amount is used to give extra moisture and sweetness to the cake. It’s a replacement for pineapple, which is extremely high in carbs. If you are worried about using apples, you can also use shredded zucchini.
- Walnuts- Optional, but gives some delicious crunch throughout.
- Cream cheese frosting- I used a simple keto frosting.
The Instructions
Prepare the cake batter: Start by mixing your dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Add the wet ingredients and mix-ins and mix until a smooth batter remains.
Bake the cake: grease two 8-inch cake pans and lightly dust with extra almond flour. Evenly distribute the cake batter amongst the two pans and bake for 30-35 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.
Cool the cake: Let the cakes cool completely.
Frost, layer, and decorate: layer the cake with the frosting and let sit for 30 minutes, before serving.
Tips for success
- For decorative purposes, I made this an 8-layer cake. None of the proportions change, each cake was just sliced into 4 thin pieces.
- Greasing and dusting the pan with flour prior to adding in the batter is important to ensure the cake can easily be removed.
- Avoid over-baking the cake, as it continues to cook as it is cooling down.
Storing and freezing instructions
- To store: The cake should be stored in the refrigerator, covered, to ensure it does not become soggy in the middle and dry around the sides. The cake will keep fresh for up to 1 week.
- To freeze: Place slices of the carrot cake in a sealable container and store in the freezer for up to 6 months.
More keto cake recipes to try
Frequently Asked Questions
Each slice of this almond flour carrot cake has just 3 grams of net carbs.
Contrary to popular belief, carrot cake is not healthier than a traditional cake. It can contain just as much fat (or carbs) as one another.
If you don’t want to use carrots, you can use shredded zucchini (with moisture squeezed out) and add carrot extract. The carrot extract has no carbs or sugar, but adds a delicious carrot flavor.
You can try an egg substitute.
Keto Carrot Cake
Ingredients
- 3 cups almond flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 5 large eggs
- 1 1/2 cups granulated sweetener of choice I used keto brown sugar, but erythritol or monk fruit sweetener can be used
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup oil I used canola oil but any neutral flavored oil can be used.
- 2 cups carrots shredded, approximately 3 large ones
- 1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
- 1/2 cup apple shredded, approximately 1 large apple * See notes
- 1/2 cup walnuts chopped
- 1-2 cups cream cheese frosting
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Grease two 8-inch cake pans with cooking spray and lightly dust it with almond flour.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine your almond flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt, and mix well. In a separate bowl, using a stick mixer, beat together the eggs and sweetener until smooth and almost double in size. Add in the vanilla extract. In a third bowl, whisk together the rest of the ingredients, until combined.
- Fold through the dry ingredients into the egg/sweetener/vanilla mixture, until just combined. Add the remaining ingredients and mix until fully incorporated.
- Distribute the cake batter amongst the two cake pans and bake for 30-35 minutes, or until a skewer comes out mostly clean.
- Let the cakes cool for 10 minutes, before carefully turning them on to a wire rack to cool completely. Once cool, layer and frost, before letting it sit for 30 minutes, before serving.
Really want to make this but how do you almond butter without using the microwave? Thanks!
Hi Evie! Its to melt it, if you don’t have a microwave, melt it over the stove 🙂
Ok, this is listed a flourless. Do you not mean wheat flourless? Oat flour is from a grain and is flour.
Hi Paula! I did mean flourless- I’ve always called any of my recipes which use rolled oats ground to a flour ‘flourless’, like most other food blogs out there 🙂 Enjoy!
🙂
Do you know the calories and carbs and protein to this recipe?
Thanks
BTW it turned out awesome and so delicious! I just added some cinnamon and all spice and it was rocking!
Hi Ariel! Sure thing- If you add the ingredients into myfitnesspal, it will provide it for you! 🙂 So glad you enjoyed it!
I want to try this recipe out soon but I have a couple questions. I haven’t gotten into nut butters other than a lil peanut butter here and there. Can I use regular butter 1:1? Also would you know about how many precut peeled baby carrots I could use instead of 1 carrot stick or maybe even how many oz of carrots?
Hi Angel! I’ve never tried this with butter, I’d recommend coconut oil over it- Do you have coconut oil?
For sure- I’d just use 4-5 baby carrots 🙂
YUM! I left out the sweetener and instead added raisins and sprinkled the top with cinnamon before baking. It was a great afternoon snack with a bit of honey. Thanks so much, this is definitely going to be a staple in our house!
Oh yay!!! 🙂 Thanks so much for the feedback, Sarah- Adding a dash od honey would be amazing!
Oooo this looks divine! I love how carrot cake is the original hidden vegetable dessert. Definitely going to give this recipe a whirl!
Please do, Fiona! 🙂
Does the T stand for teaspoon or tablespoon?
Hi Angelica- It sure does 🙂 15 mls 🙂
The label ‘flourless’ is misleading – oat flour is still flour! All the same, it does look delicious!
Hi Aimee! I’ve made it a point with all my recipes to label anything using oats (and not another flour) to be flourless 🙂 Thank you!
I’m super into this idea, because it fits perfectly into my “never-leave-myself-time-for-breakfast” routine, which always clashes so horribly with my “yay-I-just-ran-three-miles-OH-MY-GOD-IM-SO-HUNGRY-I-COULD-EAT-A-HIVE-OF-BEES” routine. Grabbing a piece of cake on my way out the door? That I can do.
One note – this doesn’t exactly qualify as sugar-free, given the 1/2 cup plus of sweetener required to make it, unless people are sweetening their cake with aspartame or something, and I doubt (sincerely hope not) anyone who reads your blog is doing that… Just wanted to bring it to your attention, since it’s described as a sugar-free cake. I’m certainly not suggesting you make it sans sugar, because I think that might be sick. Just not wanting people who have serious sugar limitations because of medical issues to read the title of this and get excited and then disappointed.
Oh yay! Thanks so much, Elaine!
As for the sugar free part, I do think it does- I trialled it using Norbu, a zero calorie, zero sugar granulated sweetener. Granted, when you use that much the zero calorie nature may be questionable, but it still remains sugar free (Except for trace sugars in the carrots). I do have some readers who use splenda or Equal for these recipes, but I cannot vouch for their tastes, as i personally cannot handle those sweeteners too well!
Cheers!
Ah ha! Okay, I see what you mean here. I’m not overly familiar with the family of zero-sugar sweeteners (I will admit I had to Google Norbu), so thanks for that clarification! I usually just use coconut sugar and I tend to halve or quarter what’s recommended in recipes because I’m not fond of overly sweet sweets. And because I’m a little scared of the chemicals in most sugar-substitute sweeteners, although Norbu sounds way more legit.
Anyways, I like what you’re doing here! Your quick and easy recipes supplement much of my baking Pinterest board 🙂
Cheers!
Can you please make this Paleo-ish? Would coconut flour work? If so, how much and would I need extra liquid? I know coconut flour soaks up a lot of liquid.
Hi Jen! I just shared a blueberry breakfast cake on Saturday- You can follow the paleo instructions on that and swap the blueberries for shredded carrots!
Snow Day here in Northern Virginia, so I decided to make this cake with my morning coffee. I can’t tolerate too many oats at once, so I used 1 1/2 cups of oat flour, 1/4 cup of almond flour, and about 1/3 cup of tapioca starch. It’s not a huge change, but I wanted to make any initial tweaks very small, rather than rewriting the entire recipe. The taste and texture are really nice. It’s not overly sweet, so a tiny bit of icing won’t make it too much of a dessert. I don’t eat a lot of sugar, so this is a nice treat after dinner or with breakfast. Not a staple, but still a treat. I ground up my oats for the flour, so mine were a bit more coarse than a standard store bought oat flour, but the texture of the cake was still good, just not as light and fluffy. I used a mix of brown sugar and palm sugar for my sweetener, and Trader Joe’s raw almond butter. I also used 2 carrots, because the organic carrots I picked up from my local Aldi are really tiny. Next time I might use 3. Overall, this is a delicious cake, seems really easy to tweak to suit ones individual needs (vegan/gluten free/lower sugar, etc) I will definitely be making this again, and possibly experimenting with zucchini, more almond vs. oat flour and things like that. I would also say it’s a good recipe for beginners or anyone new and overwhelmed by gf baking. Thanks for the recipe!
Danielle! I’m so envious you have snow- It’s an OVEN outside- Rare for LA at this time! 🙂
Thank you SO SO SO much for taking the time to leave this feedback- This is so helpful for many out there who try to limit their grain consumption! I love trader joe’s raw almond butter and glad it works well in this recipe! 🙂
Did I miss the nutrition info somewhere? How many net carbs per serving? This looks yummy and would love to try it. Thanks!
Hi Darlene! If you add the ingredients into a calorie calculator, it will provide it for you 🙂 Enjoy!